FORMER AREA HANDYMAN SAYS HE BECAME HOOKED ON FIRST TRY

Editor's Note: Five inmates serving prison sentences for
methamphetamine crimes agreed to talk to the NewsTribune about meth
in the Illinois Valley. This is the second part in a four-part series.

VIENNA, Ill. -- As soon as the toolboxes were put away for the night,
Jim Springs would see his fellow laborers pass drugs around -- a lot of drugs.

The 20-year handyman always declined offers to try them, mindful of
how his brother, Tony, became addicted to crack cocaine. But while
fixing hail-damaged roofs in La Salle-Peru, Springs' curiosity got
the better of him.

Knowing methamphetamine worked as an aphrodisiac -- and having a
steady girlfriend to experiment with -- Springs accepted an offer to
try it. He was immediately hooked. Within six months, his life came
completely unraveled and he went to jail.

"It will destroy your life from the day you pick it up, because you
won't set it down," Springs, now 39, said during an interview at
Shawnee Correctional Center, where he is serving a 10-year sentence.
"I'd only been using for about six months, but the day I started, I
didn't stop. As soon as I tried it, it was on. I used it 'til I got caught."

Springs, a native of Paducah, Ky., had come to Peru in 2004 to do
roof work in the Illinois Valley. He left Kentucky with a crew of
five, rented a room and quickly warmed to the Illinois Valley. He
began dating a Peru woman, scrapped the idea of returning to Paducah
and considered buying a place in the Illinois Valley.

He knew about meth; his home state of Kentucky is "thick with it" and
he knew the dangers. But Springs was 38 years old and loved the
youthful energy the drug gave him.

"I was almost 40 and I needed it to keep up with these younger
people," he said. "It made me feel younger. Then it made me feel
older. Then it made me look older. And then it took my life.

"It starts taking its toll on your mind and your body," he said. "You
start hallucinating. You start being paranoid about people. You don't
trust anybody. I love to work -- I've always loved to work -- and it
took that away from me. It destroyed my life and it brought me here."

Though heroin remains the Illinois Valley's scourge, methamphetamine
has finally migrated to North Central Illinois from Missouri and
southern Illinois. Meth labs have popped up in recent years and while
police and prosecutors say the illegal stimulant has yet to reach
epidemic proportions, recovering addicts warn that it is as addictive
as heroin.

Springs is something of a rarity among local meth users, insofar as
he hadn't used any illegal drugs previously. And unlike most meth
addicts who produce the drug in makeshift labs, he was earning
upwards of $300 a day in the building trades and usually had the cash
to simply buy meth in bulk quantities of $900 per ounce (28.35 grams)
- -- a bargain price considering meth typically fetches $80-$100 a gram.

"I had money; I didn't have to steal for it," Springs said. "Kids
that don't have any money and try it, there's no telling what they'll
do for it. I'm a grown man and it done me like that."

Various Web sites and online resources indicate that meth is gaining
a foothold among people who might otherwise use conventional
stimulants, such as caffeine, to avoid fatigue: college students,
truck drivers, physicians and attorneys.

Brian Vescogni, assistant La Salle County public defender, said he
hasn't encountered users who got hooked cramming for finals. Most, he
said, were turned onto meth after trying other illegal drugs. Then
again, meth has yet to root itself in the local drug culture.

"I think that once it's here, you're going to have experimental
people doing it," Vescogni said.

Springs began his meth use for recreation and smoked it in makeshift
pipes of tin foil. Soon he was snorting meth and finally injecting it
with a syringe.

"That's when my life went to hell," he recalled. "Snorting it makes
you feel real good. Smoking it takes a little longer, but then you
start getting paranoid. And when you inject it, you don't trust
nobody. You see shapes and shadows moving, and you think people are
around you and stuff."

At the peak of his addiction he was shooting an eyepopping gram at a
time every 45 minutes. A week's pay would get him about 42 grams of
methamphetamine and he'd burn through it within days.

Among the byproducts of meth addiction is a loss of appetite and an
inability to swallow. He wasted away from 180 to 130 pounds and his
teeth began to chip and corrode from the involuntary grinding
associated with the drug's stimulant effect.

Worst of all was the inability to sleep. He said he once went three
weeks without sleeping a wink. The sleep deprivation brought on
terrible hallucinations.

"I was miserable," he said. "You want to quit. You just want to die.
You shy away from it, but within five or six hours, your body starts
craving it again."

When the police raided his motel room on Dec. 9, 2004, it was almost
a relief. Springs readily acknowledged that were it not for police
intervention, he surely would have died. It was while in La Salle
County Jail that he ate his first square meal in several weeks -- a
burger and fries that he wolfed down.

"Jail food never tasted better," he laughed.

His relief was quickly tempered by the realization that he would be
going to prison for a long time.

Strung out and hallucinating, Springs had begun shouting and creating
a ruckus in his hotel room. Patrons at Peru's Homestead Inn called
the police. When Springs' girlfriend let them in, there were syringes
and a Tupperware bowl with 34 grams of meth visible from the doorway.

Springs still maintains that he never once made or produced meth and
never sold it to anyone; the 34 grams were for his personal
consumption and he'd have used it in a matter of days.

It didn't matter. Legally, his stash was more than enough for
prosecutors to presume intent to distribute. He was charged with a
Class X felony carrying 6-30 years with no possibility of probation.
His situation worsened five days after his arrest when he received
the news that his brother Tony succumbed to addiction and took his life.

"I wanted to die with him -- I really did," he said. "I wasn't
thinking right at the time. I still wasn't fully over the crap I was
putting in my body. So I couldn't think real proper and I took it
real, real, super hard."

Tony's suicide filled Springs with a determination to get clean, but
he would have to do it from inside a prison cell. Four months after
his arrest, he pleaded guilty March 23, 2005, to one count of
unlawful possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.
He took 10 years.

"They slammed me," he said, acknowledging a prior conviction for a
weapons offense. "They figured, 'He ain't learned now, he ain't never
going to learn -- old as he is.'"

Shawnee Correctional Center is just an hour's drive from Paducah,
enabling his parents and children to visit and lend their support.
His father, a builder of barges, has offered to put him to work when
he is paroled in 2009.

"I have to build my trust with my father," Springs said. "He doesn't
understand why I did this, and it really devastated him. He keeps his
guard up with me now, and I don't blame him."

Shawnee is a high-medium security facility and he hopes to eventually
persuade prison officials to move him to a lesser security facility
or perhaps to Sheridan Correctional Center, the state's designated
addiction facility for felons.

From what he's learned, the ammonia in meth has left behind a
residue that affected his brain; he still doesn't trust people and
still feels the effects of meth. His drug counselors think it could
be years before he's fully recovered.

This much is clear: he's finished with meth for good.

"I'll never, ever try it again," he insisted. "I hate that stuff.
Once I got away from it and cleaned up, as they call it, I hated it.

"Anybody even brings it around me, I might come back (to prison) for
smacking them."

[Sidebar]

Loss of appetite one of first signs of meth addiction

Parents and guardians of teenagers and young adults should be on the
lookout for a loss of appetite and accompanying weight loss.

Police and meth addicts told the NewsTribune that one of the salient
symptoms of meth addiction is an inability to eat food, thanks to the
appetite-suppressant properties of meth and difficulty swallowing.

"If they're shying away from meals every time, there's something
wrong," said James Springs, a Peru man serving 10 years for
methamphetamine possession.

Meth addicts initially show unwarranted confidence and seemingly
boundless energy, but then suffer mood swings. Parents should also
watch for sudden, alarming changes in behavior such as not meeting
curfew, openly rebellious behavior, and signs of agitation such as
fidgeting, nail biting and teeth grinding.

As addiction advances, meth addicts who go days without sleep also
will begin hallucinating and demonstrating paranoia.

"If kids are on meth and they're paranoid, parents are going to know
about it," said Brian Cain, another inmate serving six years for
meth. "There's no way to hide it."

Cain recalled that when he was ingesting meth he would see alarming
shapes amid the trees. Try as he might, he could not keep his
hallucinations from those around him.

"Somebody would be there sitting around and I didn't want them to
know anything about it, but I just couldn't help it," Cain said. Over
time, addiction will lead to poor hygiene. Meth can leave people
strung out for days, and they may not bathe or brush their teeth.

Parents should also keep an eye on the addict's skin, as well. Master
Sgt. Bruce Liebe, methamphetamine program coordinator for Illinois
State Police in Springfield, said addicts often hallucinate that
their skin is crawling with insects -- "crank bugs" in drug parlance.

"They'll pick at a spot until it's raw and bleeding and they'll do
this in several spots."