Suicide, drugs, and alcohol are killing more Americans than ever before. Police, local leaders, and Congress are scrambling for ways to reverse this rise in deaths of despair. The strongest cure, though, won’t be easily brought about through public policy. That’s because the strongest cure is more fatherhood.

Middle-aged men and young adults are the epicenter of the plague of deaths of despair. All the data suggests that the root of this problem is boys growing up without fathers, and men who never get to be fathers.