My Uncle sat next to me as I played PBSKids.org on my grandma’s office computer. The doorbell interrupted us.

I trotted into the living room with my uncle behind me, but Grandma beat us to the door, opening it to two police officers. With a stern face, they asked me to leave the room.

I gladly went back to my gaming.

When the living room went quiet roughly ten minutes later, I returned. The officers had already left and my entire family was crying.

“Bubba, Mommy’s gone Logan,” Dad said, crying hard enough his hiccups interrupted him. “She’s not here anymore, forever. She’s not here. She passed away. Do you understand?”

I hugged him.

“It’s okay to cry daddy, that was mommy,” I said.

Opioids killed Mom, Mary Loveless-Day’s, within just 11 months of her first prescription pill. Her gravestone writes one word: “Mommy.”

Opioid addiction influences those around it, contributing to a generational ripple of addiction. Addressing opioid-fueled family trauma could end the cycle.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is Part 5, the final part, of a series exploring the early wave of the opioid epidemic from Logan Day’s perspective watching his mother’s battle with addictive painkillers.

The ripple effect

Dad had to sell our home and move in with Grandma after Mom entered rehab. I spent my childhood sleeping on a brown, fold-out futon with Dad in Grandma’s office – the same one I’d play games in.

Cedar Springs Mental Institute failed to rehabilitate Mom, but released her in December 2011, still high. Dad and Grandma refused to let her move in with us until she went clean, so Mom moved in three houses down the road from us, pledging to improve.

Even just three doors down, Mom was absent. Afternoons playing in the front yard, I’d glance down the road, hoping to see her walking down. Instead, I only ever saw her drug-supplying ex-boyfriend’s car in her driveway.

I lost hope for Mom when she missed my fifth birthday.

Opioid-broken homes set children up for failure. Information posted from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that substance-use disorder increases child neglect by 140%, emotional abuse by 329% and physical abuse by 562%. Opioid-broken homes set children up for failure. A separate study posted on PubMed showed those disorders increase opioid-addiction risk by ten fold.

According to the Journal of Applied Research on Children, ages zero to three are the most important years for learning relationship development skills. Lack of parental relationship impairs those skills. Children with neglectful or abusive parents are at greater risk to struggle communicating long-term, placing them at a disadvantage in school-life, work-life and against addiction culture.

Children of addicted parents are three times more likely to develop their own substance use disorder, creating what research from the United Hospital Fund dubbed the “ripple effect” of the opioid epidemic, as opioid use disorder passes to addict’s children. The study showed that in 2017, 2.2 million children were affected by the epidemic and is projected to double to 4.3 million by 2030. That’s 2 million more children piled atop the opioid crisis.

Even if impacted children end their addiction cycle, they are still harmed. The same study showed, children of opioid-addicted parents are two times more likely to be depressed, 30% more likely to be arrested and 70% more likely to become obese.

Price of addiction

A month after my birthday, Mom died.

Her roommate found her cold in her bed; decay already setting. Mom’s heart stopped in her bedroom after taking over the counter cold medicine for the flu.

Toxicology reports showed Mom’s heart enlarged from her previous opioid abuse, but surprisingly, lacked any opiates. Mom overdosed by accident on over-the-counter cold medicine after months of constant illicit-drug abuse.

Dad’s stability was already sinking, spending thousands for Mom’s ER trip, jail fees and treatment funds all while losing Mom’s income. By the time Mom died, his stability capsized mentally and financially.

According to the 2017 UHF study, families of opioid addicts spend about $180 billion in lifetime costs on healthcare, special education, child welfare and criminal justice. Researchers predict that cost to reach $400 billion by 2030. Expenses drive addiction-struggling families into even worse social conditions at greater risk for addiction.

According to 2025 studies from Avalare Health, the national cost of opioid use disorder spread across, patient, business, government and household burdens is about $4 trillion, $3 trillion of which is patient burden. However, data showed that behavioral treatment can save $145,000 of that spending per opioid use disorder case and $271,000 when both behavioral treatment and medically-assisted treatment for opioid addiction, such as methadone or buprenorphine. This suggests investment in treatment services would save both millions of dollars and lives.

Mom never got the chance to benefit from treatment though. Neither did Dad’s pockets, Mom was his last straw. Desperate for grounding, Dad found his structure through a new girlfriend, and just a few months after Mom died, I moved in with a new family.

Learning to live with pain

It took a year before I began to comprehend Mom’s death. Grief stabbed in my first grade classroom, while classmates discussed their moms. I uncontrollably cried for Mom for the first time. But before grief emerged in me, it soared in my family and, in some ways, is still felt today.

Dad’s mental state took the brunt with chronic insomnia. Every time his eyes closed, Mom appeared. Her image kept him awake for days at a time. His insomnia only soothed after months of consistent, expensive therapy. Even thirteen years later, Dad’s insomnia occasionally returns.

Losing a loved one in the drawn-out, traumatic process opioid-use disorder tends to kill, leaves mental scars for loved ones. According to a study posted to the National Library of Medicine, of 2,034 adults who experienced intense grief, 20% had prolonged grief disorder, 34% post-traumatic stress disorder and 30% major depressive disorder. For widowed parents, this can lead to further parental-neglect, contributing to the opioid ripple effect.

But mental wounds grieving families suffer can still heal. Another NIH-posted study showed that complicated grief therapy is 70% effective in reducing disorder symptoms, proving families of opioid victims can overcome their trauma to an extent.

Some rehabilitation facilities offer family-involved treatments that are shown to triple patients’ treatment retention, while also supporting their family, according to the International Journal of Social Psychiatry. Dual treatment can curb the ripple effect of the epidemic while directly battling addiction.

Healing hand-in-hand

Currently, government funded programs from the Health Resource and Services Administration offer grants under the Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program to state-licensed mental health facilities. Last year, HRSA granted $15 million to facilities, encouraging family-involved treatment.

However, grants do little to disrupt generational ripples without proper oversight. Investigations from the Government Accountability Organization criticize SAMHSA and HRSA for failing to document the “ultimate recipients” of their grants, making it impossible to see whether families are ever actually benefiting from the promised support.

Lack of transparency and accountability since the ‘90s has, and continues to, pump the opioid crisis. For any policy or grant to work, proper enforcement is a must. National legislators should require verifiable documentation and surveying to ensure that the millions of dollars funded is actually pushed toward verifiable evidence-based treatment for both addicts and their family – ending the next generational addiction before it starts again.

Mom died, but her story lives on through me. Mom is a reminder that every statistic reported is a real person with real loved ones. Mom, a loving daughter, an outgoing wife and a caring mother; Mary, died to a multi-layered and complicated system of on-going prescription-drug hell, dominoing from unqualified prescribed painkillers pitted against her – a story mirroring millions of others. From the first pill she was doomed.

The opioid crisis killed Mary and changed my life forever.

I deserved to have my mom; she deserved to be one.

This story was originally published on Creek Compass on January 8, 2026.