CHURCH CALLS ON MAMA TO HELP FIGHT METH ABUSE

Mothers Against Methamphetamine forms local chapter

PIEDMONT - When the prayer requests at a Tuesday night Bible study pointed
to a growing methamphetamine problem outside the walls of the Church of the
Rock, the prayer warriors inside decided to do more than pray.

They called MAMA - Mothers Against Methamphetamine - a national organization
founded a year ago by an Albertville physician with a jail ministry, three
young children and a brother who killed himself while addicted to the drug.

Launching their own chapter just more than a month ago after seeing a MAMA
ad in Charisma magazine, the group has held two support meetings for those
affected by methamphetamine abuse. At 6:30 tonight, they'll take their
message to the community with a town hall-style meeting at Piedmont High
School's cafeteria.

"It seemed like every Tuesday night for three weeks somebody was requesting
prayer for someone they knew - or knew someone who knew someone - who was on
methamphetamine," said Venicia Butler, a 39-year-old Piedmont mother who
attends Church of the Rock.

Street methamphetamine is highly addictive and known by many names such as
"speed," "meth" and "chalk." The white-or almond-colored powder is made
easily in makeshift labs using over-the-counter ingredients such as lye,
drain cleaner, anhydrous ammonia and even anti-freeze and can be smoked,
injected or snorted.

The keynote speaker at tonight's meeting will be the top MAMA herself - Mary
Holley, a gynecologist who began a crusade against the drug after her
brother, Jim Blobaum, took his own life three years ago with a shotgun blast
to the head.

"He was a happy-go-lucky kid before he got into crystal (meth) and it turned
him into a paranoid, raging maniac," said Holley.

Piedmont Police Chief David Paslay said the city's methamphetamine problem
has not reached epidemic proportions. But, he said, the speed with which it
has spread is "epidemic in nature." He said he knows of about 40 homes in
his jurisdiction where meth or other drugs are being sold illegally.

Holley said Piedmont's drug problem is probably comparable to Arab, where
she now lives. She said she doesn't believe national statistics that say
only 6 percent to 10 percent of users ever recover. Instead, she believes
that upwards of 80 percent of users can recover with a year of intense
therapy and only then if Christian counseling is used.

"It has to be a spiritual rehabilitation or it isn't going to work," she
said. "You can't just put a Band-Aid over this addiction - you have to heal
it from the inside out."

Shelia Jennings, a registered nurse and Bible study teacher at Church of the
Rock, agreed. "We know it's going to have to be done by a spiritual means,
not just a medical means - it's got to be spirit and body," she said. "It's
not only going to have to be a physical deliverance, it's got to be a
spiritual deliverance."