(Getty Images)
I screamed in my car for what felt like five minutes after the phone call.
My son’s fiancée’s name appeared on my cell screen while I was driving near Payette, Idaho. It was 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 2, 2018 and her barely audible voice delivered the shattering news: My beloved son had died from an accidental fentanyl/heroin overdose.
Just days before, we’d shared a joyful visit in Park City, Utah. Randy, at 31, had been sober for two years, engaged, close to graduating college with a promising job awaiting.
But that morning, his fiancée found him dead on her apartment’s kitchen floor. The grief was overwhelming, and the self-blame was stifling. Later, his phone revealed searches for syringes, drug dealers and rehab centers, showing he was struggling again despite previous rehab stints.
Ten months after Randy’s death, I felt compelled to fight back against the epidemic that took his life.
Drug overdose deaths nationwide surged by 65% between 2019 and 2024, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And Oregon has been particularly hard hit, soaring from 508 deaths in 2016 to 1,383 in 2022, state data shows.
Drugs can affect everyone, regardless of their background. Randy had a safe, stable upbringing, with a supportive family and a bright future. He had a close-knit group of friends from kindergarten through high school graduation, he played football, he was class vice-president his junior year, and he loved skiing.
Unlike other illnesses, addiction often gets labeled as a personal failure or a result of poor parenting rather than a disease needing medical intervention.
Years after Randy’s death, writing about his story and the broader issue of addiction, I received numerous emails from other parents. They, too, had lost children to overdoses and were consumed by grief and a sense of failure. Many expressed sorrow and frustration with the stigma surrounding addiction.
Research shows that genetics play a significant role in addiction, challenging the notion that willpower alone can overcome it. And new and more dangerous synthetic opioids are hitting the streets, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. One such drug – nitazene or ‘ISO’ – is mixed with other drugs and has caused deadly overdoses in unsuspecting victims just like fentanyl.
Families often face financial ruin from trying to fund rehab and legal battles. Also, the American taxpayer’s contribution to combat the drug epidemic averaged $260 in 2023, according to a recent study by Rehab.com.
Rather than treating addiction as a health issue, society often responds with shame and punishment. People with a drug addiction across the U.S. are frequently incarcerated rather than given the medical treatment they need. Oregon recently recriminalized drug possession. It remains to be seen whether new diversion or deflection programs will steer people towards treatment and recovery.
Those programs lack money. And while naloxone or Narcan – a life-saving drug for opioid overdoses – is free and available from pharmacies without a prescription, more needs to be done to fight the problem and save lives.
Parents who have lost children to addiction need to find their voices and push for change.
By challenging the status quo and advocating for a more compassionate and health-based approach to addiction, we can help prevent more families from experiencing the devastating loss I’ve endured and address this urgent crisis.
This article was first published by the Oregon Capital Chronicle, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.