FORMER CRACK ADDICTS EMERGE FROM GATES OF HELL

Lorraine once spent three hours in the bathtub trying to find a vein to
inject more crack into her body. Her veins had collapsed from repeated
injections. Lorraine figures she was in detox centres close to 100 times
and she lied, stole and sold her body to get her next "piece".

"Crack was the one drug, and to this day I don't know why, that took me
down the quickest. I used heroin for about 15 years and functioned - four
children, a house, a job, a husband. I had it going on," Lorraine said.
"The crack, within four years, put me on the streets. I was a hooker, I was
a dealer, I was a con artist. I was one of the best liars you'd ever meet.
I couldn't stop."

So is the insanity of this drug that is so addictive, users call it More -
because that's what they always want.

Lorraine, 40, talks fast and laughs easily. Today, in a clean white sweater
and jeans, she is looking forward to her one-year anniversary free from
crack, coming up in a few weeks. Lorraine's addictions started when she was
15, when she started getting prescription pills, including Valium and
Demerol, from her mother.

"If I had a migraine, I would call my mom and she would say, 'Well I've got
pills in the cabinet, get something.' It was always there in abundant
supply," Lorraine said.

Years later, it was crack that came to rule Lorraine's life.

Crack is cocaine powder that has been chemically altered into crystals so
it can be smoked. Crack can also be injected. Once inhaled, crack goes
directly to the bloodstream and brain in a concentrated form. This rush
produces intense feelings of euphoria, self-confidence and power. But the
high is short n lasting only five minutes to an hour.

"If I was hooked up with some heroin, I'm good for three, four hours, I
would pick up and I'm good for the whole night, I don't see you 'til
tomorrow," Lorraine said. "Crack cocaine is 20 minutes. When I was working
as a hooker, I would make $40 or $60 at a time. And as quick as I could
smoke that, as quick as I could get out there and do it again, I would. And
I could do that for four or five days on a run, no problem."

Food became a foolish waste of money. Lorraine subsisted on burgers from
the 7-11 or saltine crackers and barbecue sauce.

Crack quickly became the most important part of life. Friends and family
members were measured only by their ability to help her get more crack.

"We'd come to hang out with you for a while and start smoking crack and the
next thing you know, the TV's gone, the DVD, everything's gone within a
matter of hours out of your house, we're selling crack and there's
dealers," she said.

Bill, 43, remembers the feeling of power crack gave him.

"I was one of the best runners out there. Cops would never catch me with
it. I'd eat it before you'd catch me with it. The cops knew me. I knew
them. But they could never get me," he said. "I am not trying to glamorize
that lifestyle, because it's hell. There are plenty of things you find
yourself doing n lying, cheating. Family, friends, who cares, if you got 10
bucks I'm going to take it off you, that's all there is to it. It's
unbelievable, that crack cocaine."

With a moustache and long brown hair curling down his back, Bill has the
bluest eyes you've ever seen. They still look incredulous when he talks
about the hold crack had over him. He is also approaching one year free
from crack.

In and out of group homes throughout his childhood, Bill started drinking,
smoking the odd joint and taking an occasional hit of acid.

He got married too soon when he got a girl pregnant and in 1989, when he
left his wife and his father died, Bill started drinking. When he met a new
girlfriend, Bill tried crack.

"Cocaine was the downfall. I'm not a drinker and pot made me paranoid. But
crack cocaine, I started snorting and thought this is really good. I saw my
girlfriend using a needle," he said. "I looked at the rush she was getting,
so I ended up doing one for myself, after that I was using the needle for a
good 10 years.

"I overdosed three times. It just didn't matter, didn't matter if I OD'd or
not. Come to think of it, if I ever did die, that would be the way I'd want
to go. You don't feel nothing. You don't know what hit you. You just go to
sleep and you don't wake up. Thank God I had people who knew what to do to
get me out of [the overdose].

"The first thing you think of when you come out of it is, where's my hit?"

Things were good for awhile. Bill was holding down a job as a welder/fitter
and he and his girlfriend discovered smoking crack.

"We thought we'd found a brand new toy. No more holes in the arm," he said.
"I would take home five or six hundred bucks every week. I would meet my
girlfriend and she'd have a hit all mixed up for me and that's the way my
weekend started. Get off work, cash the cheque, get drunk, go home and go
through as much money as I possibly can."

Eventually though, Bill, who's natural weight is 170 pounds, was down to
just over 100 pounds and he became tired of his girlfriend who made him do
all the drug running.

He went to Suntrac Recovery in Hamilton. He made it through six weeks of a
three month program, when a guy asked him to get him some crack.

"I went out and got it for him. I ended up with about $200 in my pocket and
ended up doing one right at Suntrac. Then it's six in the morning we're
still partying. I figured I was busted anyways, I've got two hundred bucks
on me, so I left and went right back to my girlfriend's house. Went through
that in like a half hour. So now I'm back to square one n broke, no
cigarettes, no food in the house, living in a damn crack house and did that
for two years, just non-stop, 24-7."

The crack life was a bit more glamourous for Anne. She always made sure to
have a sugar daddy to help finance her habit.

When Anne was 10, her mother left her and her siblings with a babysitter
and went to British Columbia.

"She sent for us a few months later. When we got out there, she was a
stripper and a hooker . When I was 11, she sold my virginity for $500.
After that I was really co-dependent, that was my addiction, it was
relationships. I was very needy, wanting you to tell me how much you love
me," Anne said.

Anne moved to Toronto, where she married and had a baby girl. When she
separated from her husband, she got involved with a much younger man. A
"party animal."

Anne had snorted cocaine at parties, but never felt the need to go any
further. She worked for the Hospital for Sick Children and had a nice
apartment.

"We would use every other weekend when my daughter went to her father's. It
wasn't long before this drug we were using to socially enhance the
relationship became, 'You took more than me' and 'Where did you stash the
last piece' and 'Why don't you just leave because then I'll have it all to
myself.'

"My life started to go downhill fast. It wasn't long before every other
weekend became every other day and then 24/7. I was missing work. I was
offing my microwave, my TV, my silverware and I was losing weight. I told
everyone I had chronic migraines. My husband would take my daughter more
and more and more."

Anne was arrested for fraud and forgery after three months of credit card
fraud.

She ended up at the Donwood in Toronto. It was a co-ed treatment centre.
She met a man, got out on a weekend pass and never went back.

Her new boyfriend introduced her to the needle.

"For me that was the worst. I just needed it. When you have it in your
veins, you can't not live for it," she said. "One day, I was in a really
residential area in Toronto, and I was really hurting and it was raining
and I have track pants on and running shoes, no makeup and a guy pulls over
and offers me $50 for sex. It wasn't long before that became my way of life."

She moved in with her sugar daddy and started dealing crack and running an
escort service from his home. Evetnually she was arrested for possession,
trafficking and running a bawdy house.

After going to jail, Anne got paroled to Hope Place, a women's treatment
centre. She remembers the day her husband and daughter picked her up.

"We went to McDonald's. And I had gotten him to pick up my coat from a
friend's house. Of course she put a little care package in the pocket. Of
course I had asked her for it.

That's one of my 'remember whens' of active addiction. There's them sitting
at the table eating pancakes and me in the bathroom trying to get high."

She convinced her ex-husband to drop her off at her dealer's house.

"It wasn't fun anymore to use. I would use for two weeks and I'd pass out
for three days. I went from living pretty high, had dealers coming to my
door. When the money ran out those dealers who would supply me around the
clock wouldn't give me a $20-piece because I was no use to them anymore. I
ended up on the street. I just had the clothes on my back, doing $20 tricks
on my back just to get another piece."

When a bed came up at Mary Ellis House in Hamilton, something clicked for Anne.

She has been drug free since June 10, 1994.

She has since met and married a man with whom she has two daughters, ages
four and seven. They own and run a successful business together. She is
happy to have her eldest daughter in her life as well.

"I have to think real long and real hard about that life. It's been so
long, it's like a bad dream," she said.

Anne is involved in Narcotics Anonymous and runs meetings in the Hamilton
West Detention Centre.

"I can't change what I did yesterday or last month or 10 years ago. In my
life I am trying to stay clean, live my life differently, give back a
little bit of what I've been given. My greatest highs in life today are
from my daughters' little arms. "

Bill also gets pleasure from his family. His eyes light up as he mentions
his granddaughter. His mother, sister and brother helped him in his recovery.

One day when he had sunk to his lowest, Bill called his brother.

"What really got me to clean my act up was I was laying on the couch. My
brother thought I was sleeping and went in and sat down with my mother and
he was talking to my mother and then he started crying," he said. "That's
what really killed me. I just got up and I said I'm packed up, I'm leaving.
I called Jillie at Suntrac. She's the greatest, greatest counsellor I ever
had and if it wasn't for her I'd probably be still smoking."

What's really kept Bill going is his art. He has sold more than 30 of his
paintings of vibrant, detailed scenes from nature. He was recently part of
a show at Marritt Hall in Ancaster and has paintings hanging at the Dundas
School of Art.

"My son comes by all the time to visit, my sister is a big part of my
recovery, and my brother. They're all very good support, in recovery you
have to have really good support. You gotta work at it, you gotta really,
really work at it. And that's it."

When Lorraine went into detox for the last time, she finally realized she
needed a change.

"That was the day I threw up my hands and said OK, what do I gotta do and
how far do I have to go to get it because this isn't working. I said one of
these days one of my kids is going to knock on my door looking for help and
I have one of two ways to go, share my crack pipe and my needle with them
or help them and I don't know how to help them if I can't help myself."

Lorraine went to Hope Place, a place she calls "heaven."

Two of Lorraine's four children have never used drugs, the other two have
dealt with addiction. Her oldest son, who is 25, lives with her and has
been clean for four months. Lorraine is studying to become an addiction
counsellor. She has a relationship with a man she met in treatment and she
volunteers at detox once a week.

"I have a son. I have a TV. I've got my bed and I don't feel the need to
punk it off to anybody. The greatest joy in the world is seeing my
cupboards are full of food," she said. "I wouldn't trade my worst day clean
for my best day high."

"I wouldn't trade my worst day clean for my best day high."

Former crack user Lorraine

In part two of our series, we will report on the challenges facing Hamilton
Police in the fight against crack cocaine and the strategies police
officers use to enforce the laws and get crack off our streets.

CRACK COCAINE USE

WHAT IS CRACK?

Crack is cocaine powder that has been chemically altered into crystals so
it can be smoked. The substance is so named for the crackling sound that
occurs when it is heated.

Crack can also be injected. Once inhaled, crack goes directly to the
bloodstream and brain in a concentrated form. This rush produces intense
feelings of euphoria, self-confidence and power. But the high is short n
lasting only five minutes to an hour.

Crack cocaine became popular in the United States in the mid-to-late 1980s
and came to Canada in the 1990s.

According to a Statistics Canada study, 12.2 per cent (three million) of
Canadians 15 or older reported using marijuana or hashish in 2002, up from
7.4 per cent in 1994.

The five other drugs reported on were cocaine or crack, ecstasy, LSD and
other hallucinogens, amphetamines and heroin. About 2.4 per cent of people
reported using at least one of these drugs in 2002, up from 1.6 per cent in
1994.

An estimated 321,000 people, or 1.3 per cent, had used cocaine or crack,
making it the most commonly used of these drugs.