Page 47 - BusinessWest February 17, 2025

Michael J. Dias Foundation
A Parent’s Darkest Hour Has Become a Beacon of Light and Recovery
MBy Joseph Bednar [email protected]
ichael J. Dias was a smart kid — an athlete and pianist who excelled in high school and college. He didn’t fit the stereotype of a drug abuser.
So, when he took his life after struggling with steroid addiction, his mother, Grace,
had to know why. So she got in touch with Michael’s friends, and what she heard shocked her.
“It turns out he was on massive amounts of steroids. He tried to bulk up, and there were a lot of characters at the gyms selling that stuff,” she told BusinessWest, adding that she also found out he was selling to support an ever-more-desperate habit.
“It was a rude awakening. The thought process
in society is that the drug users are kids that grew up in the streets of Springfield that were homeless, that didn’t have good families, didn’t have the right
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
upbringing. Well, we lived in a 3,200-square-foot home in Ludlow. My kids had everything. And they were great students, both of them. So that didn’t make sense.”
Around the same time, Grace’s nephew was struggling with addiction, and the family started a support group for people in similar situations, then raised funds to create awareness in schools. Later, with her sister away on a trip, her nephew wound up detoxing in her house, then wanted her to take him to a sober home in Worcester.
“I dropped him off in this house that was disgusting. People were smoking in there; the house was filthy. I left there crying, thinking, ‘I just left my nephew in a space that I wouldn’t leave my dog in. How is he going to get better in a place like that?’
“So, on the way home, I had this bright idea — I don’t know, they come to me at times — that we should start a foundation. And we should open a sober house.”
So a small group — Dias and her sisters, plus a few friends — set about raising money and wound up buying and fixing up a two-story home in Springfield for around $40,000, all the funds they had. In 2014, Michael’s House opened as a haven for men in
the early stages of addiction recovery. There, she explained, they enjoy the support of a community of peers, guided by staffers who understand the path to recovery, in an atmosphere of accountability. Residents are encouraged to find employment and pay a modest rent.
“We thought, ‘that doesn’t happen in
our little community. My children couldn’t possibly know about that world.’ But it”’s everywhere.
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