Meth: A New Drug Crisis Is Growing In Southwest Virginia (3 of 4)

METH: A NEW CRISIS IN SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA

The recovery rate for methamphetamine addiction is often dismal, but so
far, Connie Pierce has beaten the odds.

When the cravings for crystal methamphetamine wash over her, Connie Pierce
prays. Those prayers and memories of life under the influence of the potent
stimulant spur on her recovery.

The 41-year-old mother from Marion fights her addiction every day. And
she's winning the battle. "What keeps me going is remembering the pain,"
Pierce said. "When you forget the pain or you get overconfident, you're in
trouble.

When I think about it, it's a sick feeling in my stomach." Read part one of
the story Glance at Pierce, and you'd never know she's a recovering addict
with an 80-year prison sentence hanging over her head if she strays from
her path. For those who battle the meth addiction, Pierce is a much-needed
success story. "I'm proud of myself," Pierce said. "I'm going to tell you,
it don't happen this way. This is not a story you're going to hear very
often." It started simply enough.

Until early 2002, Pierce considered herself a recreational drug user,
sampling cocaine and meth at parties or when friends gathered on weekends.
"It was maybe once a month or so," she said. But that year, Pierce started
smoking crystal meth with a boyfriend.

Also called ice, it is a purer, more potent form of meth that looks like
clear crystals. "It was a very dysfunctional relationship. I would do
anything to make him pay attention to me," she said. "So I hit the pipe
with him." As that first high seeped into her, Pierce knew she wanted more.
"It was amazing," she said. "I'd clean house.

I had all kinds of energy.

It was a great drug. I thought it was a wonder drug." It was anything but.
Too gone to listen The boyfriend didn't last long, and Pierce found herself
alone with a crystal meth habit, no drug supply and no job. She could
either turn to prostitution to feed her addiction, like other women she
knew, or sell meth. Pierce said she opted to sell. Life quickly became one
big party.

Pierce fed her habit surrounded by friends, drug deals and thousands of
dollars in her pocket. Two summers ago, at the height of her addiction, she
was using an eight ball of crystal meth a day. An eight ball - is an eighth
of an ounce, or 3 1/2 grams - is enough for hundreds of hits. Her longest
binge without sleep lasted six days. It had to end. On July 25, 2002,
Pierce sold meth to an informant from the Smyth County Sheriff's Office.
Investigators showed up at her house eight hours later with a search
warrant and seized a gram of meth and other evidence.

She spent the next year waiting to be arrested, while continuing to use and
deal. The drug was taking its toll. She always felt sick. She weighed a
mere 90 pounds. And her parents, who lived across the street, were asking
questions. "Until she lost all her weight, we never knew what was going
on," her mother, Carol Firestone, said. "I'd never even heard of the stuff.

We had to look it up on the Internet. When we saw what it was, it
frightened us." Long-term meth users suffer from paranoia, anxiety,
aggressive behavior and hallucinations and can develop methamphetamine
psychosis, a mental disorder that mimics paranoid schizophrenia. Pierce
didn't care. She turned a cold shoulder to her parents' probing.

She and her new boyfriend, Teddy Pierce, stayed out of Smyth County as much
as possible, renting hotels hotel rooms and cabins in the surrounding
countryside. Teddy Pierce, already in trouble with the law for his own meth
habit, urged her to clean up. "He kept trying to tell me that nothing good
could come of this, that we needed to stop," she said. "I was too far gone
to listen." The end came Sept. 10, 2003. She and Teddy Pierce were staying
at a Washington County motel when sheriff's deputies arrived with arrest
warrants. A Smyth County grand jury had indicted them both for selling
meth, possessing meth, conspiracy and a firearms charge. Seeking help
Connie Pierce was jailed without bond. And without meth. "By the fifth day,
I was finally thinking the way I had forgotten to think. I called my mom
and said, 'Bring me my Bible,' " she said. "I had been high for a year,
every day using.

I wasn't thinking the way I knew how." On Sept. 19, a judge finally set her
bond, and Connie Pierce sought help for her addiction.

Her so-called friends disappeared, but her family stayed at her side.
"Here's my mom and dad, who I had been so mean to, saying, 'I'm going to be
behind you all the way,' " she said. "It's all about choices.

I would tell anybody, 'You think that drug is great?

You think you have all these friends? Just wait.' " Getting clean took more
than a few days in jail and a few months of counseling, she said. With her
family's support, a return to her faith and a hard look at all she
regretted, Pierce left her previous drug life and the people in it behind
her. She worked her way through the Transitions drug treatment program
offered by Mount Rogers Community Mental Health and Mental Retardation
Services Board. Although meth has been widely reported to have a dismal
recovery rate of less than 10 percent, many treatment experts say the drug
isn't any harder to kick than cocaine. Still, many recovering meth addicts
suffer chronic relapses because they don't get out of unhealthy
environments, said Kris Payne, counseling coordinator for the Transitions
program. "The people who do make it have a pretty solid recovery," Payne
said. "They have to face so much adversity in their recovery that those who
do make it through seem to have some pretty solid recovery and are able to
develop a support system." Transitions is an intensive outpatient program
in which addicts initially meet four days a week for four weeks.

Recovering addicts also get group therapy and attend 12-step meetings.
Unlike heroin or cocaine addicts, meth users don't go through violent
withdrawal symptoms as the drug leaves their system.

They sleep instead, Payne said. "One of the dilemmas with this drug is a
lot of times it doesn't necessarily require inpatient treatment.

They don't necessarily need detox.

However, that creates a problem where people stay in the same environment.
Traditional treatment doesn't work with methamphetamine." What will work,
Payne said, is a community support network to help recovering meth addicts
find housing, transportation, child care, employment and mental health
treatment. A daily struggle Connie Pierce's mother considers her daughter
one of the lucky ones. "I thank God," Firestone said. "I prayed a lot. And
I'm proud of her." Connie Pierce fights her past every day. "I have a made
a choice not to use. I'm still an addict," she said. "I've got to get up
every day knowing I've got to start all over. Everything I had is gone."
Her biggest regret is losing custody of her 8-year-old daughter, Brooke.
Despite her success, the family courts have not been very forgiving. On
Jan. 5, Pierce pleaded guilty to possession of meth and sale of meth, both
felonies.

A judge suspended an 80-year prison sentence and put her on probation for
the next 10 years.

She gave up her driver's license for a year and must complete 500 hours of
community service. Teddy Pierce also pleaded guilty and, instead of jail
time, was sent to a drug treatment facility.

He is scheduled to be released in December. Now, Connie and Teddy Pierce,
married in a jailhouse ceremony in October, look forward to a much
different future. Connie Pierce is working in retail and was recently
promoted to a management position. She earned a 4.0 her first semester at
Wythe Community College, where she plans to study radiology.

And she has remained clean. "I understand why people are doing it. I
understand why it's a problem.

If anybody's got any kind of emptiness in them, this will change it," she
said. "I crave it. I think about it. And then I just pray."