ALL CHELSEA WANTED TO KNOW WAS HOW TO DO DRUGS BETTER

Nothing Could Have Kept Chelsea Trites From Trying Drugs.

When speakers came to school to warn kids about drugs, Chelsea ignored the
message and listened for how to use drugs better.

A nice girl, from a nice Coquitlam family with "two totally loving parents"
and grandparents, Chelsea craved drugs and acceptance.

"Growing up I never felt I fit in. I always felt different. When I used
drugs, I had people around and we had something in common."

The irony is that now -- eight years after she smoked her first joint --
Chelsea is one of those speakers warning about drugs. She'll tell her story
tonight as part of a Richmond forum called Crystal Meth: Voices of Truth.

Crystal methamphetamine use is rising in B.C. and Canada and Chelsea's
story isn't unique, with the exception, perhaps, of the happy ending.

Chelsea started smoking cigarettes at nine, drinking and smoking pot by 12.
By 13, she'd dropped out of school and was using crack and anything else
put in front of her.

By 15, she'd been in and out of the youth detention centre, foster care and
an alternative school. At 16, her boyfriend's friend gave her some crystal
meth or speed. By 17, Chelsea was using speed regularly.

"It was my favourite, because it helped me do my job better. It helped me
work fast and stay up and do all the things that I thought I needed to get
done."

For about a year, Chelsea bused tables in restaurants, snorting meth
because it made it easier to hide her addiction. She often went three days
at a stretch without sleeping. After one binge, Chelsea showed up late for
work and desperate for more speed. Since she couldn't get meth delivered to
the restaurant, Chelsea quit the job, not speed.

"The difference between speed and other drugs is the mental effects. The
psychosis and paranoia . . . . What really scared me was the psychosis. I
thought people were trying to kill me, kill my family. It was painful,
painful stuff."

Crystal meth recreates the body's adrenaline system, activating serotonin
and dopamine production both inside and outside brain cells. Those, in
turn, work on the pleasure centres of the brain, producing the high that
can quickly turn into hallucinations, paranoia and psychosis.

Over the longer term, dopamine produced inside brain cells is toxic to
those same cells and it kills them. Outside the cells, the dopamine breaks
down in the brain creating excess oxygen -- free radicals -- which
circulates through the fatty brain tissues and kills more brain cells.

All those dead brain cells lead to memory loss, a decrease in the ability
to plan even simple things like going to the grocery store, and reduced
motor abilities resulting in symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease. Meth
is also believed to induce schizophrenia in people prone to it and possibly
even in those who have no predisposition.

Chelsea had lots of psychotic episodes. The one she remembers best was just
before her 19th birthday in 2002.

Convinced that her roommates in Surrey were trying to kill her, she
insisted they drop her off at her grandparents' house. She banged on their
door. Her grandfather let her in.

All night long. while her grandparents slept, Chelsea pored over the VCR
manual and a Hydro manual, convinced that they were written in code and if
she deciphered it, she would know who was trying to kill her and why.

Her grandfather found her the next morning on the bed surrounded by the
manuals. He asked if she was using drugs. She denied it and demanded that
he drive her back to her roommates. While she ranted, her grandmother
dialled the police.

A few months earlier, Chelsea's grandfather had had a car accident. When
Chelsea saw the new car in the garage, she started screaming again. "You're
not my grandfather. He's dead. You're a clone."

That's when the police arrived.

They didn't arrest her. They allowed her grandfather to drive her to Surrey
Memorial Hospital. She was admitted to the psychiatric ward and that's
where she spent her 19th birthday.

In September 2002, Chelsea had had enough of the psychosis. She called her
mom, who was able to get her into Vancouver's Cordova detox centre and from
there to a recovery house. But she was kicked out two and a half months later.

Over the next year, Chelsea went in and out of five different recovery
houses. The first four times, she hoped that after a hiatus from drugs, she
could take it again and get the high without the psychosis.

She's not unique in this. The recovery rate for meth addicts is a dismal 10
per cent.

The fifth time, Chelsea was determined it would be the last.

"This time I decided to take risks, get vulnerable and make some new
friends. Recovery has been a lot of fun. I still have painful days, but now
I have some solutions . . . . I still have odd thoughts like psychosis, but
I know what reality is now."

Chelsea Trites knows some kids won't listen when she speaks tonight at the
West Richmond Community Centre between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. But if telling her
story convinces one kid not to do drugs or encourages one to get help,
Chelsea says that would be awesome.

It would also be awesome if some parents heard what she has to say. Her
advice is simple. Quit enabling your kids. Quit letting them walk over you.
Quit giving them money. Quit giving them a place to stay when they're high.

But always be there for them when they're ready to change.