The powerful memoir of a woman who lost her sister to opioid addiction—and a call to arms for a new, compassionate, effective way to understand addiction, and to enable recovery.

In October 2018, thirty-year-old Madelyn Linsenmeir passed away after a decade-long struggle with addiction, leaving behind a young son and a devoted family. Rocked by the death of her younger sister, Kate O’Neill wrote an obituary that went viral and led Kate into a new career as a journalist, writing a yearlong series on the opioid crisis for her hometown newspaper in Vermont and winning awards for her work. We Grow Accustomed to the Dark is O’Neill's stirring, gorgeously written memoir of Maddie’s life, her death, and the things Kate wishes she’d known at the time, which might have helped her sister—and which could help the millions of families still battling this epidemic.

Spanning two timelines—one beginning with Maddie’s birth and one with her death—O'Neill's memoir blends the findings of her investigative reporting with the heart-wrenching experience of loving, trying to help, and eventually losing Maddie. O’Neill’s intimate family story is buttressed by a comprehensive portrait of the socioeconomic and other dimensions of the American opioid crisis, and offers a compelling call to action, highlighting evidence-based harm-reduction strategies that can prevent more deaths. We Grow Accustomed to the Dark is an urgently necessary book, an invaluable contribution to the national conversation about opioids, addiction, and how to show love to the people we care about.

A fierce, luminous memoir about the life and death of a young woman who struggled with addiction, the systems that failed her, and her sister’s quest to understand what might have saved her—and could still save others

Like many Americans, Madelyn Linsenmeir fought for years to recover from opioid and stimulant addiction—attending 12-step meetings, going to inpatient treatment, attempting to access medications. But no matter how hard she tried, or how much her family tried to help, Maddie continued to relapse; each time, the consequences were more severe.

So her oldest sister, Kate O’Neill, was relieved when Maddie was arrested. She’d been unhoused for months, and every day brought new headlines about overdose deaths. If her sister was in jail, O’Neill believed, at least she was safe. A week later, Maddie was dead, not of an overdose but a treatable heart infection.

Grieving not just Maddie’s death but everything she’d endured while she was alive, O’Neill wrote an obituary that openly addressed Maddie’s addiction. It went viral as people recognized themselves—or their children, siblings, parents, partners, or neighbors—in Maddie’s story. Soon after, O’Neill quit her corporate job and began reporting on addiction, trying to answer the questions that haunted her and her family: Why couldn’t Maddie recover, despite how hard she’d tried? Why did she die? What might have saved her? 

Blending intimate family narrative with an investigation into the forces that shape the lives of people who use drugs, O’Neill reconstructs her sister’s life and examines the systems that led to her death. In so doing, she challenges how we understand addiction and define recovery, finding hope in approaches that are already saving lives and sharing hard-won wisdom for surviving systems meant to punish instead of protect.

We Grow Accustomed to the Dark is the unforgettable story of one family, a devastating account of our national addiction crisis, and an urgent call to replace stigma and punishment with compassion and care.