METH MEMORIES HORRIFY

Former Addict Lived Fast Until She Crashed

Dressed in a strappy white top snug against her tall, supermodel-thin
frame, Lisa turned heads as she made her customary and glamourous
post-midnight entrance into one of Calgary's after-hours dance clubs.

At least she thinks they did -- she was on crystal meth at the time.

"I thought I was living the life because I always had guys on both arms,"
said the 18-year-old.

Fuelled by free doses of meth, Lisa could stay awake from Friday night
until Sunday afternoon, enjoying a non-stop weekend of dancing.

Police say crystal meth is readily available in Calgary and, as Lisa
experienced here and in Edmonton, it's astonishingly free for teenage girls.

"If I looked anywhere else, there were girls just like me," said Lisa, who
was 15 when she started using meth in Edmonton and then in Calgary.

While other teenagers were having sleepovers and splurging at suburban
shopping malls, Lisa was spending her weekends binging on the toxic
home-cooked drug in the company of pimps, addicts and organized criminals.

Now sober and clean after many months at the Alberta Adolescent Recovery
Centre, Lisa's narrow escape from the world she once thought glamorous is
inspiring her to speak candidly about the grimy life of a teenage crystal
meth user.

The overnight social scene draws a crush of young people liberated from the
rules of convention -- dancing past dawn to DJs and some sneaking off to
the bathroom for a quick bump, or snort, of meth, she says.

Between midnight and daylight, crystal meth dealers and users fall in step
with ease.

Knowing her usual light-coloured clothing was alluringly aglow under
danceclub black lights, the early-morning hours Lisa spent with older men
and new friends slipped past like the sunrise.

"I remember looking at my watch and saying, whoa, eight hours just flew by."

Meeting people was easy, especially older guys. Scoring other common club
drugs, including Special K (ketamine), ecstasy, and even GHB -- the
so-called date-rape drug -- was effortless.

"They ask if you want to go to the bathroom to get high," she said.

And so it began -- but Lisa's free ride ended when the older men who were
treating her to hits of drugs for months started demanding payment through
money or sex.

Sell drugs or be sold. Her choice.

As a runaway from a good family who left school in Grade 7 with her only
goal to stay high, Lisa quickly learned the pimps from the players. A
talented con, she says she figured out how to keep scoring without
prostitution -- she became best friends with a dealer and used her for drugs.

Eventually, she graduated to drug running and dealing small amounts, even
jacking customers by getting the $80 up front and sneaking out the back.

At her worst, with no money and no score, she was begging for a hit.

"I was a fiend. I would just beg people, 'Please give me a hoot.' "

At the height of her addiction, Lisa remembers smoking two grams of meth,
$160 worth, each day. "I had a pipe in my mouth every minute of the day."

Unable to sleep or eat, the five-foot-10 teen became grotesquely skinny at
98 pounds.

"It was just horrible," she said, describing the flop house she lived in,
sometimes so high she was oblivious to the stream of people coming and going.

The household chemicals used to cook the drug -- drain cleaner, paint
thinner, solvent and cold medicine -- began leaking out of her small body.

She remembers hopping into the shower a few times a day on the way down
from a high. Her skin always felt like the bottom of a well-used boot.

"I really hated myself. I kept using it to try and take away those feelings."

She kept in touch with her parents, who lived outside Calgary, through
brief, one-sentence telephone calls.

"I'd say 'I'm still alive,' and hold the phone away from my ear so I didn't
have to hear my mom's voice."

Fifteen months ago, after Lisa hit bottom, her mother drove her to AARC,
where she was committed to months of treatment.

Now, for the first time since Grade 7, she has true friends, mostly from rehab.

Bravely, she's making significant strides toward regaining control over her
life by going to school and applying for jobs.

"I don't think there's anybody out there who can try it once and not get
hooked," she said.