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Trevor, a man with a white beard, smiling.
Trevor

“I believe personally that everybody can recover from active addiction, provided enough support.”

“A day in construction is like, Monday is tough enough, but by the time you get to Friday…at that time of my life, I was working six, seven days a week. In some ways you're proud of it because of the community you're with, but it doesn't take the pain away. It doesn't make the struggle less. There's still heavy things to lift. The weather is still going to beat on you. You're still going to find it very challenging. When I first entered the industry, I was young, I was 19 years old, I had a lot of stamina naturally, and I was very excited to be there. And then as the novelty wore off, it gets to be a real struggle. Instead of trying to stay awake at a desk, you're trying to move yourself to keep moving that lumber all day and stay bent over building walls or putting up that concrete or whatever it may be.”

“Some of the lessons I learned from my youth of being a tough guy and some of the stuff that was instilled in me in the construction industry led me into this place where I couldn't say no to things. And I was like, yeah, I'm the problem solver. I'm the guy that gets things done. I'm the leader. Put it on me, put it on me. And then my drug use really shifted at that point where it became less about blowing off steam and more about medicating myself to get through that stuff.”

“And then as the drug use got worse and worse, my situation in life got worse and worse. I started failing at work. The challenge is I didn't know what was me failing and I had no understanding of what was the drugs and my lifestyle.”

Trevor was able to reach out to his mom for support, and she helped him get into recovery.

“These days, I feel pretty good about myself, honestly. I'm really proud and I love myself through recovery. I think like a lot of addicts, we get into this real growth mindset, and I really loved the science behind who I am. I loved the understanding of psychologically where some of this trauma came from and what my response to it was. And I loved learning about that. We are such complicated creatures and we all suffer from the same ailment. We're human.”