Curate Los Angeles with: David Alvarez

What is your name? David Alvarez

What is the most interesting fact about yourself? I think that I am a team player, that I am able to adapt and that I am also a good father that has been through adversity and has overcome it.

How long have you lived in Los Angeles? I have been in Los Angeles for fifty-four years. 

I was born in the general hospital in downtown Los Angeles and I have lived in Pico Rivera for the majority of my life until around the age of thirty-eight. 

I have been incarcerated for twelve years of my life and have been in five rehabs, I have also been homeless for about ten years. 

I went to high school in Pico Rivera, El Rancho High, and I played a lot of sports, anything from football to basketball. 

At the age of thirteen, I started to use drugs, pot, which was not socially acceptable for that age. 

My addiction took over when I was playing football in high school, but I was able to graduate high school in 1987.

After graduating high school, I started to work construction where I would unload trucks, and for that job I was called the swapper. 

When I was eighteen, I started to use cocaine, and then around the age of twenty, I started to use crack and amphetamines. All of this while continuing to smoke more marijuana and drink alcohol, everything in-between. 

At the age of twenty-two, I had a son and then I had a daughter at the age of twenty-four.

My addiction really started to take over when I would start causing problems at home. So because I was a mess at home, I became homeless and would go from couch to car, to the side of a building. You know, I would just go around and stay where I needed to stay. 

Growing up and being around addiction was tough so it did not really bother me too much to be homeless as long as I had drugs: being homeless was never a problem. 

Somehow I was able to have a job for a while, primarily landscaping, but if I missed work I would make up a nice story and would be allowed to continue to work. 

Around the age of forty-four, I was living in a river bed for about a year. And towards the end of that one year, I had two small children: one was six months old, and the other was four months old. DPS got involved and they took my daughter and I was still homeless. They wanted me to go through programs to get my head right, which was treatment. 

I went to treatment and I heard some stuff from people that would come and speak on panels. One of the biggest things that hit me was: ‘a definition of a bottom could be when that next thing you are about to lose is not worth that next drink or pill,,’ and that was my ‘ah-ha’ moment. 

For the last nine years it has been difficult, but I have been sober. But because of all the uncertainty, and struggles of not thinking like I once did, having to recalibrate myself, has been challenging. 

But my accomplishments are something that I would say that I am proud of. 

In sobriety, I have been able to obtain housing for a while. I also had my own apartment for about five years, and was also able to get custody of my two small children who were then two and seven years old. I have also been able to get my record expunged, and I have been able to consistently be employed for the last eight out of the nine years. 

I have gone back to college where I am studying Substance Abuse Disorder [counseling]. I have also been able to purchase a home, and several cars. But I have also been able to focus on my recovery. 

What are your hobbies? Now that I recently got a house, it has been maintaining my yard. 

What are you reading and watching? I usually watch a lot of crime shows. And I read my college textbooks, whatever it is for school. 

What is a phrase or mentality that you try to live by? ‘No matter what.’ 

I know that no matter what I am going through, no matter what I think, that it's going to be alright. 

Where is your favorite Los Angeles morning hangout spot? At home 

Where is your favorite Los Angeles evening hangout spot? Either a recovery meeting or at home. 

How would you describe Los Angeles? It is very big, very exciting but sometimes dangerous. But it is also home. 

How would Los Angeles describe you? Sometimes dangerous, sometimes unpredictable. But yet, a pillar of the community.