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."