Karen Butcher’s son Matthew struggled for years with an addiction to opioids. She’s convinced the pandemic made it worse.
The restaurant in Scott County, Ky., where Matthew worked as a bartender closed before the pandemic, and soon other establishments, from restaurants to stores, followed suit as states imposed lockdowns.
“One day you’re a bartender and you’re serving people and having a great time at it and then the next day the doors are closed,” Butcher recalls. “Then COVID hits. It was the perfect storm.”
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