A Salinas doctor tackles the monumental task of working with opiate addicts.

For 10 years, until 2010, Dr. Edgar Castellanos traveled to Guatemala for a couple of weeks every year with Helps International to provide no-cost medical care to impoverished villages. Castellanos has helped ease the pain of hundreds, who had lived for years with everything from hernias to infected abscesses. The Salinas-based doctor says he gets more out of the charitable work than the people he treats.

“I believe I need to help my neighbor, which is what drove me to [Guatemala],” he says. “What kept me going was a very selfish reason: I would get so much more of a blessing.”

For the last few years, Castellanos’ hands have been full with his children, so he hasn’t been able to do the Central America excursion, but he plans to start back up soon.

In the meantime, he’s been fulfilling his need to give back, volunteering – for 26 years total – with his wife Esther at a Christian summer camp in Yosemite that serves kids with emotional and behavioral problems.

Castellanos’ day job as a family practitioner who specializes in addiction has been equally meaningful. He tears up several times during a conversation at Door to Hope in Salinas.

About 20 years ago, Castellanos says he “accidentally” fell into the area of addiction treatment, specifically opiate addiction. While working in the emergency room at Natividad Medical Center, the county’s public safety net hospital, and part-time at the county jail, he saw the prevalence of addiction and wanted to help fight it from the front line. It was an uphill battle from the start.

“When I first started working in addiction, I used to think nobody got better,” Castellanos says. “But the longer you do it, you see people can get better and get the lives they deserve. That’s what motivates me.”

In 2012, the doctor opened a family practice on Laurel Avenue in Salinas. It’s unique in that addiction treatment is offered out of the same office.

“Because of the stigma that addiction has, I felt that I could also offer family medicine,” Castellanos explains. “You could go to any primary care office, and you won’t know who has a problem with addiction. If my practice was purely addiction treatment, it would’ve changed the flavor of what we wanted to accomplish. We want to de-stigmatize addiction.”

Castellanos consults with and treats clients of various county treatment programs, including Door to Hope, Sun Street Centers and Community Human Services. He’s also been medical director of the Off Main Clinic, which has provided methadone treatments for 20 years. Castellanos also manages to squeeze in pro-bono work. If a patient from one of the programs he consults with has medical issues in addition to addiction, he’ll get them started on whatever treatment they need.

“My life is blessed any time I get to volunteer my service,” Castellanos says. “You think you’re doing it for someone else, but you end up getting the biggest blessing out of it.”