The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

Although Hardin’s heroin addiction was uncommon in her upper-middle-class community at the time of her arrest, opioid addiction has long been an epidemic in America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the opioid crisis has undergone three waves to date. Wave 1 began in the 1990s and stemmed from an overprescription of opioid-based prescription pain killers. By 2010, heroin was cheaper and more easily available, which resulted in more fatalities and marked the beginning of Wave 2. Finally, by 2013, Wave 3 began with the surge in illegally manufactured fentanyl and other synthetic opioid deaths (“Understanding the Opioid Overdose Epidemic.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). By 2021, over 220 Americans were dying every day from opioid overdoses (Spencer, Merianne Rose, et al. “Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2001–2021.” National Center for Health Statistics, 2022).

Hardin began abusing prescription opiates in the 1980s, long before the opioid overdose epidemic was recognized. When Hardin began injecting heroin not long after, she did not know the dosage or how to properly prepare the heroin for injection. She used needles without checking the dosage, quality, or cleanliness.

According to the World Health Organization, sharing needles to inject drugs is the second riskiest way to contract HIV and comes with a host of other medical risks, including infection (“