The Will to Be Resilient: An Interview with Mr. Rivera

Isaac J

Hello. Thank you so much for agreeing to share the story. First, could you tell me how you grew up? What were your childhood experiences like?

Mr. R

How did I grow up? I was born in New York. My early life was in Brooklyn. I grew up in the projects and when I was about eight or nine, we moved to California. And that was a big culture shock. I grew up with a lot of domestic abuse. It would definitely be considered child abuse now. So things were not always easy for me. It was a hard life growing up in a lot of ways. I also grew up with Jehovah's Witnesses. It still kind of messes my head up, but yeah, I had a lot of hard experiences and a lot of culture shock. Parts of the religion very much made you feel like an outsider even.

Isaac J

I'm sorry to hear that. So how did you come to experience homelessness?

Mr. R

It was mostly due to my own drug use. My own addictions have put me in that position. I was, I guess what you would say, lucky, because I did have some means. I was homeless and working. I had a car to sleep in. So I was above what most homeless people got.

Isaac J

Did anyone help you?

Mr. R

Yeah, I mean, my addictions have taken me to rehab. Many times and sad to say, it's something I struggle with daily. It's something I have to focus on all the time to stay sober, just to maintain it. I'm in bad health because of my drug use and my cigarette smoking. You know, these are just the prices you pay, but yes, people have offered me help. I have been in different rehabs. I can tell you all about the different rehabs. I've been to the Salvation Army two or three times. I've been to two different ones and how different they are from each other, depending on where they are. I've been to rehabs that are like work therapy, Christian based rehab. So they preached Jesus a lot. I've been to others that are more luxurious where you just go to classes most of the day. And Fridays we used to play softball. So I've gotten a lot of help in a lot of ways. If you're looking for help, you can find it, I think. If you really want help. But like I say, it's still eternal for each and every addict in their own way. Some do better than others, but most addicts don't make it at all statistically.

Isaac J

I'm sorry to hear that. So how do you keep the motivation to stay sober?

Mr. R

Well, for me it's my children. It's trying to be a dad. It's. Trying to change, I mean I'd like to change. I'd like to be an upstanding member of the community. I know I may be different from a lot of homeless people, but you know, I'm just trying. I just keep trying. No, giving up is not the answer. So you know, I work part time and my daughters are coming over tonight. They're spending the holiday weekend with me. And these are the things that motivate me and it's what I was looking forward to all week. That helped keep me sober. This week. Next week might be harder because I won't have that to look forward to.

Isaac J

I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your daughters.

Mr. R

Thank you. You too.

Isaac J

What were the biggest challenges you encountered?

Mr. R

I found it very hard to stay positive. And your needs are very basic. Am I gonna eat today? Am I gonna shower today? Is there anywhere I can actually charge my phone? Things like that. You know, I would go into restaurants and look for wall sockets. So while I ate, I could charge my phone. Things like looking for places to use the restroom, waking up in the morning and running to the park just to use the restroom. Yeah, the basic things that most people take for granted. And just go take a shower. Those things become paramount when you're homeless. As far as drugs, it's a whole different thing. You know you have to keep your own resolve, as most drug addicts know where the drugs are and how to get them. That's the easy part. Especially in the city, just big. It's a day-to-day mental battle with drug addiction. The battle is fought in your mind on a daily basis.

Isaac J

On that note, how are you doing right now?

Mr. R

Sobriety wise?

Isaac J

Yes, and also your overall circumstance in general.

Mr. R

Well, I'm doing better. I mean, I still struggle. I used it not too long ago. Three weeks ago now. So I'm just trying to do better. I have a part time job. I just paid for my car and registration and got that running. I've been making all my medical appointments. I am staying with my mom and helping her. So in a lot of ways I'm doing better. I'm working on my relationship with my daughters. They're both teenagers, one just graduated high school this last spring. And just focusing on those things and trying to think better. Trying to do better healthwise too. I’m my harshest critic. I can be doing so much better than I am. And I realize that too.

Isaac J

Congratulations on your daughter’s graduation from high school.

Mr. R

Thank you.

Isaac J

I heard that you're very talented at writing poetry. Could you share one of your poems with us?

Mr. R

OK, let's see.

The Long Road

I look back on life and it makes me sad

I've achieved so little

I'm kind of mad

But I’ve made it this far, so I guess that's good

You might not have made it if you stood where I stood

I have nightmares of childhood

Watching my mother get deep down under my father's foot

All the while growing older, trying hard to hide my fears

Comic books and marijuana helped hold back the tears

Then I found cocaine

And life changed from there

The wheels fell off the car so fast

it was impossible to steer

Since then entering rehab is the only thing I've done

The only sustained time of sobriety and between the runs

I write this poem today in another rehab stay

But the sun is shining on me this time and I feel I've caught it spray.

I'm going to get out soon and I'm scared,I have to say

But I promise I won't read this to you if I haven't been sober today

It's been a long road and I fought well in a pinch

But I'm still fighting the fight today

Isaac J

That's really good. Thank you for sharing that with us.

What else would you like people to know about?

Mr. R

That was sort of biographical. Yeah, I would like people to know the struggle. So many people know an alcoholic or a drug addict in their life and don't know what they're going through. Because they're not afflicted with the disease. So it's not diabetes or obesity. There seems to be very little sympathy or sympathy for many of the drug addicts. And it comes in all sorts of ways. I work part time at a liquor store. Right now I see them come in at night, like 10:00 at night and it's Friday night and they have nothing to do. And these people spend sixty or seventy or eighty dollars. And they come back and they come back. It's an addiction. I see it in them. I would never say anything to them. But I see it in them and it's sad to see but I understand it. I understand now. I was once in rehab with a guy who had a gambling addiction and he told me, he said, you know, these guys get crazy when they see beer commercials and they get tempted when they see a Budweiser commercial. He said, “Alex, I get tempted. When I see casino Morongo and those commercials, I start sweating.” And it never occurred to me, and I thought, wow, you just never know what will trigger someone or what they might be addicted to. And they have gamblers anonymous and stuff now. And. And we're gambling online. It's actually growing in numbers. People use oxycontin. The pharmaceutical companies. It's an industry and I think all of these aspects of it need to be explored. Even rehabs itself are for profit. There are certain things that profit margins should be taken out of. There's so many aspects to what I've seen in so many different ways and and you know, like when I went to the Salvation Army. If you got sober, that was really on you because they did not do much to help you get sober. Not in my eyes. It was a bad experience in a lot of ways and very few people graduated from that program and they took people straight from prison who didn't want to be there. They just didn't want to be in prison. And it was a hard situation and there's just too many of those and they are there to make money. They're not really there to help you get sober. And I think places like that need to be weaned out and there's so much I could tell you.

I'm interested in how a young man like yourself became Interested in such a subject? And I also wanted to tell you that there are people who I would like to introduce you to who have worked on this, who have years of sobriety. I know a man down the street, who is the pastor. He recently retired, but he is also a recovering drug addict and he started three sober housings in the Pasadena area.

Isaac J

I was volunteering at a food shelter and I started noticing that there were a lot of young people there who were around my age or younger affected by homelessness. That was how I became really interested in learning more about this topic.

Mr. R

Cool, because there's a lot of people who need help, and I know there's a growing homeless population. I was watching the thing and it was just sad to hear. The sad thing is most of them, of the growing population, a lot of them have a job. They just can't afford to live because there's so many people who are homeless in their car. Nowadays they get gym membership just to be able to take a shower and handle those things that I was telling you: be able to charge their phone while they're at the gym, be able to use the bathroom and hang out at the gym because they have nowhere to go, and then they go to sleep in their car and go to work the next day. That's growing in so many ways. But it is something that people need a lot of help and good young men like yourself might be able to help them. But yes, it comes from understanding and empathy. That's great. I'm so glad.