Southbury man, mother, offer help to addicts
BY BILL BITTAR
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
SOUTHBURY —As a 15year-old growing up in Newtown, Matthew DeLuca earned good grades at Newtown High School, where he played quarterback on the football team.
“I had everything going for me and I just didn’t like myself,” said DeLuca, now 31. “I went from a small Catholic elementary school and started at Newtown High School. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed. It was the first time in my life I experienced true anxiety.”
As an athlete, DeLuca said, he “played hard and partied harder.”
“When I drank and I smoked, all those negative feelings and the anxiety went away,” he said. “I finally had a solution. After graduating I had no plan for college. I started working dead end jobs, worked to be able to use and used to be able to work. It was a cycle that kept me sick for a long, long time.”
DeLuca led a double life until his opioid addicted persona spilled into his other life and others noticed.
“By the grace of God and the support of my family, I was able to find a path to recovery,” he said. “I’m 31 and I’ve been to far more funerals than weddings. If I was going to go to these wakes and tell these mothers how sorry I was, it wasn’t enough. Recovery was great for me and I wanted to pass that message on.” DeLuca formed the nonprofit The Community Addiction and Recovery Education and Support Group with his mother to provide free support for families of addicts.
The C.A.R.E.S. Group, which began in Trumbull in 2015, also has support groups in New Milford, Shelton and Danbury. On Jan. 10 it will launch a new group in Southbury.
“By showing up on a weekly basis, these people are giving their loved ones the greatest chance at recovery,” DeLuca said. “When I was using and struggling and my mother was meeting in these groups, I saw them as a threat. But by the time I got clean, I was able to see that it was the greatest showing of love that she could ever give to me.”
His mother, Donna, who founded the nonprofit the Newtown Parent Connection, worked with DeLuca in forming C.A.R.E.S.
See SUPPORT , Page 3B
Matthew DeLuca, right, who overcame opioid addiction, founded the nonprofit The Community Addiction and Recovery Education and Support Group with his mother, Donna, to provide resources, education and support for loved ones of those struggling with substance abuse addiction.
CONTRIBUTED
“What my mother found the most relief from when she was struggling from my additions was to surround herself with people who were going through the same thing she was,” DeLuca said.
C.A.R.E.S. support groups are led by a licensed substance abuse counselor. “The best remedy we found for addiction is to be educated,” DeLuca said. “When people are educated and know better, they do better. Without knowing how to treat it, people are completely and totally overwhelmed.” In addition to support groups, C.A.R.E.S. formed relationships with treatment providers and works to find solutions and resources for families who are struggling.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there on the lack of beds and places for treatment,” DeLuca said. “We will do everything in our power to make sure that person has some resource by the time they get off the phone with us.”
Contact Bill Bittar at bbittar@ rep-am.com.
