Family Destroyed by Drug Abuse in Pierce Kelley’s New Novel

This story follows the path of drug addicts from beginning to rock bottom - and to recovery

CEDAR KEY, Fla. - One of the nation`s most troubling problems is the abuse of prescription drugs. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 7 million people were taking prescription drugs nonmedically - essentially, illegally. Unlike many other drugs which can be manufactured or grown, prescription drugs most typically must enter the drug market through medical doctors prescribing to patients - a problem brought to national attention when Michael Jackson`s doctor, Conrad Murray, was sentenced to jail time for involuntary manslaughter after the pop star died due to drug complications.

Civil trial attorney and criminal defense attorney Pierce Kelley has seen too many instances of friends and clients falling victim to drug abuse - namely addiction to RoxyContin, a pain relieving drug with the street name Roxy Blues. With his new novel Roxy Blues (published by iUniverse), Kelley introduces readers to a fictional family whose life - like so many of the people Kelley has encountered - crumbles when drug addiction seizes them with an unrelenting grip.

In Roxy Blues, Jeremy Thibodeaux suffers a back injury which causes him considerable pain for which his doctor prescribes RoxyContin, a powerful pain relieving medication. After the treatment ends, the husband finds that he needs to continue to use the pills, even though his doctor will no longer prescribe them for him. Jeremy turns to buying them on the street, eventually being arrested and incarcerated, along with his wife, who is also abusing the drug. Readers follow them to the rock bottom gutter - which includes the loss of their child and divorce - before they can begin the recovery process.

Kelley says, "The legal use of prescription drugs can cause an otherwise completely innocent and unsuspecting person to go down a path that leads to a life of crime and the loss of all that is important to them."

Roxy Blues is a sobering story of the effects of the drug abuse epidemic sweeping the United States.

About the Author
Pierce Kelley received his undergraduate degree from Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana in 1969. He received his law degree from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. in 1973. He has been a civil trial attorney and a criminal defense attorney during his legal career of over 38 years. He is now in private practice in Cedar Key, Florida. Roxy Blues is his ninth novel.