JOEY’S STORY
Joey’s House foundation was created in honor of Joey Tavares, a New Jersey native. Joey was a fun-loving, generous, kind, smart individual who loved cars, racing, fishing and music. He was the comedian to his friends and family, but quiet around strangers. He gave advice, created good times wherever he went and always had the backs of those closest to him. Whether he was dressing up as Santa every Christmas for his younger cousins, pulling pranks on his older sister or making memories with his best friends, Joey always knew how to make the good times last.
After graduating high school in 2015, Joey attended college across the country where he was introduced to codeine and Xanax as a way to “open up” and “cope” with his homesickness and social anxiety. Before he knew it, an addiction had formed. For a year and a half, Joey hid the truth from his family and friends categorizing himself as a “functioning addict” who had everything under control. Eventually, Joey’s family found out the truth and immediately got him into a treatment center back on the East Coast. After completing a 30-day program and admitting he had a problem, Joey returned home to the support of his family and friends.
Newly sober and back in NJ, Joey enrolled in a tech school to study a career in mechanics as he continued treatment with an outpatient program and went to weekly NA meetings. Once he completed the program, Joey was left with very little resources to help him maintain his sobriety. Unable to find a support group he could really connect with, Joey eventually stopped attending meetings. He went to weekly therapy sessions, which helped him to open up to his family, but it still wasn’t enough. Joey talked about how difficult the daily struggle was to stay clean. He spoke about how he wished there was a place he could go where other people his age, who were also in recovery, could hang out and relate to one another in a sober environment. It was hard for Joey to accept that he couldn’t go out and enjoy his 20s the way most of his friends could. Joey’s family supported him the best they could, but he still needed others that could relate to the struggle of addiction at such a young age.
In November of 2017, Joey achieved his one-year anniversary of sobriety. Joey worked hard to stay clean but, unfortunately, he reverted back to old habits and relapsed a month later in December 2017 when he returned to taking synthetic Xanax and prescribed codeine. A week before Christmas, at age 20, Joey lost his battle with addiction on December 16, 2017 when he passed away at home from an accidental codeine overdose. Joey died a year to the day of coming home from treatment.
Refusing to let his death be in vain, Joey’s older sister and parents came up with the idea to start Joey’s House: a foundation whose mission is to create a community of resources for teens and young adults in recovery as well as their families / support systems. Joey always said he was “making memories,” whether he was working hard, goofing off with his friends or traveling with his family. Everyone always gathered at Joey’s house because it was a place of warmth and welcoming. Had he survived, Joey would have embraced and helped others who are going through the same struggles as he did. Joey’s House foundation will be the shoulder to lean on for young addicts and their families as we work together to create a safe space where positive memories can be made.