He is the author of Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict, published by Hyperion on July 7, 2009.
The book weaves together the stories and views of addicts, doctors, experts and governmental agents—demonstrating how the lives and decisions of each are intertwined in America's drug epidemic.
[citation needed] In the summer of 2003, Lyon noticed a large amount of email spam promoting easy procurement of drugs like Valium, Xanax, and Vicodin, without a prescription.
In the name of "journalistic curiosity,",[2] Lyon convinced his editor to let him try to buy the pills online for a story, to see if the emails were legitimate.
[citation needed] Pill Head received a starred Kirkus review,[3] and Mother Jones named it one of the top books of 2009.