Ted Benavidez is using his own life experiences to help make a difference as the Mayor of Pecos.
Benavidez, an admitted drug addict with a criminal record, is in his second term as mayor, fighting to rid his town of a drug epidemic that once engulfed him.
“Everybody saw me running around town drunk and on drugs and lost and not eating for days and showing up, and I was already an embarrassment,” Benavidez told KOB 4. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about right now. I already lived that life.”
It was a life that looked in serious trouble at one point. One of 13 children, Benavidez was born and raised in Pecos. After serving in the Marines, he returned home and soon found himself on the wrong side of the law. He started snorting cocaine and then crack. He was arrested for DWI on multiple occasions and was homeless for periods.
“The rock bottom of my use was waking up at the psychiatric ward of the VA hospital smelling like gasoline, not remembering what I had done to myself,” Benavidez told KOB. “I supposedly put gas on myself and I was trying to light myself on fire.”
While having a criminal record might detour some from running for public office, Benavidez is an open book. He first ran for mayor after his mother died in 2018 looking to help people struggling with their own addictions and issues. Today, he deals with those impacted by the wildfires that devastated the state.
“Being part of the solution after being part of the problem is what I want to do,” he told KOB 4. “People out there know that if you have a problem, or you know somebody that has a problem, if they call me I will go out of my way. If that individual calls and says ‘mayor I’m on drugs can you come visit me real quick, I will go over there, I’ll go out of my way, I’ll take that person to have a cup of coffee with them. I’m not going to be one that’s going to buy them drugs to get by. If I have to sit there while they go through their withdrawals."
