MARLBOROUGH ‒ Cheryl Juaire knows the agony and unimaginable loss that comes with a loved one that succumbs to a drug overdose.
Juaire, who lives in Marlborough, lost her son Corey to a fatal overdose 12 years ago. Juaire explained that her divorce when Corey was 5 “devastated” him. He experimented with drugs and started on a downfall after he was given OxyContin for a hernia operation when he was a teenager.
“Corey was doing drugs and I thought it was his choice, which is so different now. I would tell him to stop. He tried to tell me it was addictive and hard to stop. I was angry with him,” she said.
“At the end of the day, Corey ended up dying alone in a bedroom with shame and nobody to talk to because everybody was mad at him. It’s a horrible way to die.”
The heartache didn’t end with Corey’s death. Two years ago, Juaire’s son, Sean, died from an overdose.
“(Sean) was devastated when Corey died,” cascading in a downward spiral after his brother’s death, going from recovery to relapse that he never recovered from. “He lost everything. He lost his will to live.”