FORMER ADDICTS WRESTLE THEIR LIVES BACK FROM CRYSTAL METH

"If somebody had said, 'This is crystal meth, it will take away
everything you have, put you in a dark place and make you suicidal,'
you think I would have taken it?

Hell no."

Just six months after Jodi decided to kick her crystal meth habit, the
34-year-old North Vancouver woman is ready to talk about the
destructiveness of the drug.

It stole four years of her life and she doesn't want it to steal a day
from anybody else's.

Jodi, a pretty and articulate brunette who asked that her last name
not be used - said she fell into addiction because she was ignorant of
the drug and what it could do to her.

Looking back, she said it all started when she took a new job as a
waitress at a strip club. She'd work late and party late, and one
night, promising increased energy for a night out, Jodi's friends
introduced her to crystal meth.

She stayed up for two days and remembered spending her second night
high on the drug trying to figure out a jigsaw puzzle.

Besides insomnia, crystal meth can also cause hyperactivity, prompting
users to spend hours on end completing tasks and chores like sorting
puzzles and cleaning.

Claire Burke remembers spending countless hours high on crystal meth
browsing the racks at Value Village.

Six years clean, the 24-year-old is now an outreach worker at the
North Shore Salvation Army working with the homeless - who are
sometimes battling addiction themselves.

"It's really important for them because we can level with them," Burke
said.

She said when she started doing crystal meth at age 16, it wasn't the
epidemic it is now.

Her mother knew of her addiction but didn't know where to turn to for
help, Burke said, adding today raising awareness about the drug and
its harmful effects is paramount.

For the two years Burke was addicted, her body became covered with
sores and her weight dropped to about 100 pounds.

"There's so much of it I don't remember," Burke said.

She knows she became a different person. Burke said at first she could
hold down a job to pay for her addiction, but soon she was stealing to
feed it.

The turning point for her occurred when she found out her boyfriend, a
drug dealer who used his own product, was cheating on her.

In the ensuing confrontation that had her boyfriend barricaded in
their apartment bedroom, a friend arrived to visit.

A former drug user, he had disappeared and was now clean and sober,
and Burke only had to look into his eyes.

"I could just see what I was from a different perspective and I just
thought I had to stop this."

It also took a traumatic experience for Jodi to decide to kick her
addiction.

After four years of using crystal meth, she was hearing voices.
Fearing for her life one day, she called an ambulance for herself.

"When I came to there was a police officer (in the hospital) ready to
handcuff me and I had no idea why."

In her psychosis, Jodi assaulted a cop. That's when she decided she
needed help.

Jodi found a private treatment program and paid her way, and today,
more than six-months clean, continues with a 12-step program and talks
with an addiction doctor regularly.

Recovery is long, said Burke, who quit her addiction alone holed up in
her mother's home.

"It took me three years before I could say I could really cope," Burke
said.

She also wonders what permanent psychological effects the drug may
have had.

Jodi believes she's lucky to have defeated crystal meth and advises
others not to even try it.

"You're kidding yourself if you think this helps you," she said.
"You'll either die, you'll you lose your mind or you will go to jail."