A FATHER FIGHTS TO RECLAIM HIS DAUGHTER FROM METH ADDICTION

"She was on her way to having a great life," said Conrad Petersen, the
father of "Michelle," a meth addict.

Michelle was a high school teacher in Arizona, recently married and the
mother of a young boy. "Basically everything was going great," said
Petersen. Ironically enough, it was at a school function where she was
offered methamphetamine for the first time, about two years ago.

The straight-A student who only smoked and drank in moderation, was quickly
pulled in to the lifestyle of an addict. "It was almost instantaneous. She
started on this down-hill drive," Petersen said. Any time she and her
husband, "Paul" would go out, she would look for meth. Eventually Paul
asked for a divorce. He never approved of her use of drugs and her
addiction had come to the point where he couldn't live with her anymore.

Petersen heard of the divorce and decided to fly down from Hollandale,
Minn. to see his daughter. He was astonished at what he found.

Michelle and Paul, whose real names have been protected, had built a
brand-new house in a nice community; it wasn't even six months old. "There
was garbage everywhere," Petersen said. The garage door was hanging halfway
off, the front door looked like it had been broken in several times. Inside
the house, Petersen found his grandson, "Michael," (real name has also been
protected) with a blanket wrapped around him, only his face was showing. A
jar of peanut butter had been licked clean beside the boy, there was no
other food in the house. More trash was strewn inside all the rooms, black
bugs filled the sink, holes in the walls and cat feces in the carpet.
Electricity had been shut off and it was about 115 degree inside. "The
house was completely destroyed," he said.

A search for his daughter found her asleep on a bed, completely passed out.
When Petersen woke her and asked what happened to her home, she acted like
nothing was wrong. "This was a girl that was clean as clean can be,
before," he said.

Michelle told him she had money and a job, but Petersen later found out
that she had been fired from her teaching job and had applied for and
received a grant for $2500 by claiming she was returning to school for her
master's degree.

"Everything she was saying was a lie," he said.

Petersen stayed in the area for a while and found out from local law
enforcement that his daughter had 20 felony charges and was well-known as
being a trouble-maker, all just six months after her first hit of meth. One
of the officers told Petersen how Michelle acted when he pulled her over
for a broken tail light. "The police officer thought she was insane. He'd
never seen anybody so wild and crazy. She was out of control completely."
Michelle swore at the officer and accused him of being out to get her.

"This just wasn't the person that I'd known," Petersen said. "It's not the
house and the husband; the person was gone. My daughter was gone. The
person that I had known was not there. It was awful."

Petersen contacted his ex-wife, who also lived in Arizona, and they took
Michael out of the area. He is now in the custody of Paul. "The thing that
amazed me the most was that my daughter didn't care," he said.

But Michelle said she wanted to stop using and was enrolled iinto a
treatment center. It didn't last. Two days later she was home again, to a
house that was being foreclosed on and no car. She ended up living
underneath an culvert with other meth-users. "She had nothing left,"
Petersen said.

"There was no reasoning for what she did. She did things that were so out
of character and made no sense.

"She was someone who could care less about life. Nothing else mattered but
the next place she could get crystal meth.

"All she did was hate, she was full of hate."

Michelle was physically different, with large sores on her face and body
that she attributed to a rash. She was very thin, about 90 pounds and her
hair was matted and straw-like, as if she hadn't washed it for a long time.
Petersen believed she was doing meth almost constantly and was always
sniffling, but said she had a cold.

"I didn't want to touch her. I didn't want to hug her goodbye," he said.

Her attitude grew worse. Petersen had traveled back to Minnesota and
Michelle would call him in the middle of the night begging for money,
sometimes threatening him she would have to get it some other way if he
hesitated to agree. She threatened suicide 10 times, he said. He sent her
money, paid her electricity bill, bought her six cars (which she sold
telling him they were junk), and sent her three house payments.

In the meantime, Petersen hired an attorney to handle Michelle's 20
felonies. The attorney was able to decrease her sentence to two months in
tent city, a camp in Arizona where people are treated as prisoners. "She
came out and it wasn't even three months later and she was right back at
it," he said.

The attorney had told him the worst thing to do was to send money, so after
spending thousands and thousands of dollars, Petersen cut financial ties
and gave his daughter an ultimatum. "You do whatever you want," he told
her. "It's your choice." He told her she could talk to him as much as she
wanted, but there would be no more money. It was hard for him to let her
fend for herself, but some of her anger seemed to go away.

"When I quit telling her what to do I think it helped," he said.

Michelle called him, still asking for money, but Petersen stayed firm.
Eventually he was able to get her into a halfway house after her parole
officer urged that it was one of the best options. "She's been staying
there and goes to work every day," he said. She works at a grocery store in
customer service and wears an ankle bracelet at all times. The bracelet
monitors if she spends time with another former user or if she deviates
from her job or the halfway house. If Michelle is found using again, she
will automatically serve 18 years in prison.

Michelle still denies she was or is chemically dependent, but she has begun
to show signs of her old self. She wants to see Michael, and has been
allowed to see him since she's been at the halfway house.

Petersen can even tell a difference over the phone. "She would talk very
fast and with very short words. I couldn't understand her before. Now she
speaks and I understand her. She's talking more clearly," he said.

"I'm hoping and praying that she's okay, but she's got a long way to go,"
Petersen said.

"I've been lied to so many times that I don't know what to do any more."

As a parent, Petersen said letting his daughter fend for herself was the
hardest thing he's had to do, but it's the only way an addict will hit the
bottom and be ready to recover. "It's important to let them you that you
love them and you will be there," he said. But you can't give in to their
begging. He told her: "I love you, I'm here, but you have to make those
choices. There's nothing I can change. I can't tell you what to do anymore
because you're not making sense to me."

Meth isn't worth it, Petersen said. "For any kids in high school today even
considering doing crystal meth, they better take a long, long, long, long
look at some of the things going on with these people. If that's what they
choose for their life, there's something wrong. There's no way one hour of
ecstacy is worth a life-time of hell," he said.