Pubdate: Sun, 04 Jun 2006
Source: Great Falls Tribune (MT)
Copyright: 2006 Great Falls Tribune
Contact: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2502
Author: Kim Skornogoski
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

ADDICTION HARD TO FIGHT

Amanda Dunnington has six teeth left.

Not long ago, the 25-year-old was homeless, sleeping in  basements 
with spiders and digging in garbage bins  food. Her son and daughter 
were taken away from her.  Bruises from plunging needles into her 
legs and chest  covered her body.

Methamphetamine does that to people.

"If I would have had any idea ... I never would have  dreamed of 
doing it," she said. "It gets to the point  where you think you have 
to have it to stay alive. You  feel like you're dying."

Despite such horror tales, people still pump the toxic  mix of 
fertilizer, Drano, hydrochloric acid and cold  pills into their 
bodies. It's mind-boggling to folks  who don't use it.

Addiction isn't easy to explain or understand, says  Roger Curtiss, 
clinical manager at Gateway Recovery  Center.

"People ask why would anyone fathom the idea of trying  it?" he said. 
"Most people understand that smoking a  cigarette or chewing tobacco 
will shorten their lives.  Even though they know that in their head, 
they'll still  smoke.

"It's the same with meth. They say 'it's not going to  happen to me. 
I can handle it, just like I can handle  beer.'"

But methamphetamine isn't beer; it isn't even cocaine.  The stimulant 
produces a high that lasts 8 to 12 hours,  as much as four times as 
long as cocaine.

Few can turn away from it.

A 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported  that 12 
million Americans had used meth in their  lifetime -- 600,000 of them 
in the past month.

That's 4 percent of the population. Focus in on teens  and young 
adults, and those percentages go up.

In a 2005 Montana Youth Risk Behavior study, 8.3  percent of teens 
admitted to using meth, compared with  7.6 percent nationally. 
Roughly one in every six teens  and one-third of young adults said 
they were offered  meth in the last year.

'Profoundly addicting'

There are many reasons people try meth. It helps them  stay awake, it 
gives them energy, it causes them to  lose weight, it enhances sex, 
and the high is very  powerful.

Unlike some other drugs, as many women as men use meth.  And among 
teens, it doesn't seem to matter if their  parents are poor or middle class.

Experts say three common threads appear at the heart of  most meth 
use: low self-esteem, depression and drinking  and smoking pot.

Dr. Dan Nauts, director of Benefis Addiction Treatment  Center, said 
many of the people he treats suffered some  kind of trauma.

They shut down and are never really happy. Meth is  their escape. It 
releases a surge of dopamine in the  brain's pleasure center.

UCLA researchers measured the dopamine released when  people ate 
chocolate, smoked a cigarette, had sex and  used cocaine.

Meth packs a pleasure punch that's four times more  powerful than the 
next strongest stimulant, cocaine,  and is six to seven times 
stronger than an orgasm.

"That's why it's so profoundly addicting," Nauts said.  "The sense of 
pleasure is so far beyond anything  they've experienced."

'Losing my life'

Steeped in depression from a divorce, Mike Dunnington's  partying 
lifestyle led him to many different drugs. One  was meth.

That was the early 1990s, before the anti-meth  advertising campaigns 
and prior to police cracking down  on the drug.

"I liked it. I really enjoyed the high," the  43-year-old retired 
military cop said. "Coming down was  so hard. I didn't want to ever 
come down. It's a fast  track to self-destruction."

Like many people, he confined his meth use to weekends  for the first 
few months. But it wasn't long before he  couldn't wait until Friday 
night, and he couldn't get  up to go to work on Monday without a hit.

Within nine months, he lost his towing business and his  home. He 
worked to pay for meth and then would  disappear for days seeped in the high.

"I ended up losing my life," he said.

He overdosed twice, the second time waking up in a  hospital to see 
his crying friend -- that was his  wake-up call.

Years of sobriety later, he met and married Amanda, who  had been 
through her own cycle with meth.

Curtiss sees low self-esteem as the common  characteristic in most meth users.

"People who have high self-esteem wouldn't even think  about doing 
that. Why would I put something in my body  that would influence me 
that way?" he said.

When people imagine an addict, they see a skid-row bum  and tell 
themselves that they would never let it go  that far. Just like the 
Montana Meth Project ads --  they're not going to be like that guy.

"People can say, 'I'm going to be the one that tries it  and walks 
away,'" Curtiss said.

'I knew I was hooked'

Both Curtiss and Nauts warn that no matter how  logically a person 
approaches meth when sober, alcohol  and marijuana can lower their 
inhibitions enough for  them to try it.

That was the case for Vance LeDeau.

By the time he tried meth at age 15, he was smoking pot daily.

He'd seen meth users and was scared. One addict was  pointing a gun 
at someone and talking like a crazy man.

But then his friend came to school high on meth, saying  he stayed up 
all night drawing.

"I thought that doesn't sound too bad," LeDeau said. He  tried his 
first quarter gram behind a business on 10th  Avenue South. Two hours 
later he had his second hit.

"It was a head rush. I felt awake and aware. Tingly all over."

At first he only used meth on weekends. Before long, he  needed a 
bump to wake up enough for school on Mondays.

He was skeleton thin, dropping from 224 pounds to 150.

LeDeau, now 18, sold drugs to buy more drugs. And he stole.

"It's really powerful," he said. "I would have dreams  that I was 
smoking (meth) and I would wake up with  nothing in my hand. That's 
when I knew I was hooked."

When his girlfriend got pregnant, he cleaned up for a  few months, 
only to start again shortly after his  daughter was born. It was when 
the Department of Family  Services got involved that he finally 
decided to get  his life together .

His last hit was Oct. 10, 2005, the day before he  started treatment. 
He works full time, lives in the  Agape Youth Center and is planning 
for college -- he  wants to be a detective.

'Total loss of control'

LeDeau didn't realize he was hooked until it was too late.

Curtiss said that's typical of addiction. People try  it, like it and 
try it again to chase that first great  high. But it's not quite as 
good the second time, so  they try it again.

"People do not realize they are addicted -- it comes in  stages," 
Curtiss said. "They've stepped over the line  and don't realize it."

That's why the meth-prevention campaign slogan "Not  Even Once" is 
more true for meth than any other  substance, Nauts said.

Researchers don't know how many people try it and walk  away, because 
those aren't the people who end up in  jail or in treatment, where 
they get counted.

The national survey showing that 600,000 people used  meth in the 
last year also reported that more than half  of them are hooked. That 
number more than doubled  between 2002 and 2004.

In 2005, more than 1,200 meth addicts were admitted  into Montana's 
state-approved treatment providers  compared with roughly 700 in 2000.

"Yes there are people who have experimented with  methamphetamine and 
not gone into full-blown  addiction," Nauts said. "But the risks are 
so much  higher. The people I work with all speak to literally  first 
use, total loss of control.

"Why would you take the risk and even try and do this  drug once?"

While you can find people who smoke pot on weekends and  still get 
good grades in college, you won't find their  equivalent among meth users.

Slow or fast, the drug takes hold and destroys lives.

'There is light'

For a decade, the images in the ads were Amanda  Dunnington's reality.

Her mom gave her that first hit at age 13. She figured  that if her 
daughter used, she couldn't tell police. By  14, Amanda had a needle 
in her arm.

Throughout her teens and early 20s, she used meth off  and on -- off 
when she landed in jail or another  corrections program, then on 
after she was released and  with her family again.

She cooked and sold meth to support her habit. She  landed in jail, 
and her son was placed in his paternal  grandparents' care.

Two years later she was with Mike. But he took away her  newborn 
daughter when her pot use slipped once again to  meth.

She still hadn't hit bottom.

Amanda ripped out her hair and her eyebrows. She began  imagining 
that she was being followed, noting license  plate numbers of other 
cars at stop signs. She thought  she saw a helicopter flying above 
her car and would  drive for miles to escape it.

"I knew I had a problem. I knew what coming off it felt  like. The 
drug was stronger than my will."

Eventually she got treatment through the prison system  and has been 
clean for more than a year.

She has dentures and liver problems. She battled cancer  and wonders 
whether it was related to her meth use. Her  son remains with his 
paternal grandparents.

But Amanda also has a job and a new baby after  reuniting with her 
husband and now 4 1/2-year-old  daughter Mikayla.

"I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel, but  there is 
light," she said. "I think Mike and I are  living proof of that."
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