Meth: An Insidiuous Poison, Part 3

TREATMENT CAN BE A BATTLE, EXPERTS AGREE

There is a staggering first-time failure rate for those who try to kick the
addictive drug.

When recovering meth addicts merely talk about the drug and the high they
once got, they get antsy.

Nerve-endings begin to tingle. They know they don't want to use the
stimulant again, yet their body still craves it.

Kicking meth is one of the hardest things a user will ever do, evident in
the up-to-90 percent first-time failure rate of treatment, law enforcement
officials say.

"Unless you've had the needle in your arm, you don't know," said Christina
DeLong last week when she testified in her brother's capital murder trial.
"... It's hard."

Her brother, Richard DeLong, was never able to get off the drug on his own.
A one-time treatment stuck for a while, but eventually he gave into the
craving once again.

Only when he went to prison - charged with killing a family of five - did
he get clean.

Medical experts say not all meth users are like that. Treatment can work.
But it's never easy.

"You can go off of it and recover and be OK," said Dr. Floyd Simpson, a
psychiatrist who has treated several patients who have successfully gone
through treatment for meth addiction. "You have to have the desire to clean
up."

As with any drug, meth treatment is a process, not an event, experts say.
It doesn't just happen.

Because meth is so powerful and causes such extreme devastation in a
person's life, getting clean can be all that more difficult for users, said
Carl Dawson, a licensed professional counselor who treats meth addicts.

"Traditional treatments for substance abuse may not work as well," he said.
"This is a call for greater treatment, greater therapeutic intervention."

The length of time it takes a person to respond to treatment varies. Some
users are clean after as little as a 30-day treatment, others can go into a
nine-month program. The process of ridding the body of meth, however, can
take much longer.

With the explosion of meth in Missouri since the mid-1990s, treatment
centers across the state are getting more and more patients. Coming off
methamphetamine can be tough, but not as tough as the withdrawals
associated with other drugs, such as opiates, experts say.

Withdrawal from opiates - which include heroin, morphine and codeine - are
severe, causing vomiting and other physiological effects. But with meth,
withdrawal symptoms include a decreased metabolism and increased sleep.

And because the availability of meth is so great, especially in the Ozarks,
another obstacle users will always face is resisting the temptation to go
for another shot.

It's a battle that comes down to the determination of the addict, Simpson said.

"They want to get high again. As far as it working or not working, it's up
to them."

Next Article: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01.n1222.a04.html