Progress Means Work

RECOVERING ADDICTS CRAVE SLEEP, SUGAR, WORD FROM HOME

She wakes before 6 most mornings. Breakfast, shower, an hour for
meditation, then a full day of classes, group sessions, therapy or
recovery meetings.

After dinner, another class or another meeting.

After one month at MONARCH residential treatment for women,
29-year-old Gina Alexander said her biggest challenge has been staying
awake.

That's because methamphetamine used to keep her awake for days at a
time, she said.

"Smoking the bud and all, I'd get the munchies and go to sleep," she
said. "On the dope you're up for days."

Women undergoing treatment at MONARCH don't have such a roller-coaster
schedule.

"When women come in for treatment, they come from unstructured
environments," program clinical director Gaye Wheeler said. "You have
to have structure to function in a normal society."

With the loaded schedule come strict rules on what the women could
read or listen to. That also means no television -- not even public
television, news or the Olympics.

Client Monica Spray said she wanted to watch the OU-Texas
game.

"The answer will be no," said Paula Cook, a client from
Wagoner.

The prohibition is "mostly related the fact that there is a lot of
mental energy involved in our recovery and we've got to be focused on
what is happening in our recovery," said Ann Sullivan, a MONARCH client.

"We are flexible from time to time," Wheeler said. "But we feel that
when they are here, they need to be focused on treatment."

Reading material is limited to materials that could aid in recovery:
The Alcoholics Anonymous "Big Book," meditations, spiritual books, the
Bible or other scripture.

The most popular reading material, however, is mail from
home.

"We look forward to the mail," client Paula Cook said. "It helps to
know someone out there still cares about you. It gives us the
opportunity to know that people still think about us."

Cook said she savors opportunities to write home.

"And stamps, we love stamps," she said.

Women spend free time playing board games, reading inspirational
books, doing their workbooks -- and coloring.

"I forgot how much fun it is to color," client Robyn Dunaway said as
she colored a blue border on a butterfly. "It relieves stress for me."

Dunaway said she was reared a Catholic, but rebelled and started
hanging out with people two or three years older than she was.

"Sometimes 10 or 12 years older," the 22-year-old Muskogee native
said. "A month after I turned 18, I got into a lot of trouble with
meth. It changed my head. Now I feel 40 or 50 years old."

Meal times come early, 6 and 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. Wheeler said the
residential treatment center and the community living center stress
nutrition and regular, balanced meals.

"It's been so long since they've had something nourishing in their
body," she said.

Alexander and other women say they have put on a little weight since
coming to MONARCH.

"When you get off meth, you crave sugar like you wouldn't believe,"
Dunaway said.

"I just crave regular food, any kind of food." Alexander
said.

Crank can ruin a person's appetite, and more, said John Eckenberger,
director of the chemical dependency unit at Bill Willis Community
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Center in Tahlequah.

Methamphetamine is a stimulant that gives a patient an artificial
signal "that things are going good," he said. "The problem is that
when you quit doing meth, you don't feel normal. You feel worse than
normal and you cannot find pleasure in the things you used to find
pleasurable."

A Thanksgiving feast no longer satisfies, so why bother eating, he
said. When people come off meth, they do crave sugar and other
non-nourishing foods, he said.

The stimulant also affects sleep patterns. Eckenberger said meth users
could go days without sleep.

"One guy I worked with went for 45 days without laying down," he said.
"Going so long without sleep, you start hallucinating, seeing things
come out of walls."

MONARCH's daily routine also includes plenty of time for women to get
to know each other -- especially if they're roommates.

A week after Gina moved into the center, Spray moved in as her
roommate. "When I first came in here, she had me scared to death for a
while," Spray said.

"I didn't want her in there with me at the time," Alexander said.
"With 82 other women in prison, at first I wanted the whole room by
myself."

Spray, 36, daughter of a Church of Christ minister, said she came into
the program addicted to crank.

"Then I realized it was marijuana that was my biggest problem," she
said. "I've been smoking it since I was 10."

A native of Anadarko, Spray said she came to MONARCH because western
Oklahoma has no programs like it. She recalled doubting the program
would work when she got here.

"When I first came in, they'd all say 'I love you,' and I knew they
didn't mean it," she said.

But she learned otherwise.

"It's like that saying, 'faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
word of God,'" Gina said. "If you say it enough, you'll believe it."

The schedule also allows time for family reunions.

Alexander said she got to see her oldest daughter and youngest
daughter earlier this month.

"I'd written a note to my husband and he let me see
them."

Spray remembered Alexander's reunion with the oldest
daughter.

"She was standing about five feet from her mother and you could tell
she wanted to bust out inside," she said. "She looks like a little
Gina."

Alexander said she and her oldest daughter exchanged butterfly
pictures. "She colored me a butterfly and I gave her one I colored,"
she said. "I got to lay down on the bed with her a little bit. I kept
holding her and kissing her. She did not want to go home. She wanted
to stay there with me."

Then Alexander's dad brought her youngest daughter to
visit.

"My little one, man, she didn't sit down for a minute," she said. "It
was up and down, up and down. She gave me a big kiss and she heard the
dogs barking next door. But she wore me down before I wore her down."

She said her husband's current wife won't let her middle daughter and
her son see her.

"And I hate fighting this, I hate it," Alexander said. "I know she's
taking care of them, but they are my children and I want the
opportunity to bond with them. She's had a baby of her own now. And
how can you be so cruel. I know I'm not going to get full custody of
them. But I can try for joint custody."

Alexander said the past month has made her look at her
regrets.

"I have a lot of regrets that I didn't take time with my kids," she
said, speaking especially about her youngest child. "I missed her
walking and talking. Shoot, I missed seeing her crawl. Now I can't
stop her."

Alexander's three-month treatment ends in December.