METH USE BECOMING MORE WIDESPREAD IN U.S.

CHICAGO - She gets her latest grade from her theology professor -- it's a
"check-plus," the highest mark she could have received.

The tall, fair-haired student, older than most of her classmates, smiles
slightly and shrugs it off, as if it's not such a big deal. But she knows
better, especially given her circumstance a year ago, even little more than
two months ago.

Her name is Robin -- she's a 35-year-old mother of three and college
student earning an undergraduate degree on scholarship.

She's also a recovering addict who spent much of last year strung out on
methamphetamine, a drug more often associated with Western states and rural
areas that's spreading to other pockets of the country, including a growing
number of urban areas. Some people manufacture meth in mom-and-pop "labs,"
others in hotel rooms. Still others, mainly dealers, have it shipped to
them from large meth-making operations in the Southwest and Mexico.

Robin, who'd never tried the drug until last year, found her meth dealer in
downtown Chicago through a posting on a popular online bulletin board. She
had used cocaine in the past -- but was immediately drawn in by meth's
cheaper, longer high.

"I'd stay up for three or four days and drive around with my children in
the car. I was a zombie," said Robin, who shared her story on the condition
that her last name not be used.

Now her father is caring for her kids, ages 8, 12 and 15, and she is
attempting to get her life back together. Her focus is staying sober and
finishing school, while she attends support groups and lives in a halfway
house.

She remains, in many ways, a woman on the edge. A relapse in February, for
instance, sent her to the halfway house's detox unit, only a few weeks
after she moved in.

Drugs have long been her coping mechanism, a way to run from her problems
and ease her pain. But after years of struggling with addiction, she is
determined to make it -- without methamphetamine or any other drug.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde With a plan of taking classes this summer, she
still hopes to graduate by the end of next year with a history major and
special ed minor and would like to get a job teaching high school.

"I think I could relate well to kids who have problems," said Robin, whose
own troubles began as a teen after her parents divorced and her mother
decided to leave her with her father.

Feeling utterly abandoned, she soon turned to alcohol and drugs.

"I don't think she ever has gotten over her mother leaving," said her dad,
now retired at age 61 and living in nearby Skokie.

Until that happened, he says, she was "absolutely the perfect kid." But by
age 15, she had already entered rehab for the first time, and at 17, left
home to move in with her drug-dealing boyfriend, with whom she had her
first child. She calls the years that followed "a horrible progression"
that led to a marriage to the father of her other two children and divorce,
troubles with money and accusations of child neglect. She didn't make a
serious attempt at getting sober, long term, until she was 26 and pregnant
with her third child.

She managed to stay off drugs for eight years and remarried in 2002. But
the pressures of trying to go to school and keep her family going sent her
back to her old ways in early 2004, prompting her second husband to
eventually leave her. She also was stripping at bachelor parties to earn
money and found the drugs in that scene difficult to resist.

This time, though, she discovered a new drug -- methamphetamine -- not
fully understanding what she was getting herself into.

"I thought it was like coke, so I was snorting it like crazy," she said,
describing how it kept her up for days instead of hours.

It wasn't long before she started smoking it and, as she continued to use,
the drug's nastier effects quickly set in. She got sores on her face and,
as sometimes happens with meth use, couldn't stop herself from scratching
them. Her 5-foot-7 frame became so emaciated that, at one point, she
weighed only about 100 pounds.

Meanwhile, her kids -- a girl and two boys -- had to get themselves up and
ready for school.

"I was physically there, but I wasn't there," Robin now said. "You don't
realize what it's doing to your life. It's real cunning stuff."

Her current boyfriend said seeing Robin high was like watching a real-life
version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

When she's sober, he said, "I'm a big fan of hers -- and very proud of what
she's been able to accomplish."

But on meth, he said, there was a dark side, behavior he describes as
manipulative and "dangerously self-destructive."

Last summer, and at his urging, she tried going to rehab but left almost
immediately.

"That is when I kind of withdrew," the boyfriend said. "It was obvious she
didn't want to be sober and I loathed the person she was high."

On New Year's Day of this year, her father had enough. He consulted an
attorney and called the police. After she admitted to officers she'd been
using drugs, Robin went voluntarily to a hospital and then to the halfway
house.

"I still love her but, boy, I sure don't like the things she does," her dad
said. "It's heartbreaking is the word for it -- absolutely heartbreaking to
see her ruin her life and the lives of everybody around her."

He and Robin met to talk during a counseling session in recent months. He
remembers telling her how he felt. She remembers him yelling angrily until
she had to leave the room.

"Just take it. You deserve it," she remembers telling herself. But she said
she has enough of her own guilt to handle, especially when it comes to her
kids.

"In the past year, they've seen too much," she said, her eyes looking
downward as she shakes her head. "These are the consequences -- and I'm
going to be dealing with them for a long time."