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Virginia Tech

Codependence: A Novel in Essays

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

The thirteen essays in this collection center on the narrator's shifting relationship to opioid painkillers and other drugs. The narrator and protagonist, Amy, begins using opioids recreationally with her boyfriend Ryan, an opiate addict who initiates Amy's drug use. Years after the couple breaks up, Amy's childhood headaches return as migraines and transform into chronic daily headaches, which she relieves with oxycodone (and sometimes other drugs). The narrative chronicles Amy's relationship with Ryan and her iatrogenic dependence on narcotic painkillers, detoxification, return to opioids following a year spent "clean," and the ways in which her headache treatment regimen shapes her relationship to her family, friends, various medical personnel, and her own embodied subjectivity.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
MFA
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
English
Department dc:contributor.department
Creative Writing
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2016

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Long, Amy Lorraine
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Vollmer, Matthew
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Powell, Katrina M.
  • Falco, Edward C.

Subjects

dc:subject × 3

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:7983
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/103891

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Long, Amy Lorraine. Codependence: A Novel in Essays. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/103891