4 Heroin Overdoses, 1 New Life: Long Valley Native Overcomes Addiction

LONG VALLEY, N.J. – It began in high school. The usual stuff, just like so many others.

Then a broken wrist senior year led to prescription painkillers, and the world of addiction took hold.

Long Valley native and West Morris Central graduate Matt, whose last name is being withheld, felt the slippery slope of gateway drugs and ultimately the suffocating grasp of addiction.

He graduated Central in 2000 and went on to Mitchell College in Connecticut where he graduated in 2003 with an associate’s degree in Business Administration. Then he went south to Virginia Commonwealth University to receive his bachelor’s degree, but left early after a terrific job offer came his way.

In the meantime he was still being prescribed painkillers for “normal stuff,” Matt said, and liked the way they made him feel.

“I started taking them whether I needed (them) or not,” Matt said. “One day I woke up and finally realized I was physically addicted (to painkillers). I thought I could go to a methadone clinic and it would help me get off opiates.”

Matt moved back to New Jersey in 2007 to pursue a relationship with his high school sweetheart, but was dismissed from the methadone clinic for failing drug tests for marijuana.

“I called someone who I thought could get me painkillers, but all they had was heroin,” Matt said. “So I tried it.”

One day Matt’s girlfriend came home and found he had overdosed from heroin. Matt was lying on the bedroom floor and couldn’t be woken up. His girlfriend didn’t even know Matt was using heroin and “living a double a life,” he said.

“So I figured I would go back to Virginia in 2009 and escape the heroin,” he said. “The problem is that heroin is everywhere!”

Matt put himself in the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for six months and says he did great. Unfortunately when he moved back to Virginia, Matt admits he didn’t apply anything he learned in rehab and stayed out of the 12-step program, which led to him falling back into old habits.

He overdosed three more times in the course of a few years.

But then 2012 came, and Matt was arrested for possession of heroin. He had a choice: Chesterfield/Colonial Heights Drug Court or jail time and a mark on his record.

Matt made a decision: drug court. And it was the best decision he had made in years.

The structure of the program – minimum of working 30 hours per week, daily outlines about a person’s comings and goings, constant single and group sessions – is what Matt says pulled him through.

February 2016 marked two years clean and Matt’s graduation from the program. He told Patch this week he spoke with television news down in Virginia about his story “so addicts and their friends and family will know there is hope.”

Matt’s now involved in a 12-step recovery program and has meetings in jails and rehabs, speaking with people who “need to know there is hope and that it’s possible to change,” he says.

“Today I have a great job, great friends, and a quality of life I had almost given up on,” he said. “I am truly happy.”

To see Matt's local news segment on wtvr.com, click here.