Thank you to Amy Waldron for her letter (“Bringing addiction out of the shadows,” July 28) regarding the death of our son, Alex Hoehn, from substance abuse.

Amy's comments were both accurate and poignant, “Addiction is killing our young people at unprecedented rates. … By bringing addiction out of the shadows and showing the faces of the people we are losing to this disease, we can continue to move forward toward breaking the stigma of addiction.” Her response touched our hearts and we felt compelled to further share our story and the brutal effects of this horrific drug epidemic.

Families dealing with recovery travel a very long road with lots of twists and turns, starts and stops, accompanied by milestone achievements. Unfortunately for those addicted, it's a lifelong journey to stay clean. These kids often start out taking prescription pain pills for recreation until they become addicted. They then move on to heroin, which is much easier to obtain on the streets at a fraction of the cost. Thus, a lifelong battle.

The medical examiner who conducted our son's autopsy confirmed that Alex did not only die of an accidental heroin overdose, there was also fentanyl in his blood system. Fentanyl is a laboratory-derived pharmaceutical painkiller that is 30-to-50 times stronger than natural poppy-derived heroin. Dealers are lacing heroin with fentanyl to create a stronger high and increase profits; basically we consider it equivalent to murder.

Our son's death from opiate addiction is increasingly becoming a common experience for young adults. After Alex's five-year battle with drugs that included six residential rehabs, we've been exposed to the full brunt of this prolifically spreading drug epidemic. Quality lives are being lost every day. Our son was a good kid with a huge heart and a promising life ahead of him. Opiates are unmercifully addictive and they kept luring him back. We long recognized the possibility of Alex overdosing from his drug use. We even took opiate overdose response training classes to better prepare us as first responders should we be the ones to discover him. However, in Alex's case, it was too late. With fentanyl, it kills so quickly he basically had no chance. Nothing can ever prepare you for, or take away the pain of, losing a child.

Last month, The Baltimore Sun published an article that stated, “In Maryland, fentanyl-related deaths now account for nearly a quarter of drug overdose deaths, up from 4 percent two years ago. The percentage now eclipses deaths related to cocaine and alcohol, and is gaining on prescription drugs. Baltimore has been hit particularly hard. The 39 deaths in the city linked to fentanyl in the first quarter of the year are nearly three times the 14 recorded in the same time last year. They account for more than half of the 73 fentanyl-related deaths in Maryland during the first three months of the year” (“Deaths from fentanyl-laced heroin surge,” July 6).

Heroin and fentanyl, when used for non-medical reasons, are demonizing and addictive killers. We, as Alex's parents, would love to know that our open sharing of his stolen life due to opiate addiction might potentially save at least one other precious life. We are not concerned about any stigma. In fact, that is the purpose of our sharing. If people continue to hold back from sharing life's truths, then we have gained nothing and addiction will continue to remain in the shadows where it does not belong.

Rick Hoehn and Lisa Bertucci, Towson