No Family Is Safe From This Epidemic: As an Admiral I Helped Run the Most Powerful Military on Earth, but I Couldn't Save My Son from the Scourge of Opioid Addiction.

Posted December 1, 2017

External Article: The Atlantic

James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld, U.S. Navy (retired), distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote the article “No Family Is Safe from This Epidemic: As an Admiral I Helped Run the Most Powerful Military on Earth, but I Couldn’t Save My Son from the Scourge of Opioid Addiction,” which appeared in The Atlantic on December 1, 2017. Winnefeld shares what he and his family learned about drug addiction through the loss of their son. He urges the nation to recognize the opioid epidemic as a national emergency, and outlines the areas of response needed to address the problem. The Nunn School is a unit of Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Excerpt:

The last photograph of my son Jonathan was taken at the end of a new-student barbecue on the campus green at the University of Denver. It was one of those bittersweet transitional moments. We were feeling the combination of apprehension and optimism that every parent feels when dropping off a kid at college for the first time, which was amplified by the fact that we were coming off a rocky 16 months with our son.

Read the full article in The Atlantic.