Series: Meth In The Mother Lode (Part 2b)

ADDICT TAKES HABIT ONE STEP FURTHER

Just months after his son's birth in Sonora in 1988, Kevin Tammarine was
arrested for driving under the influence of meth and alcohol.

After returning from a three-day solo gambling trip to Lake Tahoe, he used
what little money he had left to stop at a San Andreas bar and buy some
beer and whiskey.

When leaving the bar, he was still high on meth from his gambling spree.

He headed south, back home to Angels Camp, and rolled his orange-and-white
Ford Pinto half way between.

Tammarine said he took this as a wake-up call and tried to curb his meth usage.

"I'm not proud to say it," he said. "It was still daily usage, just less. I
tried not to stay up all night, every night."

Sometimes, Tammarine would go on "runs" - snorting the drug constantly and
not sleeping for up to six days.

"The norm would be a three-day run, no problem," he said.

While on a run, Tammarine would go fishing or work on his truck all night long.

"Next thing you know, you're up for two days and you're polishing your bike
or whatever," he said, noting that he would usually stay up three days
before he started to "feel good."

But after a run, his body crashed and he would sleep for days.

Cutting back on his meth usage didn't last long. He returned to heavy usage
and then began selling the drug to support his habit.

"I thought I would use meth forever," he said. "It'll turn on you. It's a
very powerful drug."

Dr. Thomas Wendell, who treats meth users in Tuolumne General Hospital's
emergency room, said the drug can make people restless, paranoid and agitated.

When users stop, they become physically sick from withdrawals, have no
energy and sleep all the time, he said.

"They're not paying attention to the detrimental side effects," when they
start using, Wendell said.

For Tammarine, the side effects were both physical and emotional.

He says he regrets not thinking rationally and neglecting his family.

Regrets

While in his early 30s, Tammarine said, he and his wife argued constantly.

Tammarine said he left them and went to Mexico for three years. He said he
didn't want his son to be raised in that kind of environment.

He called up a friend and asked him to pick up his wife and son at an
Angels Camp grocery store. Tammarine abandoned them in the store, leaving
the foothills with his border collie named Pup, which he got in exchange
for meth.

"I was thinking through a drug-induced mind that life was better someplace
else," he said.

In Mexico, Tammarine collected flower seeds and delivered them to a Santa
Barbara company. While he was doing this, his wife later told him, his
4-year-old son would stand by the window every night for months waiting for
his father to return home.

"That pains me. I'll never be able to get over that," Tammarine said as
tears began to fill his eyes.

After about three years, Tammarine said, his desire to see his family again
brought him back to the Mother Lode.

He built a cabin in Sheep Ranch for himself and tended a marijuana crop
there, which deputies later busted.

His wife was still living in Calaveras County with their son, who was then
8 years old, but she wasn't interested in rekindling the relationship, he said.

"I'll take a majority of the blame," Tammarine said as to why their
relationship didn't work out.

High Times

Tammarine moved in with a girlfriend he knew through his meth connections
and began building homes in Arnold.

He sold meth to co-workers.

"There is a lot of meth in the construction trade," he said, adding that he
now makes good money working with a sober crew building homes in Murphys,
Mountain Ranch and Mokelumne Hill.

Tammarine said he once needed meth to help him complete mundane jobs.

"I could do twice the work as usual," he said. "I could get through the
boredom of life. It made me more creative."

Dr. Thomas Haspel, medical director and staff psychiatrist for Calaveras
County's Behavioral Health Services, said his patients have used meth for a
variety of reasons.

Among them: to avoid life's unhappiness, cope with depression and being
overwhelmed, lose weight, deal with a traumatic childhood and be rebellious.

"They feel great at first. All this energy, this euphoric feeling," Haspel
said. "Then, after a week, they crash. During the crash there is
depression, sleeping for days, they're just miserable."

Trouble Cooking

Tammarine's love of meth eventually drew him to cook the drug every other
day. He was taught by a friend.

Methamphetamine can be made with readily available substances, including
over-the-counter cold medicine, fertilizer, iodine, battery acid and
hydrogen peroxide.

"It's just a nasty, nasty product," said Tammarine, who used pipe-cleaning
Drano in his meth recipes.

He remembers pouring coffee pots full of chemical waste down gopher holes
and seeing a trailer that burned from a meth lab explosion.

"I had more than I could do," he said of his cooking days. "It made me very
popular. I increased my usage to the point where I couldn't get high anymore."

Tammarine said he was always trying to obtain that euphoric high he got
from his first hit of meth. But he never did.