Local mother Jacqui Berlinn faces a heart-wrenching holiday as she continues her fight to save her son from the clutches of a deadly fentanyl addiction. Berlinn has gone public with her family's struggle in a bid to not only help her son, Corey, but to also shine a light on the broader crisis affecting California's unsheltered population.

Corey, once a symbol of youthful energy playing in his high school marching band, now grapples with the harsh reality of drug addiction. "Corey is not in the family pictures," told KGO, recounting the aching absence in family celebrations and the five-year-long void since Corey last joined them for the holidays. "I've been so hopeful for so many years," she confessed. The intermittent contact and Corey's deteriorating health have worn her hope thin, worrying she might "not really going to see him get out of this alive."

Indeed, the Berlinn family's ordeal is a microcosm of the larger epidemic sweeping across the state. Fentanyl's fierce grip has claimed countless lives, with many victims like Corey living on the streets. Jacqui Berlinn turned her private agony into public advocacy by founding Mothers Against Drug Addiction and Death (MADAAD), where she openly shares her story. "I used to hide my story out of shame," she revealed. But silence afforded no protection to Corey and others suffering from substance abuse amidst the over 100,000 unsheltered people in California, many of whom battle addictions.

The last encounter between mother and son was over a month ago, with Berlinn grappling to hold on to the image of her son's eyes that "still sparkle." The evident toll of the opioid abuse, manifested in the marked changes to Corey's physical appearance, has not obscured her memories of happier times. "Even now, when he smiles at me when I see him," she said, clinging to hope. But those moments appear increasingly fleeting as Berlinn reveals: "I think he's really feeling the weight of what he's been living."