--- title: Parents Write About Heroin Addiction in Obituary for Daughter description: Family of daughter who fatally overdosed on heroin wrote about her addition to inspire others to quit canonical: https://time.com/3833572/heroin-obituary-daughter-parents-family/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-23T23:02:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:19:04.039Z og:title: This Heartbreaking Obituary Sends a Powerful Message About Drug Addiction og:description: "Guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late" og:url: https://time.com/3833572/heroin-obituary-daughter-parents-family/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Heartbreaking Obituary Sends a Powerful Message About Drug Addiction twitter:description: "Guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This Heartbreaking Obituary Sends a Powerful Message About Drug Addiction  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Apr 23, 2015 11:02 PM UTC  by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/)  ## Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Apr 23, 2015 11:02 PM UTC 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](http://www.tributes.com/obituary/read/Molly-Alice-Parks-102393825). “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_](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/22/why-this-father-didnt-hide-his-daughters-heroin-overdose-in-her-obituary/) 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. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3833572/heroin-obituary-daughter-parents-family/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3833572/heroin-obituary-daughter-parents-family/"},"headline":"This Heartbreaking Obituary Sends a Powerful Message About Drug Addiction","datePublished":"2015-04-23T23:02:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:19:04.039Z","description":"\"Guide them to rehabilitation before it is too late\"","url":"https://time.com/3833572/heroin-obituary-daughter-parents-family/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Family & Relationships"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Olivia B. Waxman","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3833572/heroin-obituary-daughter-parents-family/","name":"This Heartbreaking Obituary Sends a Powerful Message About Drug Addiction"}}]}] ```