Pubdate: Thu, 03 Apr 2003
Source: Springfield News-Leader (MO)
Copyright: 2003 The Springfield News-Leader
Contact:  http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1129
Author: Sarah Overstreet, Ozarks columnist
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT HELPS BREAK METHAMPHETAMINE BOND

In the parking lot of Fire Station No. 8 Friday night, headlights caught 
the silhouettes of two women: one, with three feet of curly chestnut brown 
hair, hugged a shorter brunette: "If you're afraid, come in with us," the 
taller woman pleaded. "We'll drive you home."

The shorter woman had tried to walk home when a car began following her. 
"Please," the taller woman, Teresa Dillard, said, "let us drive you home." 
The other woman wouldn't budge, but with a hug from Dillard, she promised 
she would come in if she felt threatened. Dillard went inside. Time to 
rescue others.

Inside the station's community room was the cleanest-cut group of people 
you could picture: Dillard, her face radiant, wearing a T-shirt and jeans; 
Jesse Wyatt, his blond hair in a crew cut, adjusting his boombox to play 
the new worship CD he'd brought; his little girl scooting around the room 
playing, and his mother, Tracy Essick, helping Dillard arrange flyers, 
posters and books on a table; and a couple who asked that their names not 
be used, because they didn't want their kids identified. Their daughter and 
son had been methamphetamine addicts.

They gathered, as they do every Friday, Bibles in hands, for a calling 
Dillard has: Reach out. Save the others. Someone threw a lifeline to her, 
she believes, and God showed her what the experts don't know:

Meth ain't your ordinary dope, your ordinary high. With its web of 
gathering and mixing poisons, the power trip it brings to the "cook," the 
promises of riches and control unmatched in jobs the cook has tried before, 
meth becomes a form of sorcery - inviting demons to invade the user's life.

Dillard's life is chilling testimony. She believes her freedom came from 
the recognition that she was the pawn of demons. Her story reads like 
something out of Stephen King.

"It was a different demon with every different batch of meth," says 
Dillard, a calm, pretty 40-year-old with whom it's hard to reconcile the 
monster she says she was. "One batch, all I'd want to do is steal - not 
things I wanted, they weren't even things I needed."

"Another batch, all I thought about was perverted sex." That, too, wasn't 
something she wanted before becoming a meth addict soon after her 20th 
birthday, she says.

"I've been in rehabs, mental institutions, prison, nothin' worked for me," 
she says. She'd get out of rehab and head to a bar. She became a Christian 
and on the day she was baptized, she got high.

It wasn't until she violated parole and went to prison that something 
changed. A friend sent her a book by Steve Box, an ex-meth dealer turned 
evangelist who's dedicated himself to pulling addicts out of the muck that 
eludes conventional law enforcement and therapists.

"I realized I was under demonic possession," Dillard says now. "I had 
prayed to be delivered from drugs, but then I prayed to be delivered from 
the possession. I was still craving meth, and I'd been in prison for a year 
and a half, but from that moment on, I've never craved it."

Since her parole from prison, Dillard has been sponsored by the Springfield 
chapter of Praise Keepers, a nonprofit Christian organization that reaches 
out to women in need.

With their help, she started a ministry to reach out to meth addicts. At 
6:30 p.m. Saturday, she and her support group will hold their first 
Survivors Against Meth rally at Faith Assembly of God, 3001 W. Division St. 
Box will be guest speaker and interpretation for the deaf will be provided.

"I tried everything," Dillard said. "This is the only thing that worked for 
me."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom