"Hi, I am Diane Spies Hoffman.  I am here to talk about my beautiful boy, Ryan Hoffman, who passed away on November 8, 2024.  Ryan was so adored by his family and many of his friends. He was popular and well respected.  He had such an impact on so many people and was considered a best friend to many.  His laugh was infectious, I still hear it at times.

      Ryan was a standout athlete in baseball and basketball and he won MVP in high school. He was our only child and had all the benefits of being an only child, meaning he was spoiled.

      Ryan’s friends have told us that he was always the DD and did not like to drink and do drugs in high school.  Ryan started to smoke pot to help with his OCD and ADD as a late teen.  Gambling seemed to start a spiral with his addiction which took him into debt and depression and ultimately use of drugs to deal with his emotions. When we realized it was a serious problem, we sent Ryan to High Watch.  He did well for several months and returned home to his family to live in Connecticut.  It was a very happy time for me to have him home and, in what I thought, was a better place.  In the meantime, I joined Alonon and started working on myself, here I learned how I had been enabling Ryan.

        Ryan was sober for 7 months and we helped him move out on his own with a friend, who was also in recovery.  He relapsed soon after and wound up in Hackensack ICU, on a vent for a week.  We stayed with him, praying he would wake up and breathe on his own until he finally did.  He returned to High Watch and Lauren and Sean were there every step of the way. This time they made his stay her longer and tougher to help him grow.  He was made to take on responsibilities on the grounds that help to humble him, ground him and make him a part of something greater than himself.  He loved the horses but hated the chickens. 

      Ryan then went to a sober house recommended by High Watch and he was sober for a year. He was working, got a promotion and by all appearances, seemed to be doing well.  A mother knows his son, so despite this, I could tell when he was struggling emotionally.  I could tell when he was not going to his meetings, not taking his meds or when he had started gambling.  

Ryan had a bad car accident on Halloween of 2024 and totaled his car on his way to work. He never called me but my intuition told me to call him and he told me what happened.  I picked him up and brought him to my house, we talked and I told him I was concerned that he was gambling. He assured me that he was fine and told me not to worry.  I was concerned and called him every day that week to provide emotional support.  A few days later he stopped answering my calls and texts and I knew things had gone very bad.  I broke down on the morning of 11/8, with a sense of inexplicable fear and sorrow. That evening the police showed up to Ryan’s father’s house to tell him that Ryan had fatally overdosed that day.   We later learned that unbeknownst to Ryan, he had taken drugs laced with fentanyl. 

     I would not give up when the Connecticut police closed Ryan’s case because that they could not find the man who sold Ryan the fentanyl laced drugs.  I sent an email to the department and insisted that they find him.  In response, they opened Ryan’s case again and we were notified in August that they found the drug dealer with a substantial amount of drugs on him and he was arrested.    I was told that, due to my persistence, the police had changed their protocols so they would not close a fatal overdose case again and parents would be included in the investigatory process.   

     Ryan was tough, he was guarded, but Lauren and Sean were tireless in the efforts to help him to open up and they helped him to successfully achieve sobriety during his last year. Although this is not a happy ending for us, I am grateful that we had Lauren and Sean and High Watch and their support throughout our difficult journey.    

     We just had our first non profit Golf Tournament in Ryan’s honor.  300 people came out to show support and we have formed a scholarship fund at High Watch to help men who do not have the means to support themselves during sober living after rehab."