The Cellar - My ex-nephew dead of overdose in early 20s

It's my ex's nephew; for 11 years, he was my nephew, he was family.

Born to a coke-addicted mom, and a coke-addicted dad who departed two years in.

Mom was able to kick coke long enough to be sensibly employed by an insurance agency for quite a while, starting to make a life for the kids. But addictions never really go away, and once mom started drinking, when the kids were about 10, it was all over.

She was relentlessly drunk, lost her job, lost her teeth, lost her money, lost her home, moved back with mom and dad and for a while; could not be trusted around any cash for five minutes, because she would take it to the nearest booze store.

Her girl, the younger, unfortunately developed breasts early and as a young teen was going out with 21 year olds. Don't know what she's doing now.

Her boy, the older, seemed to do OK for a while. He was a good pitcher and got a scholarship to a good school for it. But once he got there, as it will do at about that age, signs of schizophrenia set in. Kicked out of school, he moved back in with mom for a while I think, but somehow wound up back with grandma and grandad. Neither very sharp, I imagine they were mystified by this young man who was bipolar and had schizoaffective disorder. And they were completely unaware that he had become a massive opiate addict, perhaps in an attempt to self-medicate. Apparently the opiate of his choice was a fentanyl patch, an oxycontin of sorts; addicts will cut the patch up and eat it.

Grandma found his dead body over the weekend.