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Written by: Guest Commentary
Tommie Trevino
At UC Davis Medical Center, Tommie Trevino works as a drug and alcohol dependency counselor.
Twenty years ago, while floating down the Rogue River in Oregon with a companion, my life took a drastic turn. The boat flipped over as the motor abruptly fell off. I got into the freezing water. A life jacket was thrown to me by some small children, but I gave it to my companion instead.
My lungs filled with water as I plummeted into the river. I extended my hands toward a branch on the bank’s side. I noticed birds flying by and clouds shifting in the sky as I gazed up. “This is a little of my power and what I can do to you,” a strong voice said. I realized then that it was my creator.
The emergency medical technician informed me that I was lucky to have survived the icy water when an ambulance arrived.
I had more than thirty years of addiction. I started abusing meth, marijuana, cocaine, and alcohol when I was seventeen years old, and I continued to do so until I was forty-seven. I was homeless for the final two years of my addiction.
However, I started my recuperation after surviving that tragic accident. Fighting the urge to return to my addiction throughout the first year was really challenging. After a year, my thoughts appeared to calm down. I studied addiction and mental health during my two years of college. I learned how the brain functions in addiction and the mental health issues that contribute to the disease’s persistence from the courses.
I also spent five years working in mental health and drug addiction, and ten years as a DUI counselor. Following my certification, I started working at UC Davis Hospital to assist the emergency department in educating the medical staff on how to handle homeless individuals who are brought in by their families or who are homeless themselves in order to get assistance for their illness.
We have the chance to assist those people in changing for a very short time. That individual might visit the emergency room fifty times or just once. We always have the chance to assist them in making a permanent change in their lives.
A medical team member gains the ability to connect with a patient without passing judgment, treat them with respect and care, and establish trust through training. A counselor can then assist the individual in determining the most appropriate course of treatment.
Previously, the goal of recovery was to treat the addiction. Since then, we have discovered that in order for the healing process to occur, mental health needs must be met.
Every person has a suffering that fuels their addiction. The key to recovery is identifying that dark hole and fighting to overcome that emotional agony.
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Helping people like myself who are in recovery from addiction is my mission. I want to set an example and encourage others to start their road to recovery.
I intermittently utilized drugs for more than 30 years. Those thirty years came and went so swiftly. All that time was lost on me.
I want to assist the individual in pain so they don’t have toes protruding from their shoes and are constantly starving for food, family, and shelter. In the hopes that one day things will improve, I want to assist individuals who are suffering so they don’t have to sleep on the streets or on the sofa of a stranger. I wish to assist individuals in need in overcoming depressing, dismal, and ashamed emotions. I wish to assist them in avoiding that profound sense of isolation.
Every individual is capable of awakening. It could be emotional, physical, or spiritual. The road to rehabilitation is difficult to start, but it is well worth the effort.
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