After a few years of treating patients with opioid use disorder, it becomes painfully clear how much addiction affects not just the individual but their entire family. I’m always particularly concerned when a parent with severe opioid use disorder comes in for treatment, especially if they have one or more children. We know that relapse is common, and each instance of relapse carries the risk of death due to the potency of modern opioids.
A recent study explored the heartbreaking question of how many children have lost a parent to an overdose. The findings are staggering: from 2011 to 2021, over 320,000 children lost a parent to an overdose. This loss significantly increases the economic, social, educational, and health burdens on these children, perpetuating a cycle of harm that could affect them for the rest of their lives.