HOUSTON – In Hispanic communities, drinking at a young age is sometimes normalized and getting help for an addiction is not. For the Hispanic population in Houston, even when they ask for recovery assistance, there are often barriers to getting help.
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The health clinic El Centro de Corazon said they contacted The Council on Recovery when they realized the problem with addiction was even too big for them to handle with their patients.
“After an extensive evaluation, we recommended a screening tool that they could use to help identify their patients struggling with substance misuse. We set up a streamlined system for referrals and then we launched. The effort has been a major success. Within the first six months, over 1,100 clients were screened,” Diane Arms with The Council on Recovery said.
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91% of Hispanic Americans with substance use disorder are unable to receive treatment, according to Arms. Even when patients are asking providers for help, barriers exist that make it difficult to find treatment. Barriers include lacking culturally relevant education and Spanish language services.
Now a grant will help El Centro de Corazon and The Council on Recovery expand more services to this population.
“El Centro received a $600,000 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration to launch the next phase of our work together,” explained El Centro de Corazon CEO Marcie Mir.
That kind of funding can help people like Victor Alvarez regain control of their lives.
“When I was 30-years-old, that’s when I started drinking a lot more,” Alvarez said.
He asked doctors and psychiatrists for help with his addiction to alcohol but never found the right help.
“I wanted to meet someone who looked more like me, what I was doing. Right. Like who is professional or, you know, it’s because I didn’t know that that existed and I didn’t know I didn’t know anyone who was in recovery,” Alvarez said. “I didn’t know any other path other than what I had tried and that didn’t work and so the last time I went to detox, I was open to anything because by that time it was either I got to do something or I’m going to die.”
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Alvarez did eventually get the specialty treatment he needed and now wants others to know that recovery is possible.
“It’s been ten years of sobriety today. My kids were younger, but our relationship, especially with my oldest son, was not the best, right? And that’s taken me years to kind of fix that. Today I have an incredible and open relationship with my kids. We do things together. We play pickleball together. We go shoot skeet together, you know, and we work together,” Alvarez explained. “I always say I get to live my dream life.”
Through this grant, the council will provide technical assistance, staff training and outpatient treatment services on-site for El Centro de Corazon patients. Mir said they haven’t had any real substance abuse treatment programs in the East End, so this is really exciting for their patients.