But as the heroin epidemic surges across the country and claims more lives every day, a growing number of families are dropping the euphemisms and writing the gut-wrenching truth, producing obituaries that speak unflinchingly, with surprising candor and urgency, about the realities of addiction.

Many of these obituaries read more like personal eulogies than death notices, even as they appear for all to read in newspapers, on Facebook, and on websites like Legacy.com and ObitsforLife.com, where Ms. Gauthier-Rivera originally posted about her brother. Some have even gone viral, prompting an outpouring of messages in which strangers share their own heartache — a sign of how widespread addiction is, even as it has stayed for so long under wraps.

Experts say the emerging openness about fatal overdoses is a sign of a broader shift.

Now, addicts, law enforcement officers and policy makers are all pushing to treat drug abuse as a disease and a public health crisis, not a crime or moral failing, and families are confronting addiction publicly in new ways, through rallies, online and in unvarnished obituaries.

“This is part of a trend toward a greater degree of acceptance and destigmatization about issues pertaining to mental illness, including addiction,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Heroin abuse is soaring, thanks chiefly to its cheap price and widespread availability. Between 2002 and 2013, use of heroin rose across a wide spectrum of demographic groups — young and old, male and female, poor to affluent — according to a report released on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among the more striking findings, heroin use doubled among women in that decade and rose by 60 percent among Americans with a household income of $50,000 or more, Over the same period, heroin-related overdose deaths nearly quadrupled, with more than 8,200 reported in 2013.