It’s an epidemic that isn’t being cured by pills, but instead, it's being caused by them.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 67% of the more than 107,000 people who died from drug overdoses and poisonings during 2022, involved synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50.

But you don’t need statistics to prove just how dangerous fentanyl is to Tabetha Killian, who lost her 17-year-old daughter, Alexia, to an accidental overdose of fentanyl in 2020.

Killian, formerly from Kirksville, spoke over the weekend during a special presentation at the Adair County Public Library. She now lives in the Lake of the Ozarks area.

Right in front of her eyes, Killian has watched stories like Alexia’s become more and more common with fentanyl becoming increasingly potent and abundant.

It’s deadly, that’s all I can say, and the scary part is if your child is already experimenting with drugs, what I have found is that they’re searching out fentanyl at this point," Killian said. "It’s supposedly the best high, so that’s what they want, and that’s so scary because it’s going to kill them.

But for Killian, fentanyl was only a symptom of the disease that led to the tragic loss of her daughter.

Killian cites a lack of proper attention to mental health as the main factor in stories like that of Alexia and countless others across the country.

Instead of trying to fight the drugs that are on the street, we need more people involved in the mental health portion of it," Killian said. "The drugs are bad, but I feel like mental health needs more attention.

With May being Mental Health Awareness Month and May 9th being National Fentanyl Awareness Day, the month of May really pulls at Killian's heart strings.

But when Tabetha was mentally and emotionally at her worst, it was how she could honor her daughter and do so while helping others that really helped her get back on her feet.

For a mother to lose a child, there’s just nothing in this world more awful," Killian said. "And to dig myself out, I thought, ‘You know, I can live here in this darkness with no purpose, or I can go out there and try and do the best that I can to help other people.’

And for Killian, whether it’s one person or 100 people, if she can use her story to save a single life, she is turning tragedy into triumph.

The reason I started the Alexia Rian Foundation is I want other moms to know, other people to know, that there are other people out there, all you have to do is reach out," Killian said. "And if I can only reach one person and save one life, it’s worth it to me.