Pubdate: Thu, 29 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/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

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.

'HOW COULD I LET IT GET THAT BAD?'

Lynda Sherard was diagnosed with HIV just hours after she begged Reno 
police officers to arrest her in Rancho San Rafael Park in February 2005.

Washoe County Jail officials sent her to Washoe Medical Center before 
booking her for possession of a stolen vehicle -- her dealer's car 
that she was living out of -- and admitted her after the diagnosis.

But that wasn't the worst of it.

"I went to jail and they gave me some more tests and the lady comes 
back and she's like, 'You know you're not just HIV-positive, you're 
full-blown AIDS,'" Sherard, 32, said. "That's what she said."

Sherard weighed 79 pounds and had a T-cell count of 23. A healthy 
person without HIV has more than 1,000 T-cells; someone with 
full-blown AIDS has below 400. She had developed thrush, a yeast 
infection in the mouth, typically a symptom of someone with advanced AIDS.

"If I hadn't been detained, I probably would be dead now," said 
Sherard, who has not used methamphetamine since May 5, 2005. "You're 
out using this stuff and you just don't really care and you don't 
really think about it, until the next thing you know, I'm 79 pounds, 
I'm sick and my hair was falling out."

While in the jail infirmary, Sherard gained weight with extra 
portions and shakes. About a month after her arrest, a guard showed 
her the mug shot taken when she was booked. Her face is deathly thin 
and pale, her white-blond hair in disarray and her eyes barely open, 
her head tilted back at an unnatural angle.

"They printed it out and made me look at it," Sherard said. "I'm 
like, oh my gosh.You just don't see it until you really see it. And 
then when I saw it, I'm just like 'Oh my gosh.' How could I let it 
get that bad?'"

Sharing her story

She carries her photos -- one healthy picture from 2001 when she'd 
first moved to Reno from Washington, and the photo from Feb. 18, 2005 
- -- with her, tucked in a worn book.

"For me, it's chilling even today to see it," said Sherard, who looks 
nothing like either mug shot today.

Now she shares the photos and her story through the Northern Nevada 
HOPES, a local AIDS clinic, trying to educate others about the 
disease that nearly killed her and the drug that gave it to her.

Sherard twice shared needles to inject methamphetamine and she's sure 
she contracted the virus that way. When she was high, Sherard liked 
to draw with markers and didn't engage in any unsafe sex because she 
was married.

"Meth and HIV are really complicated because people who have HIV are 
really tired and sick a lot," Sherard said. "When they do 
methamphetamines, it gives them energy. It's like a false sense of 
being healthy. So it's like meth and HIV are old-time partners and 
they get together and they work together to destroy you."

Life as a tweaker

Sherard came to Reno in 2001. All of Sherard's eight children had 
been taken from her because of her substance abuse problems and she 
moved from Washington to clean up.

But in Reno, she found the same kind of people and tumbled into the 
Reno meth scene.

Sherard knew how to cook meth and met up with people in motel rooms 
on Fourth Street to make the drug. She sold the recipes to people in 
exchange for meth.

"It's a vicious cycle," she said. "You get it and you sell it so you 
can make more money so you can get more so you can sell it to get more money."

When her addiction began, Sherard had a place to live. By the end, 
she was homeless without any friends or a place to go.

Her husband was arrested and cleaned up in jail. He left her when she 
wouldn't get sober, but they were later reunited after Sherard quit using.

"People used to say, 'what do you do?'" Sherard said. "And I used to 
say, 'I get high.' That's all I did was get high. That was my goal 
for the whole day and night. And I would stay up and stay up and stay 
up and stay up."

She helped other users steal copper from industrial Sparks to get 
money for meth. She crashed in motel rooms with broken lighters and 
spoons all over the floor, holding her backpack that held everything 
she owned: clothes, a little flashlight, makeup and markers so she 
could draw when she was high.

"It's really embarrassing when I sit back and think about it," she 
said. "You're so far down and you're walking down Fourth Street and 
you're out of dope, you got nowhere to go and you're carrying a bag 
and everything you own is in this bag. It's really lonely and it's 
really scary and it's really devastating."

Getting clean

Sherard pleaded guilty to stealing the car and used the time in jail 
as "dry time."

She went through a 28-day rehab program at Bristlecone and hasn't used since.

"You have to just keep coming back and doing it," she said. 
"Especially for meth, I think you have to be sober at least six 
months to come out of the fog. Then like almost a year, that's when 
you really start to live life.

For Sherard, who first used meth at age 13, that means learning how 
to cook and clean and do "normal things." She has a place to live and 
she's not paranoid about opening the door or the window.

"Having dinner every night, that's a new thing," she said. "It's a 
whole new way to live right now and I've never lived that way before."

She has a typed speech she reads when she talks at recovery programs 
or AIDS meetings. It tells her story about the ravages of meth and 
how she contracted HIV.

After her talks, people always ask how long she is going to live and 
if having HIV scares her into staying sober. Recovering addicts, 
usually people with one or two months of clean time, tell her about 
their progress.

Her T-cell count is above 400 and she just started a small business 
with her husband. She thinks she's ready to find a full-time job 
because her health has returned.

Sherard said if someone had meth right in front of her and offered 
her some, she could say no.

"It's a choice for me now," Sherard said. "When you are so far down 
there, it's not a choice. Today, it's a choice for me."
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman