This Heartbreaking Obituary Sends a Powerful Message About Drug Addiction

The obituary for Molly Parks—a 24-year-old heroin addict who overdosed while working in Manchester, New Hampshire—is going viral because her family wrote about her addiction at great length, hoping to inspire other drug users to quit.

“Along Molly’s journey through life, she made a lot of bad decisions,” the obituary reads. “She fought her addiction to heroin for at least five years and had experienced a near fatal overdose before…If you have any loved one’s who are fighting addiction, Molly’s family asks that you do everything possible to be supportive, and guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late.”

She dropped out of community college after a year, and her father Tom Parks of Saco, Maine, told the Washington Post that she had been in rehab three times. But the family was hopeful that her new job delivering pizzas would help her turn the corner.

Four days after a trip home, according to a Facebook post written by her dad that formed the basis of the outspoken obituary, she was found with a needle in her arm in the bathroom of the restaurant where she worked.