Can I make mysqli functions return error codes instead of throwing exceptions?

I maintain a website, written in PHP a while back. Most of its functions rely on returning an error, instead of catching exceptions. Something like this:

(Note: something that was a perfectly accepted behavior in prior versions of PHP.)

$tbl_nm = "table_name";

$link = @mysqli_connect($HOSTNAME, $USERNAME, $PASSWD);
if($link !== false)
{
    if(@mysqli_select_db($link, $DBNAME))
    {
        $query = "CREATE TABLE `".$tbl_nm."` (".
            $COL_ID." INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, ".
            $COL_DATE." DATE, ".
            $COL_TIME." TIME, ".
            $COL_MSG." TINYTEXT".
            ")";
            
        $res = @mysqli_query($link, $query);     //** EXCEPTION RAISED HERE! **
        if($res === false)
        {
            if(mysqli_errno($link) != 1050)    //1050 - if table already exists
            {
                logMySQLErrorReport($link, "Error creating table");
            }
        }

        //....
    }
    else
    {
        logMySQLErrorReport($link, "Error setting db");
    }
}
else
{
    logMySQLErrorReport($link, "Error connecting");
}

Now, the shared host forced us to upgrade it to PHP 8.2. As a result the line that calls @mysqli_query instead of returning an error throws an exception:

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught mysqli_sql_exception: Table ‘table_name’ already exists

and the website doesn’t load.

Is there a setting to force it to return an error code instead of throwing an exception?

PS. There’s a lot of code like I showed above. I do not want to waste weeks re-writing it with the exception handling, as that language/PHP is pretty much dead to me (because of this exact behavior of its maintainers – when they introduce a radical change to something that was accepted just a few versions back.) I will never code anything in PHP ever again. I just want to make this site work without spending a month refactoring what was a perfectly working code.