Pubdate: Sat, 24 Jun 2006
Source: Reno Gazette-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2006 Reno Gazette-Journal
Contact: http://www.rgj.com/helpdesk/news/letter-to-editor.php
Website: http://www.rgj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/363
Author: Alex Newman
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?143 (Hepatitis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that 
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

'I HAD A GOOD LIFE ... I JUST SNAPPED'

After 12 years of sobriety, Tom Ruble left an Alcoholics Anonymous 
meeting one Monday night in 1994, walked to downtown Honolulu and 
bought crack cocaine.

"Nothing in particular was going on," said Ruble, now a youth 
counselor in Reno. "I was busy. I had a good job, a nice life. I just snapped."

A week later, Ruble, who had a master's degree in social work, 
learned where to buy methamphetamine from a recovering addict in the 
treatment facility where he worked. He continued to use even as he 
worked as an adolescent counselor.

"Nobody knew," said Ruble, 53. "None of my bosses knew. I was voted 
the best counselor in my organization."

For about a year Ruble balanced meth binges with two-week detox 
periods to hide his drug use. Ruble said he would use until he was 
about to look bad. Then he would stop until his face and eyes 
returned to normal.

"I would get right to the edge when I couldn't do it anymore," Ruble 
said. "Looking ratty, uncontrollable behavior people notice. Keeping 
my appearances up, it was all about that."

Meth lures gay users

Methamphetamine is a more dangerous drug for the gay community 
because of the instant power the drug gives users, said Ruble, who 
has lived as an openly gay man since 1983.

"Gay people don't have real good self-esteem for all kinds of 
reasons," Ruble said. "One little hit of meth changes that for an 
instant. It's not like doing therapy or figuring out there's not 
really a problem and that you're not broken. It's a quick way to 
feeling like that, which is why people can become psychologically 
addicted so quickly."

Ruble was diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C in 1984. He attributes 
both to the drug lifestyle.

"Back then everybody shared needles," Ruble said. "It was the thing 
to do in our ritualistic community -- the whole process of obtaining 
and doing it and who handed it out and who fixed who. It was like a 
pecking order led by the craziest person."

After completing treatment in Hawaii, Ruble followed a friend to New 
York City in 1995 and found the meth scene there, too. Eventually, 
using the training he gained as a counselor, he and his partner were 
able to quit. He used for the last time in 2000.

Signs of meth in Reno

When he and his partner moved to Reno in December 2004, taking an 
apartment downtown on Fourth Street, he saw signs of Reno's meth 
problem right away.

"I'd watch what appeared to be drug deals at the bus station. I'd see 
the signs. The twitching and the physical look of people."

Somebody even knocked on the apartment door one night looking to buy drugs.

So now Ruble spends his Saturday afternoons sitting at A Rainbow 
Place, a gay community center, keeping the building open for a 
methamphetamine youth recovery group.

"The stories I hear are the stories I know," Ruble said. "The names 
have changed, the places have changed, but it's the same situation."

Today's drug more potent

Because group treatment helped Ruble beat his meth addiction and cope 
with HIV, he hopes to build a meth group at A Rainbow Place that can 
help others.

Ruble said the drug is even more frightening now than when it first 
appeared in the 1970s because crystal methamphetamine and a more 
complex chemical recipe have made the high more intense and the drug "dirtier."

"I think this (methamphetamine addiction) is one of those things we 
are trying to ignore," Ruble said. "That's a big deal nobody's 
talking about. People need to see it and address it, I think."

Since Ruble's program began in March, he's helped some people into 
recovery and talked with others about creating a support group out of 
the people in their lives. No one attends regularly yet and Ruble 
estimates he's met with five to 10 20-somethings who have come to A 
Rainbow Place looking for help.

So now he sits every Saturday and waits for them to come.

"I will continue to do that until the room is full," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman