Georgia mother battles opioids to win back her kids

ELLIJAY, Ga. — The First Baptist Church auditorium was filling with an expectant crowd, friends and family who had been through so much. Kim Silvers’ three young daughters were there, all dressed up and eager for the graduation, hoping to mark the end of years of heartache visited on them by their mother’s addiction.

They had begged her to stop using opioids and heard her promise to do so, only to break that vow repeatedly. They’d cried when she abandoned them, and again when they were sent to different foster homes. Then their mother enlisted in a rigorous court-run treatment program — her best, last chance to avoid permanent loss of her children.