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.