BEATING METH: A CHANGE OF DIRECTION

Recovering Meth Addict Finds Peace, Hope

We see their faces in the newspaper and on the television news. They are
the ones who got caught and are going to jail. We also see them every day
in the grocery store, at the park or across the street. They are the ones
who go about their daily lives with an addiction.

"They're stigmatized," said John Dacey, a counselor for Transitions
Recovery Program in Bellevue. "We see them in the news, the people in court
and the people going to jail. The silent ones every day you don't see."

Twenty-five-year-old Gary Rexroad is one of those silent ones. Coffee,
cigarettes and the belief in God help him stay off meth. It's been 11
months since police caught him passed out after swerving down Fort Crook
Road, drinking tequila and looking for meth. He thanks the police for
picking him up.

Before that fateful night he hovered below the radar avoiding jail time and
prison. He had brushes with death a few times as drugs came close to
destroying his life.

When he was 22, Rexroad tried meth for the first time. He became addicted
"right off the bat" to the "most exhilarating" drug he ever used, he said.

"The alcohol wasn't enough," Rexroad said. "We were probably at a party or
something, it (meth) never got really brought out into the open. I stumbled
across it when I walked into a room. They don't want everybody to know what
you're doing. It's a pretty embarrassing deal. It's pretty disgusting."

The addiction controlled his life for the next two years. He tried to stop
a couple times, but staying stopped is difficult when you're addicted. The
police caught him once, high on meth, down on Washington Street. He
received a small fine.

He almost jumped out an apartment building window in Olde Towne before
friends grabbed him and kept him from dropping to the ground one night at a
party. Only one time did he ever stop using meth for more than a month or two.

"The first time I ever decided I wanted to quit is when I got a .357 magnum
pointed right between my eyes," Rexroad said. "That really scared me. That
really tripped things. That made me think, 'Well this isn't worth it.'"

Out of fear, Rexroad said he stopped for exactly 289 days, but he knew he
would start again. It wasn't until 11 months ago when police found him in
his car with an empty bottle of Tequila that he got on the right track.

"I had the desire to quit because it was ruining my life, it was killing
me," Rexroad said. "My family saw it was killing me and they were sick of it."

His only goal was to stay out of prison, so with some reluctance he walked
into Rainbow of Hope in Bellevue There, a couple, Eulish and Kathleen
Moore, took him under their wings.

"We're able to sneak around and get away from it at times," Rexroad said.
"That's why I got away with doing meth for several years. Every time I'd
quit for a month I'd say, 'God, I'm going to quit. God forgive me, give me
another chance.' He gave me hundreds of chances when I should have been put
in prison for several years."

Today, Rexroad is still in the process of recovery. Every day he drinks
coffee constantly and takes some medication. Sometimes at night, he lies
awake in bed scared to death thinking someone will come and kill him, the
aftermath of doing the drug. However, those fears come and go. He
definitely needs to stay away from the horror movies, he said with a smile.

In everyday conversation, he'll let you know he used to be an addict. It's
part of who he is and he wants you to know where he's been, he said. If
you're one of those people who look down on former addicts and drug users,
it's not going to bother Rexroad.

"That's something I'm over," he said. "Because anyone who knows me, knows
I'm kindhearted, knows that I'm a good guy, and they're happy I quit doing
the drugs. So they're not going to use anything against me. They're happy
for me."

He still has a long road ahead, but the road is a little straighter and a
bit smoother than it was a year ago.

"Hopefully someday I can help other people recover from it, too," Rexroad
said. "That's a real big goal. It's hard to achieve, I'll have to go to
school, but it's something I really want to do."