Drugs and Addiction Theme Analysis

Ocean Vuong’s On Earth we’re Briefly Gorgeous is an intimate look at the many forms of addiction. Vuong’s main character, Little Dog, grows up in Connecticut in the 2000s, during the early days of America’s opioid epidemic, and drugs are commonplace during his teenage years. Little Dog’s mother, Rose, chain-smokes cigarettes, and his grandfather, Paul, grows his own marijuana. “They say addiction might be linked to bipolar disorder,” Little Dog explains to his mother in his letter. “It’s the chemicals in our brains, they say. I got the wrong chemicals, Ma. Or rather, I don’t get enough of one or the other.” Vuong acknowledges that his own struggle with addiction is likely rooted in both physiological and psychological factors; however, he also recognizes the role that the pharmaceutical and health care industries play in the continuing public health crisis that is America’s opioid epidemic, which claims the lives of an estimated 130 Americans every day. Through On Earth we’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong highlights the rampant addiction and drug use present in American society and ultimately argues that drug companies and doctors are directly responsible for the widespread drug use in the United States during the 21st century.

Little Dog recounts lots of drug use among his peers growing up in Connecticut, especially Trevor, Little Dog’s close friend and first lover, which reflects the widespread nature of the drug crisis in early 21st-century America. Little Dog says he can’t talk about Trevor’s life without talking “about the drugs that soon blew it apart, the Oxy and coke, the way they made the world smolder at its tips.” Drug use is central to Trevor’s life, and as such, it is central to Little Dog’s as well. As Little Dog recounts his time with Trevor, he thinks of Trevor speeding in his truck, “a patch of fentanyl hot on [Trevor’s] arm, the liquid melted through its edges and dripping down his bicep like sick sap. Cocaine in our noses, our lungs, we laughed, in a way.” They crash soon after into a tree on Trevor’s father’s property, illustrating just one of the many risks of drug use and addiction. Even Little Dog’s most mundane memories of Trevor include drugs, like sitting in the grass, “passing a joint sprinkled with crushed Oxy.” Drugs are commonplace in Little Dog’s early life, especially in his relationship with Trevor, and this again underscores the pervasiveness of drugs and addiction in broader American society.

The drug use and addiction Little Dog is exposed to during his early years includes the overdoses and deaths of several of his friends, including Trevor, which further reflects the tragedy of America’s drug epidemic. By the time Little Dog goes to college in New York City, four of his friends have already been killed from drug overdoses. “Five,” Little Dog says, “if you count Xavier who flipped his Nissan doing ninety on a bad bunch of fentanyl.” The deaths of Little Dog’s friends highlights the loss inherent to such a widespread problem. Little Dog tells of Kevin and Kyle, two brothers he grows up with in Hartford, who, within five years, both overdose on heroin and die. Keven and Kyle’s mother leaves town, heartbroken, soon after, an example of how America’s drug epidemic has destroyed entire families. Trevor overdoses twice, and he later dies after breaking three months’ sobriety with an overdose of heroin laced with fentanyl at just 22 years old. Little Dog never fully recovers from Trevor’s death, which again reflects the pain and destruction of America’s drug crisis.  

According to Little Dog, Trevor was put on OxyContin when he broke his ankle during his sophomore year in high school. OxyContin, Little Dog explains, which was “first mass-produced by Purdue Pharma in 1996, is an opioid, essentially making it heroin in pill form.” Trevor’s ankle healed in a month, but by that time, he was already addicted to the pills. OxyContin and its generic forms were first developed for patients with late stage cancer, but doctors soon prescribed the drug for all types of pain, including arthritis and headaches. Pharmaceutical companies swore the drug was “abuse-resistant” and it was marketed as a safe and effective pain reliever. “By 2002,” Little Dog says, “prescriptions of OxyContin for noncancer pain increased nearly ten times, with total sales reaching over $3 billion.” The resulting drug crisis, Vuong thus implies, is directly related to the gross misinformation and overprescribing of opioid painkillers.