DETROIT (WSVN) — A heartbroken mother is sharing a very personal moment with the world: her hugging her only daughter one final time as she was taken off life support.
Cheryl Towery says she hopes the gut-wrenching photo serves as a warning to both drug addicts and their loved ones, since her 22-year-old daughter lost her long battle with drug addiction to an overdose.
Towery said it wasn’t the first time her daughter Elaina had overdosed; it had happened five times before, and she had been to several treatment centers in the past, Fox 2 reports.
It all started in 2010, when Towery says Elaina became addicted to prescription drugs to cope with her abusive boyfriend, who is also the father of her young son.
That boyfriend would later be convicted of domestic violence, among other crimes. Towery said her daughter made the difficult decision to give the child up for adoption.
“She has a 5-year-old son that she gave up due to her addiction,” Towery told Fox 2, “because she wanted him to be in a better place.”
But her daughter’s addiction continued to grow, and she said she would often find Elaina “beat up, being pimped out, being kept in a hotel room on heroin.”
It culminated with her daughter overdosing on heroin, which doctors believe was laced with fentanyl. This time, there would be no recuperation, as doctors told the family Elaina’s liver and kidneys were failing, and a scan showed no brain activity.
Towery says she wants to make sure other families do not experience the grief she now feels.
“I’m going to fight for the rest of my life to make sure the people down here on the street selling this to people, need to be locked up,” she said.
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