Clearly there has been no shortage of public narratives about opioid abuse in Ohio. In fact, they are everywhere. Ohio is the "overdose capital of America," an "epicenter," "ground zero." We know that Ohio is in the midst of a growing calamity, but we don''t know why. Journalists have been busy constructing different kinds of stories about why this calamity is happening. Widely read authors have floated explanations for growing opioid abuse and asked, What could be behind the staggering numbers and seemingly endless list of worsts and firsts? The journalist Sam Quinones has emphasized the role that national economic and social trends played in laying a foundation for opioid abuse to flourish; he included among his list of causes Americans'' long-standing attraction to individualism and a tendency to stigmatize addiction, poverty, and mental illness. While the drugs originated outside of Ohio, Quinones insists that the social conditions in our state made us especially vulnerable. Other writers, such as J.

D. Vance, emphasize cultural values and, in the process, give credence to stereotypes that have long beset Appalachian communities. For Vance, personal responsibility--yet more individualism--seems to be the answer. The public historian Elizabeth Catte helps us understand how in Appalachia specifically, dominant narratives have largely come from the outside, tending to universalize the region as a passive victim to economic crisis and addiction. What we need instead, according to Catte, is to let individuals speak for themselves. Only then will we understand how dominant narratives are contested and how counternarratives have been obscured in public dialogue. Most glaring in the opioid epidemic has been the omission of narratives recounting the experiences of family members, public officials, health care providers, community leaders, and others who are intimately familiar with opioid abuse and the attempts to find new options for prevention and long-term recovery. In short: the voices of everyday Ohioans are missing.

Although these stories are not new, stigma and other barriers have prevented their public telling. As we learned after putting out a call for stories in the fall of 2017, many people are ready to share their perspective and are tired of the culture of silence that exists around opioid abuse. In a speech at Ohio University, Quinones argued that only recently had stories begun to emerge, largely as a result of the efforts of community members and leaders. When he was working on Dreamland , this openness just did not exist. "Every place I went," he explained, "I could not find families who wanted to talk about this topic. It was just hidden. There were just a few people, and I put them all in my book; everybody else was afraid or ashamed or mortified." The very existence of Not Far from Me: Stories of Opioids and Ohio --and the fact that so many Ohioans have freely shared how opioids have affected their lives, their families, their work, and their communities--is evidence that something is beginning to change.

While the public narratives about opioids in Ohio have helped us learn something about ourselves, our state, and our connection to larger trends related to opioids, the stories and experiences are only now reaching the public conversation. These stories may be a crucial part of reducing stigma and underscoring the efficacy of communities working together to solve challenging social problems. Shifting the dialogue to the personal helps us move away from abstractions such as "crisis" and "epidemic" to understand the day-to-day and lived experiences. In doing so, we''ll hear from a wide range of contributors who are economically, geographically, politically, and socially diverse. Across these perspectives, we do not attempt or claim to piece together a once-and-for-all account of opioids in Ohio, but we hope that by engaging these stories we will offer a more humane window into opioid addiction and use stories as a starting point for new and often difficult conversations.