Paula Becker, a writer and historian living in Seattle, will visit Eagle Harbor Book Company to discuss her latest work, “A House on Stilts: Mothering in the Age of Opioid Addiction,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17.

“A House on Stilts” tells the story of one woman’s struggle to reclaim wholeness while mothering a son addicted to opioids.

Becker’s son Hunter was raised in a safe, nurturing home by his writer/historian mom and his physician father. He was a bright, curious child. And yet, addiction found him.

More than 2.5 million Americans are addicted to opioids, some half-million of these to heroin. For many of them, their drug addiction leads to lives of demoralization, homelessness, and constant peril.

For parents, a child’s addiction upends family life, catapulting them onto a path no longer prescribed by Dr. Spock, but by Dante’s “Inferno.”

Within this 10-year crucible, the author is transformed by an excruciating, inescapable truth: the difference between what she can do and what she cannot do.