God’s Angel of Mercy: An Inside View of a Crisis Manager
By Allen McQuarrie
Terry Livorsi is tethered to a telephone head set. As he answers one crisis telephone call, another rings at his receptionist’s desk. He checks off symptoms and medical census information. Terry is one of the small but elite band of benefactors who do this work. Away from his desk on the road, his beeper transmits urgent requests. Modern technology enables Terry to assist the distressed by car phone. All day, every day, Terry intervenes in the lives of alcoholics, drug dependent callers and people suffering from a range of mental health problems. With compassion, conviction and compelling conversations, Terry Livorsi employs his own past history as a guide to others in search of recovery.
These illnesses plague the lives of all those affected by the consequences. Rehabilitation is possible, Terry notes, “Callers must eventually admit the need to accept treatment. The doorway to recovery is often barred by denial.” It is Terry’s job to help his clients see the damage the disease is causing and to learn about the hope, help, happiness and, health that others successfully pursued. As an intervention specialist, he stresses alternatives, assertively spells out the truth and discusses consequences of a failure to admit defeat due to excessive alcohol or drug use.
Many call his office urgently seeking assistance: family members, loved ones, friends, bosses, employees, and union members. All levels of society are affected. Terry Livorsi testified at an arbitration on behalf of a custodian recently. He advised that this employee and his employer would benefit if the janitor returned to work “fit for duty after rehabilitation.” On one of his typical evenings, the wife of a worried company chief executive officer reaches out for assistance. Terry helped her transport her husband to a nearby detoxification center in-treatment facility.
People confide in him at church, in shops along Main Street in the town where he lives, at the gym, over dinner at restaurants and at homes or offices where those who suffer live and work. At times he brings his Chocolate Labrador Retriever along. Stasha’s loving eyes, patient and friendly demeanor soothe the distressed while Terry makes the calls to obtain necessary clearance for admissions. Stasha is a helpful companion. During the first steps to recovery, her presence often quiets a chorus of distracting inner voices urging the patient to quit commitment to rehabilitation.
Many accept help and do recover. Some fail. Their inevitable self-destructive fate is clear. Terry anonymously references to past situations. “It seems impossible for some to deal with the truth. The rationalizations sound very important to the patient at the time. It is only in recovery that we are able to laugh at ourselves. We recall all the excuses we used to avoid getting help.” The core symptom of the illness, Terry asserts, is pernicious denial. “Inevitably, the patient tries to avoid treatment despite the consequences of delay being so catastrophic. Self-deception in these cases supports a serious flaw. Delay might be fatal.”
Many expressed gratitude to Terry for investing the professional care, time and effort it requires to intervene. It takes a strong personality with a commitment to competing with a powerful, cunning and baffling adversary to do this kind of work. Men, women and teens have tried to convince Terry they can abstain if they want to and “promise to cut back” on their drug of choice, if necessary, “without rehabilitation.” Terry’s philosophy is simply stated “Anyone can discover serenity and peace when they start on a true pathway to recovery.” He knows because he has been there himself. Perhaps that is what makes him able to be present and willing to help those whom others have abandoned. Terry wades through the emotional turbulence and feelings of his clients. His optimism is an article of faith. He brings with him the confidence that he built over years of dealing with rewarding successes and poignant failures.
Cutting through that clatter of the mind, symptomatic of those in crisis, he patiently takes the most distressed people through the steps that must be embarked upon to get the relief the recovery they sorely crave. Terry Livorsi is truly God’s gifted angel of mercy and a recovery messenger. “Successes prove the alternative works for those who work it.” Terry has the stamina, the inclination and, the training to deal with cases others might reject. He has a talent for counseling emotionally charged family members, helping the afflicted breach their denial of substance dependence and aiding those who urgently seek to benefit from compassionate intervention.