Born in 1964, Macy has working-class roots and has spent most of her professional life as a journalist and nonfiction writer in Virginia. Prior to the publication of Dopesick, Macy published several books on the racial and economic forces that have shaped the American South. In this book, Macy draws on her reporting on the economic impact of global trade on smalltown America to explain why Appalachia was ripe for a prescription opioid and heroin epidemic. Macy relies on her bona fides as a journalist to establish credibility, but she also includes appeals to emotions and ethics to enhance her presentation as a reliable narrator.

Macy is a journalist, so she uses journalistic rhetorical moves to establish credibility and engage the reader. For example, in the Prologue of the book, she leads with a dramatic, first-person account of going to see Jones to do what a reporter does—get the answers to questions about the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a drug epidemic in rural America from a firsthand source. Sources continue to play a role in bolstering Macy’s credibility throughout the text. She relies on academics, community activists, people with addictions, and the people who love them. The broad array of sources creates a nuanced picture of the opioid epidemic to help the reader understand the explosion of addiction in the 2010s.