TO HELLE AND BACK

One Mans's Battle With Crystal Meth Addiction

Help, Now!

It's 3 a.m. on a cold April morning and Jeff Christie has nowhere to
go. He huddles under a large oak tree near Sarnia's Hanna Memorial School.

The voices in his head won't stop.

"You're a loser."

"You've put your family through hell."

"You've hurt everyone that loves you."

"This is why I stay high," he says to himself. It's easier to be a
speedo than face reality.

He'll spend the next two nights under that tree, with nothing for
company but thoughts of a derailed life.

Drug use has driven away his friends. The only people left to turn to
are druggies and dealers.

Memories flash through his mind.

"How could I have screwed up my life this bad?" he wonders. He hates
what he's done to his family, to himself.

In that moment, Jeff decides he wants help. He needs to get himself into rehab.

"You've got to hit rock bottom, sitting alone under a f--king tree
with no one to call to realize it's time," he says.

The problem is, when an addict needs help it isn't immediately available.

"The first time I got out of jail, I needed to get into a treatment
facility that night," Jeff says.

In his first go-around, it took four months to secure a bed at a
treatment facility. Most people can't wait that long, says Mike
Hannon, an addictions counsellor at Westover Treatment Centre near
Thamesville, Ont.

"Services are geared against addicts. For the most part, people don't
care. They're just worthless junkies," he says.

He points to the unrealistic wait times that keep addicts from
getting clean as evidence that there isn't a real desire by
government to adequately fund addiction services. Funding was frozen
for 12 years before increases in 2004 and 2007 of three per cent and
1.5 per cent.

Addiction funding across the province was $113 million last year, or
roughly one-third of one per cent of Ontario's $37.5 billion health budget.

An additional $7 million was announced in the 2007 budget.

But, funding has failed to keep pace with inflation, population
increases and increased service demand, Hannon says.

"Agencies in this province are backed up like crazy. The cards are
stacked against addicts right from the get-go."

The average wait time for a residential treatment centre is three to
four months. First the client must be assessed. That can take a
month. Then there's detox for another two to three weeks. You must be
clean at least two weeks before a residential treatment facility will
take you in, Hannon says.

"We lose a lot of people who are serious about getting clean in that
amount of time. In the life of an addict, a lot of things can happen
in four months."

Hannon says services for a meth addict like Jeff Christie are even
scarcer. It's such a destructive drug that a user requires at least
six months of treatment and a year or more of followup care. However,
even the best residential programs covered by the province offers
just 18 to 21 days, he says.

"It's too easy to relapse. The high is so intensive they run right back to it."

Asked about the provincial strategy to deal with people like Jeff,
Hannon replies, "What strategy? We're failing them miserably."

He points to Westover.The centre has been forced to cut staff and programming.

Yet, demand for service has increased.

In 2006, Westover served 531 residential clients, with an average of
185 clients in its various weekly substance dependency programs.

Staff themselves now raise more than one-quarter of the $1.5-million
budget and the centre finished the fiscal year with an $85,000 deficit.

There are waiting lists for all six addictions programs offered,
Hannon says, which is a provincewide issue.

Staff burnout is also a problem, with counsellors expected to bear
shift changes from early morning one day to midnight the next, he says.

"We need a national strategy for addictions."

In Lambton County, the annual budget for Bluewater Health's addiction
clinic, Lambton County Addictions Services, is $523,000. It's hardly
increased in more than a decade.

Although it does not offer residential addiction treatment, the
clinic is beset by wait times as long as six weeks.

Yet, the provincial and federal governments continue to pump millions
of dollars into more policing efforts, to make it look like they're
fighting the good fight, Hannon says.

"We've got too many bureaucrats who know nothing about addictions
making all the decisions on funding," Hannon says. "They don't
understand that addiction is a disease. It requires treatment of the
disease, just like a cancer patient needs treatment."

Yet, the government and even the public have this unrealistic notion
that if an addict really wants to quit, he will, Hannon says.

"It's not that simple. If it was, I wouldn't have a job."

Putting Sarnia on the Map

Jason Hoover sees a lot of familiar faces in his work.

As a constable with the Sarnia police drug squad, Hoover hasn't
encountered many people able to clean up their act. It's even less
likely for crystal meth users in Sarnia.

He investigated more than two dozen cases involving crystal meth last
year and so far this year police have made two significant seizures.
The drug is here to stay, he says.

He recently executed a search warrant at a Maria Street home for the
second time in a month.

"It's sad," he says.

You never know what might set off a crystal meth user, Hoover says.
There's real risk involved in executing a drug warrant.

"We see people hopped up on crystal meth who pose an obvious danger.
They're unpredictable," he says. "They're extremely paranoid."

Sometimes addicts will threaten the officers and their families. Some
will attack.

Hoover estimates as many as three-quarters of the thefts, break-ins
and other property-related crime are fueled by drug needs. And meth
usage is growing in Sarnia, which already has a reputation as a needle town.

Sarnia police Const. Mel Wright, who spends much of his time going
into schools to educate students about the dangers of drug use, says
Sarnia has a "significant meth population."

Police say they are unaware of any meth production sites in the
county but addicts say there are some small local operations.

"Everyone is pushing crystal meth," says Karen, a 20-something user
who asked that her name not be published for fear of reprisal.

"The less you know, the better, if you know what I mean," she says.
"You can find it anywhere. It's cheap and people are making it."

Karen, whose parents were both addicts, grew up around drugs. She
recalls as a child picking her father's used needles off the floor.

She started shooting and smoking cocaine before progressing to
methamphetamines.

The first time she shot up she was 16.

As she speaks, she rubs blotches of facial acne.

"This is the drug coming out of my system," she says, noting meth has
also started to burn holes through her nose.

Despite developing pockets of infection throughout her body, she
still craved the drug, she says.

"It's that addictive."

Her life revolved around drug use. She began to prostitute herself,
sometimes willingly, other times against her will.

"I've been raped numerous times. You're bought and sold but nobody
cares," she says. "I was sold by boyfriends to support their habits."

She says she willingly gave up custody of her children because she
knew her drug habit was hurting them.

Though not yet 30, she says she felt "too old to change."

She admits to having lost her will to live at one point. She would
cry every time she used. She felt powerless but had no one to turn to for help.

"Nobody's your friend. (Suppliers) will protect you from everyone
except themselves."

Then, an epiphany came while sitting in the middle of the floor,
half-baked and half-naked, staring at the chipped blue polish on her
tattered fingernails.

"I looked at myself and thought, 'I'm a junkie. Is this what I'm
leaving my children?'"

Since that defining moment, she has worked hard to get clean.

"There's days I still feel worthless," she says, resting her head in
her arms. "I sometimes still feel like that dirty, little junkie
whore sitting in the middle of the floor."

Drugs are not a south-end problem but are everywhere and affect every
part of the city, including those earning six-figure incomes, Karen says.

"But so many people stick their heads in the sand."

Twelve per cent of the residential clients at Westover are from
Lambton County. Lambton Addictions Services had 750 client intakes
last year, while Lambton's Community Health Services Department doles
out almost 40,000 clean needles a month through its needle exchange
program, an eight-fold increase in five years.

"We were lucky to see a couple of people a week back then," says
public health nurse Bea Lennon.

The age of those using the provincially funded needle program is also changing.

"We'll see some younger kids who can't be more than 14 or 15 years
old," says fellow public health nurse Rhonda Galler, who staffs the
program office with Lennon.

"We had one kid, he looked about 15, who came in with his blanket and
a backpack," Galler says. "You see some of them go downhill so fast. It's sad."

Health unit staff say about 85 per cent of the needles that go out come back.

Jeff Christie says there is an unwritten code among users not to
leave needles lying around where children can find them. That's one
of their few responsible acts, he says.

Yet he's seen his share of horror in Sarnia's drug subculture.

"I saw a baby lying amongst garbage. It broke my heart, even while I
was using."

One time Jeff was kidnapped at knifepoint and held for nine hours,
continually assaulted by a dealer and his cohorts who suspected Jeff
had stolen drugs.

"They put the boots to me for five minutes," he says.

He's been confined at knifepoint, twice, in his own home and has been
privy to numerous assaults on men and women.

"A lot of the crime in the city is driven by addiction. It's a direct
result of crack and amphetamine addicts."

The Family Guy

Sandi Christie wipes her eyes, wondering where as a mother she went wrong.

Sitting poolside at the family's Errol Road home, she points to
picture after picture of her smiling son, Jeff.

She comes to a Grade 8 graduation photo.

"He was always a funny guy," she says.

The last few years, however, have been anything but entertaining.
Always the life of the party, her son became a shut-in. The two had
always shared a close relationship. Then, in an instant, it was gone.

"He became very distant from me."

Perhaps, she was too much of a friend and not enough of a mother, she says.

"If we had known how bad it was ... ," she begins.

"It wasn't your fault, mom," Jeff interrupts. "I'm all for freedom of
the press but I'm not going to sit back and let my mother take the
blame for something she had no control over."

Sandi wipes her eyes.

"All his buddies drank in high school. I knew Jeff drank a lot. He
couldn't drink just one beer.

"Maybe we were too light on him. As a parent it's hard to know what
to do. He was an adult."

Jeff had advantages not afforded to every child, and he acknowledges that.

Neither his mother nor father John were heavy drinkers. Outside of
the typical marital issues, it was a happy home.

Jeff says his parents gave him everything he needed to succeed in life.

"Mine was a well-to-do, middle-to-upper class family," he says, his
arms spread to encompass the spacious backyard, in-ground pool and
landscaped gardens.

"I hurt my parents. This was not their fault. Addiction is a cunning
enemy of life and they were casualties."

Still, Mom can't help but battle the what-ifs.

"I knew he was smoking pot," she says. "The last three, four years,
(Jeff's drug use) got really noticeable. We didn't do anything about
it. We were afraid. Jeff became very desperate. We worried about him
committing suicide."

Dr. Martyn Judson, medical director of Clinic 528, a methadone
replacement treatment centre in London, says addiction is a disease
that afflicts not only the addict, but the addict's family as well.

Family members are often powerless, he says, because addiction has
turned their loved one into a stranger.

"Families are often at a loss to know what's going on and how to
help," he says. "A lot of the families are as sick as the addicts.
They become enablers, even permit it. If you permit it, you promote it.

"The only way to break the addiction is for the addict to realize
there is a problem and want to get healthy. They can't do it for
families, for children, or anyone else," Judson says. And they can't
do it without help.

Barbara Leitch admits she doesn't know how to help her daughter.
Sitting alone in her Chatham-area apartment, she wonders if her
daughter, Marcie, is even alive.

She has a scrapbook of photos, letters and poems to remind her of
happier times. The family raised quarter horses near Strathroy and
Marcie was a champion-calibre rider. She loved ballet. Her life
revolved around horses and her mother.

"I love this one," she says. It's a Mother's Day poem written when
Marcie was six. "She's my only child and I don't even know her
anymore. I'm heartbroken."

The one-time princess of the Parkhill Fair now lives in a drug house
somewhere in Lambton County, her mother says. She had flowing brown
hair, model-like beauty and a smile that could melt ice. The last
time her mother saw her, Marcie had two black eyes and hair that
looked as though it hadn't been brushed in weeks. Crystal meth
addiction had added 20 years to the 25-year-old's appearance, Barbara says.

"She has copper marks all over her face. She's just bones. She's not
my daughter anymore."

Almost all of a $100,000 trust fund bequeathed to Marcie in her
father's will has been injected, smoked and snorted away, Barbara says.

Her daughter called frantically from jail last December, having been
picked up in a police drug raid.

"She was crying, pleading with me, saying, 'Mommy, help me.' Imagine
what that feels like, your only child behind bars and you're
powerless to help."

Barbara, who suffers from depression and is diabetic, gathered what
little money she could and hitched a ride to Goderich to see her
daughter at her court appearance.

She's since been released on bail and disappeared from her mother's life again.

"Marcie was my everything and now I've lost her," Barbara says.

"She told me the last time she called that she feels like she's dying inside."

Barbara has a warning for parents: talk to your children; get
involved in their lives before it's too late.

"I never even knew this stuff, this meth, existed," she says. "It
destroyed my little girl. I don't think people realize what it is and
what it does to people."

Jeff Christie says he sympathizes with parents like Barbara. He knows
what he did to his family. Drug addiction is a vicious circle of pain
and misery, he says.

"Crystal meth will rip everything from you then leave you lying in a
fricking sewer. It will take everything you love, load it on a bus,
push it over a cliff, then make you watch it burn."

Hanging Around

This time it's going to be different, Jeff Christie says.

At the time of this story's publication, Jeff has just completed a
21-day residential treatment program at the Renascent Treatment
Centre near Whitby, Ont. It's the first time he has ever completed a
treatment program. "I never wanted to grow up to be an intravenous
drug user," he says.

Having hit rock bottom, he took action. His pride was shattered. He'd
missed 18 months of his childrens' lives he can't get back.

In the weeks leading up to his 21-day stay at Renascent, Jeff busied
himself with walking, daily visits to a 12-step support group,
anything to keep his mind off drugs.

Building self-esteem is a valuable weapon in one's inner battle with
addiction, he says.

"I've tried to use my wife as a tool to get clean. I've tried to stay
clean and sober up for my kids. None of it has worked. It doesn't
work. The only person I can get better for is me."

He's relapsed many times before.

"I was sucked right back in as though I had never left. I've done a
lot of shitty things and it's been a hard pill to swallow. I just
don't have another relapse in me."

The United Way of Sarnia-Lambton is looking to reach out to people like Jeff.

In conjunction with about 40 other community partners, the agency has
embarked on the most exhaustive drug study ever undertaken in Sarnia-Lambton.

The mandate: bring together key service providers, police and
community leaders, identify gaps in service and community needs, and
recommend actions for change.

"This is an issue that needs more attention," says United Way
executive director Dave Brown. "The problem is growing. Front line
workers see it every day. In the last year or two we've seen more and
more of the social harms of drug and alcohol abuse."

So far, the group has come up with a 20-page policy draft.

While marijuana and alcohol are the primary substances of choice, the
report cites a rise in harder drugs, including crystal meth.

Brown says front-line workers fear the drug's low cost and growing
supply will make usage more prevalent.

The key strategies of the plan are prevention, education and
co-ordination of services.

Brown says educating kids in school isn't enough. At Sarnia-Lambton
Rebound, for example, most student clients in the school suspension
program, known as PASS, have been suspended for drug-related
incidents. In years past, fighting accounted for most suspensions.

Brown says the committee has decided that education about substance
abuse needs to be spread throughout a student's school career,
beginning in the primary grades.

There also needs to be better supports in place for parents,
including addiction-specific programs and support groups, the draft
report states.

The problem requires online resources, better training for staff in
the social services, expansion of the needle exchange program to the
rest of the county and more consistency in the delivery of services.
The question is how to fund more services. Brown says we can't afford not to.

"If we don't try and prevent people from getting addicted in the
first place, and don't help users to clean up, we'll just be spending
more money down the road for additional services," he says. Once the
committee completes its drug strategy and identifies service gaps,
it's likely more programs and services will be created. That's where
the United Way can help, through funding, Brown says.

"We need more consistent support for addicts. We don't have that
support group yet here in Sarnia-Lambton."

Jeff Christie says he wants to be part of building that support network.

His wife recently sought to have her husband's non-communication ban
lifted. His probation officer says he can begin to rebuild his family life.

Baby steps first, Jeff says. While the Chipican Motel is home for
now, he can see a brighter future.

"I never thought I would have a chance to get my family back. I had
lost all hope," he says.

He knows it's his last chance. He points to a recent tattoo near his
left shoulder. It depicts two hands clasped in prayer with initials
at the base, a nod to Jeff's network of 12-step supporters.

"I don't want to forget how bad it was. This reminds me."

He says he's sharing his personal story of despair and hope, despite
a real threat of retribution from the drug community, so that others
can learn from his mistakes.

"My motives are simple to relinquish my feelings of guilt and regret.
I need the world to forgive me so I can forgive myself," he says.

He pauses to pull out the family photo he carries.

"I would like a last chance to restore my reputation and my name," he says.

"This is the end of the line. My journey back from hell begins now."

[sidebars]

SIGNS OF A METH USER

Physical Signs:

. weight loss

. mood swings

. increased agitation

. hyperactivity

. rapid speech

. non.stop talking

. increased libido

. loss of appetite

. repetitious, compulsive behaviour

. excessive sweating

. obsessive picking of skin

. needle (track) marks on arms

. insomnia

. decline in personal hygiene

. items found used to inject or inhale meth, including burnt spoons
and tin foil, glass pipes, rubber tubing, syringes, or broken light bulbs

Psychological Signs:

. euphoria

. empowerment

. paranoia/delusions

. solitary behaviour

. aggression and irritability

. violent outbursts

. anxiety

. confusion

. depression

. suicidal thoughts

. lack of motivation

. Addiction is a factor in up to 30 per cent of all hospital admissions

. Is a factor for 60 per cent of the people that enter the criminal
justice system

. 50 per cent of domestic violence cases influenced by addiction

. Addiction is a $40 billion economic cost to Canada

. Province spent less than one.third of one per cent of its
$113.million health budget last year on drug and alcohol addiction services

. $1 invested in addictions services saves $6 in the community

Source: Westover Treatment Centre 2007 Health Service Plan

ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES REPORTED BY WESTOVER CLIENTS (SOME REPORTED
MULTIPLE SUBSTANCES)

. 60 per cent Alcohol

. 30 per cent Cocaine

. 28 per cent Marijuana

. 27 per cent Crack

. 11 per cent Prescription opiods

. 6 per cent Amphetamines

. 5 per cent Ecstasy

. 2 per cent Heroin

ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES REPORTED BY LAMBTON ADDICTIONS SERVICES ADULT
CLIENTS (SOME REPORTED MULTIPLE SUBSTANCES)

. 79 per cent Alcohol

. 32 per cent Marijuana

. 23 per cent Cocaine

. 14 per cent Crack

. 12 per cent Narcotic Analgesics

. 4 per cent Crystal Meth (*)

. 4 per cent Benzodiazepine

. 3 per cent Ecstasy

. (*) crystal meth didn't make the list four years ago

ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES REPORTED BY LAS YOUTH CLIENTS (SOME CLIENTS
IDENTIFIED MULTIPLE ADDICTIONS)

. 76 per cent Cannabis

. 67 per cent Alcohol

. 16 per cent Ecstasy

. 10 per cent Cocaine

. 10 per cent Hallucinogens

. 4 per cent Crack

. 2 per cent Amphetamines

. 2 per cent Heroin

HEALTH RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH METH USE

. damage to blood vessels in the brain that can lead to stroke

. inflammation of the lining of the heart

. heart attack

. psychosis

. extreme paranoia

. permanent brain damage

. Parkinson's Disease

. significant tooth decay known as meth mouth

. weight loss

. irreparable damage to nose lining

. elevated risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases

. death