Personal Stories

Get advice and perspective from families who have also been impacted by substance use or addiction.

On September 1, 2014, I drove my oldest son in an overloaded car to Worcester State University.  I had never felt such pride in my 18 years of parenthood. I dreamt of this milestone. For months, I planned, shopped and looked toward an incredibly bright future.
Valentine’s Day is normally filled with roses and candy, happiness and memories of celebrating the ones we love. I had always been a mom to make a big deal of holidays and birthdays and just as I was staring at my son’s Valentine’s gift bag, our phone rang. At 8:37 pm, on February 14, 2021, our world changed forever.
On a Thursday morning in October, Sandy Snodgrass was given the news that no parent should ever have to hear. Her son, Robert Bruce Snodgrass, was found dead. He had died from a fentanyl overdose.
A decade ago, at the beginning of the opioid epidemic, my son, Corey, died of a heroin overdose at age 23. I knew so little about opioid addiction when Corey struggled. I didn’t know anyone with a child who had died, let alone from an overdose.
I sat down to tell Casey’s story and talk about what she and so many others go through, and how where there’s breath, there’s hope.
The detective said to me, “If we had a 911 Good Samaritan law or a Narcan law, your son might very well be alive.”
“Tell them my story.” My 20-year-old daughter Casey said these words to me not long before she died of an accidental heroin overdose on January 15, 2017.