Canada’s opioid crisis: How families of overdose victims are coping

published on March 14, 2022 by Deena Zaidi in CTV News

Mary Breen spoke about her daughter, Sophie’s overdose death in a moving and honest obituary a few days after her passing on March 4, 2020, in Guelph, Ont.

Sophie was deeply loved by those she left behind and despite all the mental and physical pain she faced, she was resilient and did everything in her power to recover and heal. Through the obituary, Breen shared her daughter’s journey—from her terrible suffering to her relentless effort to get better.

Sophie was 27 when she died of fentanyl poisoning, a synthetic opioid, which is 80-100 times stronger than morphine.

She is one of the thousands of Canadians who died of accidental opioid toxicity in 2020; while these statistics move everyone, the weight of these numbers gets exceptionally heavy for grieving families who have helplessly watched their loved ones lose the battle to opioid addiction…