The up-and-down journey, marked by the ever-present risk and reality of relapse, means opioid addicts who want to quit – like this 24-year-old mother from western Maine – face a grueling, sometimes lifelong battle.

In addition to woefully inadequate treatment resources to meet exploding demand in Maine, there is tension, too, among providers and policymakers over the best way to beat an opioid addiction.

When children lose parents, the onus falls upon other resources – aging grandparents and the state’s child welfare system – to care for the youngest victims of Maine’s heroin crisis.

The rising death toll means more children than ever are confronted by unthinkable loss. When the questions come, experts say, keep it simple and be honest.

Drugs with the power to disorient a user’s moral compass create a fundamental split in how addicts are perceived, and the difference trickles into the public policy and resources meant to combat the crisis. Meanwhile, as the societal response wavers, people are dying.