Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”
By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services
The man cheated on his wife. He is violent, angry, bitter, and aggressive. He’s mad, has no hope, and blames everybody.
“Most of society would see him as a monster,” says the gentleman in which the man confides. “Most would see him as a problem – that he needs to be buried underneath the jail.”
But the listener isn’t “most of society.” He hears the man tell stories about violence and alcoholism, and his dad beating him every night. There was sexual abuse. Exposure to pornography at a young age. He was given drugs by his parents. He grew up just trying to survive.
The gentleman continues to listen, not judge. He and the man talk through each issue.
“He learned why he did those things. He starts to forgive himself and accept Jesus’ forgiveness. He starts to make amends. He treats his wife differently. He gets into group therapy. He goes to church.
And the gentleman is pleased.
“It’s amazing. It brings hope to me. It’s why I do what I do.”
Clint Davis, owner of Clint Davis Counseling and Integrative Wellness, told me this story – and his story – during breakfast (Clint’s busy schedule didn’t allow for lunch on this day) at First Watch in Shreveport. Clint had avocado toast, eggs, and coffee. I enjoyed French Toast, a side of buttery grits, and a glass of orange juice over ice.
“What I say about people, I believe. They’re worthy. They’re valuable. They deserve love.”
When Clint hears someone’s story, depending on the trauma, there’s a chance he’s lived it. The 41-year-old is a son of divorced parents. Around the age of 10, Clint experienced sexual trauma. As a member of the Louisiana National Guard, he spent nine months as a combat engineer in Afghanistan, clearing land mines. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Clint was deployed to the Superdome.
“Katrina was worse than Afghanistan.”
Clint’s wife, Jacie, had several miscarriages during COVID. One of their two sons had a food allergy which kept him from eating and sleeping the better part of two years. The couple, coming up on 15 years of marriage, had to sell their house and a car to make ends meet. Going to children’s hospitals and specialists seeking help is expensive.
“I had been through close to the same things (as some of my clients), and I had worked through them in therapy.”
Yes, counselors have counselors.
“I had a practical and personal understanding, and I had a lot of empathy.”
But from the time Clint agreed to tell me his story, there was one question I wanted to ask. What in the world is it like to listen to these sometimes horrific and heart-breaking accounts day after day?
“When I’m in the therapy seat, it doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t overwhelm me. It’s not like, ‘My gosh, I can’t believe this happened.’ Sometimes when I’m home, or when I’m in my truck on the way home, it’s overwhelming – the sadness and the grief. So, you cry about it. You call other therapists, you call your friends, you call your pastor, and you talk through those things privately.”
Born in Alexandria, Clint spent his childhood in Mansfield and Deville, and went to high school in Alexandria. As his grades showed, Clint was never big on school. He had several family members who served in the military, so as a high school junior, Clint signed up with the National Guard. After graduation, it was straight to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.
“The second week of basic training was 9-11. I was on the rifle range learning how to shoot by AR-15, and the towers got hit. Everything kind of changed after that.”
Not long after, the fresh-faced 20-year-old was putting up walls to protect Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
“There were bombs (from a previous war) that were stuck in the ground that you would have to dig out and pull out.”
When Clint came back home, he wasn’t in a good place.
“(There was) a lot of drinking and partying. Just trying to forget about what we had been through. Some drugs at the time, but not much. Just dabbling here and there with people, depending on who had what.”
But it took a “full-blown meltdown at my mom’s house” to get Clint into counseling – with a Christian counselor.
“That helped me understand what was going on, and that I had some trauma. That’s the first time I really understood mental health, or anything like that.”
In 2005, Clint’s mental health would be challenged again. Not overseas, but in his home state.
“Name something that people would do to each other, and they were doing it to one another in the Superdome. It was insane. Lots of dead bodies. Lots of kids getting stolen. Lots of violence and fights and weapons. For the seven days we were there, it was the wild, wild west.”
There were media reports that a man jumped off the Superdome and committed suicide. Clint says that’s not what happened.
“The truth was that a group of people grabbed him and threw him off, because he wouldn’t stop trying to catch kids.”
After four months doing cleanup in The Big Easy, his experience wasn’t easy to forget.
“When I got back, I was really disassociated, really traumatized from seeing the worst of humanity, and the worst of our government, the system, the weather. And all that was three hours from where I grew up.”
But that’s also when Clint began dating Jacie.
“That was when the healing really started coming. I started getting healthier. I stopped drinking. I stopped going out. I got back into church. I started changing my life. The Lord (changed my life.)”
In a much better place, Clint hitched his car to a loaded-up U-Haul, and along with his dog Layla, headed for California and the Fuller Theological Seminary.
“Everybody told me not to go. Every single person in my life (except his mom and one friend) said, ‘This is a bad decision. This is a bad financial decision. You’re never going to make any money. You’re never going to have a private practice. You’re going to work for other people your whole life, and never pay this off.”
16 years and a master’s degree in Marriage and Family later, Clint has proven “everybody” wrong. He has a thriving, three-location practice with 28 counselors and social workers. Clint is also the author of Building Better Bridges, a book about helping people heal from their childhood.
Knowing Clint had several patients to see – there are a lot of broken people who need help – I asked my final question. As always, what is it about his story that might be beneficial to others?
“No matter what you’ve gone through, no matter the circumstances, Jesus is telling a story with your life about how good he is. About how he wants to reconcile and restore all things to him. That happens in relationships, with addiction, and with trauma. It happens with families. We may not see all of that in this life, but the reality is that nothing is too bad that you can’t overcome it with counseling and community.”
As Clint Davis proves each day.
Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.