OFF METH, HHS GRAD HAS FOUND HER MISSION

Lori Lynn Laxton will always remember the day her life took on a new
mission: Oct. 29, 2006. On that afternoon, the Holmen native was
about 150 days clean of methamphetamine, an addiction that controlled
her life for three years after she tried the drug for the first time at age 40.

She vividly recalls that afternoon -- walking around downtown La
Crosse, absorbing the energy of young people at the library, visiting
the Salvation Army for a free lunch and sharing stories with the
folks there. Then, she says, three young men came up to her and they
took a walk down to Riverside Park, past a memorial for a recently
drowned college student. She picked up all the litter she saw, the
empty vodka bottles and cigarette wrappers strewn around the park

"The next thing you know I find myself sitting on this great big
massive tree trunk that had been cut down with seven notches on it.
And I was lying there and this guy was playing, like, a flute, and
the music was real soft," Laxton recalls. "The next thing I know I
just opened up my eyes and the brightest green light was coming, and
it just wouldn't stop. It was pink, and it was blue, and it was green
and it was just awesome. It was the Holy Spirit talking to me."

The visions kept coming to her as she continued her walk around the
city. As she crossed the Cass Street bridge, she says she envisioned
smoke billowing up from the other side. She interprets it as bridges
being burned from her past.

She kept walking, trying to get back to her house in Holmen. Still
carrying the bag of litter, she says, she walked to Onalaska where,
after some pleading, a police officer gave her a ride to the Holmen
police station.

When she finally got back to her house, Laxton sat at her kitchen
table, opened a notebook and planned the mission that is now driving
her life. She sketched plans for a help center in her hometown, a
place in Holmen that will feed the hungry, clothe the poor and offer
help for those in the community that suffer from addiction.

Lori Lynn Laxton wants to open the TLC Mission in Holmen. She is
working to have a building secured by Christmas and running by April
22, her birthday.

'A Life of Hell'

Laxton grew up in Holmen and graduated from Holmen High School in
1981. After dropping out of Western Wisconsin Technical College, she
moved around the country a bit before settling in Oklahoma for 19 years.

In 2000, she moved back to Holmen to be closer to her family. She
took a job with a national cleaning company and seemed to have a good
life going. "And then I ran into some old high school friends of mine
and started the partying life again," Laxton says.

At age 40, Laxton smoked meth for the first time in her life. She
says she tried it out of anger and peer pressure, and while she
doesn't like to admit it, she enjoyed using the drug for the first
few months. Then her relationship with meth turned sour.

"It was a life of evil. It was a life of hell," she says.

Like many methamphetamine addicts, Laxton became obsessive while on
the drug. She compulsively cleaned her house, did laundry and sorted
boxes of mixed nuts, bolts and screws. She would hardly eat or drink
and would stay up for days at a time while smoking meth. She was
paranoid that people were lurking in the corn fields around her home
and covered her windows with dark material so her neighbors wouldn't
know that she was staying up all hours of the night.

"I believe that the first time anybody tries meth, it's a high. The
second time, it becomes your name," Laxton says. "Meth takes over
your life in a wrong, evil way. Because I was addicted, I was on a cloud."

Still, she rose to the managerial level of the cleaning company and
served on the safety committee. She says she was the top salesperson
for several months in a row.

Like many meth addicts, Laxton started picking at her face. She
plucked out her eyelashes and saw a doctor for the infection. With
pockmarks on her face, she would make excuses to avoid contact with her family.

"I don't know how many times I went to the hospital for high blood
pressure and anxiety attacks and catching myself choking and grasping
for air, thinking it was my last breath. But what would I do? Go do
the stuff again," Laxton says.

'There Is Hope'

Laxton said her family offered their support to help fight her
methamphetamine addiction, but she refused. She even says her mother
drove her to a treatment center but Laxton wasn't ready to give up
meth. She left the hospital and continued smoking the drug for another year.

Eventually, she lost her job with the cleaning company and survived
by rummaging through her change jar.

"That's what happens to a lot of people," Laxton says. "You lose
your families, your children, your homes. You lose your jobs. You
lose your vehicles. You get low self esteem. You lose your hair. You
lose your teeth. You lose all kind of things. You lose yourself."

In December 2005, somebody close to Laxton was arrested for
methamphetamine possession and was sent to jail. It was the event put
Laxton on the road to recovery.

Shortly thereafter, she entered a county drug counseling program, and
she still attends support groups twice a week.

"I really don't think that we would have stopped. It took something
like that (the arrest)," Laxton says. "I wasn't ready to give up. I
wanted more of it. I wasn't ready in my mind and my heart to get well."

Laxton says the spiritual counseling she received at Franciscan Skemp
Medical Center was instrumental to her recovery.

Whereas smoking meth used to be the first thing she did every
morning, today she rises at 5 a.m. to read passages from books given
out to her by support groups. Then she goes to work for clients of
her self-run cleaning business.

"Every day that you don't use is another day of sobriety, and it's
awesome," Laxton says. "I love getting up in the morning and looking
at myself in the mirror and going 'I love you. You look good. I can
see your eyes don't look bloodshot. You don't look tired. You don't
have black circles under your eyes.' I like that part of it."

Hoping to inspire others, Laxton decorated a Christmas tree that was
on display last week at the Old Main in Galesville. She says
Christmas is her favorite holiday and was devastated one year when
she was addicted to meth and didn't even put up a tree.

Her tree has a symbolic message with seven stars. She says the star
at the top represents her faith and the two below that represent the
date, Oct. 29, that she was inspired by her mission. The next three
stars stand for that TLC Mission, and the final star is for herself.

On an easel next to her Christmas tree, Laxton displayed a poem
written by a now-deceased meth user that describes the experience of
being addicted.

"My mission is to help people in need, people who are suffering, who
don't know which direction to go, don't know what to do once you do
get help, because there is hope," Laxton says. "There really is hope."

'I Want to Help'

Laxton has been in contact with a lawyer about setting up the TLC
Mission as a nonprofit organization and is in the process of
registering TLCMission.org as a domain name.

She even has an eye on a building in Holmen to house her cause. She
is optimistic to have it secured before she leaves for Biloxi, Miss.,
in December to assist with hurricane relief.

She says she's already received her first box of donations for the
TLC Mission, some hats, scarves and books that a Holmen resident gave
Laxton after hearing about her plan.

And she has big dreams for the TLC Mission: supplies of food and
clothing to give out to the needy, computers to help the unemployed
find jobs, a meeting place for support groups and an outreach center
to help addicts get off drugs.

"I want to help," Laxton says. "I want to help because I've been
there and done that -- it's just what's in my heart. I can't stop."

Laxton thinks the TLC Mission can play a vital role for area
residents who need assistance but lack the transportation to reach
the services in La Crosse.

She also thinks Holmen has a "huge" meth problem and that most people
are unaware of its dangers or its scope.

"Holmen is growing. There's incidents that are happening so close
around us, and people aren't even paying attention," Laxton says. "So
that's my reason (for starting the TLC Mission). Because it's Holmen,
it's home to me, and that probably has more meaning than anything."

Laxton hopes to take the TLC Mission nationwide someday, but right
now she doesn't know where she'll get the finances to make the center run.

Still, she can readily tell a reporter how many days she's been clean
and lives with such a purpose that she says she no longer has any
urges to do meth.

"It hasn't been a struggle for me. I have no triggers. I have no
desire to do the drug," Laxton says. "I have a new journey. My TLC
Mission right now is my focus."

People interested in giving or getting help from Lori Lynn Laxton's
TLC Mission can contact her at P.O. Box 663, Holmen, WI 54636.