MIND OVER METH

Addicts Struggle To Overcome Utah's Drug Of Choice.

Dan Swenson considered himself dead the day he used the wrong syringe.
While trying to extract ephedrine to make methamphetamine, he accidentally
injected himself with epinephrine. He recalls, "I couldn't hold still and
couldn't move, either." Swenson yelled for his brother. Then he vomited
blood puddles. Flanked by two paramedics, he walked out of his parents'
house. Three minutes after the mistaken injection, he lost consciousness on
an ambulance gurney. "In my opinion, I was dead," he says.

Swenson, 26, lay comatose for five days. His sister made travel plans to
attend his funeral in Salt Lake City. After a six-day hospitalization, he
required kidney dialysis. "They said I'd be on it for life, but I got off
dialysis in five weeks."

Five months after leaving the hospital, Swenson ended his nine-year drug
habit. He quit using on his own, then went to a drug treatment camp for
four months. From his first drug use at 15, he says he knew there was a way
out of addiction through 12-step programs sponsored by organizations such
as Alcoholics Anonymous and the LDS Church. But he wasn't ready to quit. A
month after leaving the treatment camp, he smoked marijuana twice, then
returned to using meth.

Heidi Markham (not her real name) hoped to start a new life. Planning to
leave the state, she pulled her daughter, Chelsea, out of school and rented
a hotel room near the Salt Lake City airport. She had heard rumors that
people were looking for her but never guessed that life as she knew it
would end within hours. On a constant meth binge, Markham didn't really
care if she was alive or dead.

When she answered a knock at the hotel room door, five DEA agents stood
there. Catching sight of a meth pipe in the room, they arrested Markham.
"For someone who never even had a moving violation, it was terrible," she
says. "Yet part of me felt a small level of relief." She suspects a hotel
clerk, noting the amount of luggage she moved into the room, thought she
was setting up a meth lab and called authorities. And she believes that if
the agents hadn't confronted her that night, she wouldn't be alive today.
"I had reached the point where nothing mattered. My addiction completely
engulfed me."

As she and her daughter sat on the couch waiting for Child Protective
Services to arrive to take Chelsea, the 6-year-old looked up at her mom.
She asked, "Are you going to jail?" When Markham said yes, Chelsea clung to
her and began to sob.

Eight years before her arrest, Heidi Markham had never even tried
methamphetamine. But while she had decided she could no longer enable the
addiction of her boyfriend, Dave, he repeatedly urged her to "try it just
one time." Markham finally agreed. She describes the high she experienced
as the most intense, happy and amazing feeling ever. She was elated. She
told Dave she loved him and thought he was the greatest. "It's never the
same as that first high," she says today. "You end up chasing that
sensation constantly."

Subsequent highs nearly reach the same peak--but not quite. "The fact that
it's almost enough drives you to want more," says Markham. In the
beginning, she tried meth a few times, and then stopped. When her boyfriend
didn't quit with her, she ended the three-year relationship. She discovered
her pregnancy two weeks later.

Playing Mind Games

Markham didn't plan to use meth again after the first time she quit. But
the interval after Chelsea was born was a dark place. She felt lonely and
depressed about being overweight. Her work as an international freight
shipper earned her $55,000 a year but consumed lots of hours. There were
calls at 4 a.m. from Japan and Europe. Baby Chelsea was 15 months old when
a former friend of Markham's ex-boyfriend Dave--also a meth addict--visited
her house. She began using again, alone at home. She didn't party. Her
family and co-workers didn't know about her meth use. "It was a release for
me. I felt numb. I had this great life, but secretly I was a drug addict."

Markham admits she played mind games, thinking she wasn't becoming addicted
because she only used on occasion, then left meth alone for months.
Eventually, it crept up to using every weekend. Methamphetamine appears to
appeal to young women in the short term because it provides the energy
needed to take care of her children, maintain a home and keep working. Too,
meth is an anorectic drug that results in weight loss, hence its nickname,
the "Jenny Crank" diet drug.

In Markham's case, all her pregnancy weight plus more pounds--70 in
all--dropped away. Burnt out from work, Markham quit her job. She and
Chelsea moved home with her parents, a shift she considers her greatest
mistake. "I said I wanted to look for other employment and reevaluate where
I was at. But my parents were there to watch Chelsea, and I started going
out more." Her addiction grew to be "horrendous." "It was not daily --it
was multiple times daily."

As her addiction continued, Markham took "a little retail job" and went on
welfare. "I bought food with food stamps and had nothing else to pay for
because I lived at home--so I threw it all toward drugs."

Markham found herself befriending several heroin addicts, in part because
she perceived they didn't share the paranoia and delusions she experienced
with meth-heads. During their relationship, her meth-addicted boyfriend
consistently accused her of cheating and meeting someone else--even if she
went to a 7-Eleven for five minutes. On one occasion, Dave kidnapped her
and knocked her unconscious. When she revived, they were in Central Utah.
In hopes of escape, she began to write his license number on a gas station
toilet stall. He burst into the stall and ordered, "Let's go. Now." On that
same trip, he dropped her off alone in a field at night, saying he would
return for her. "I was in such shock, I didn't know if I wanted him to come
back," she recalls. "Meth makes you so delusional that your reality isn't
real. While heroin addicts have their own ailments, I felt they were safer."

Kevin Taylor, deputy director of the Salt Lake County DEA Metro Narcotics
Task Force, who has worked in narcotics enforcement for 25 years, has seen
meth users become delusional and paranoid. He recalls an instance where a
meth addict, when pursued by police, killed himself when he realized he
couldn't escape.

Another Addict's Tale

Dan Swenson's story echoes elements of Markham's. Like her, he lost weight,
dropping 50 pounds after three months of meth use. His began using drugs
when he was 15, a time when he felt constantly depressed and suicidal. He
perceived that he would smoke weed, drink and do drugs the rest of his
life. "I thought the stuff was great. It numbed me enough to deal with my
parents, friends and society."

Glen Lambert, executive director of Odyssey House, says that drug addicts
are rarely "pure addicts" who use only one drug but are prone to
cross-addictions. Markham eventually used Ecstasy in addition to
methamphetamine. Swenson was a heavy LSD user from age 15 to 19, during
which time he also partook of mushrooms, marijuana, alcohol and
barbiturates. He somehow pieced together several high school credits.
Though he didn't graduate at 18, that was when he moved on to hard
drugs--meth, cocaine and heroin.

Also like Markham, Swenson was able to stay employed in the early years of
his addiction. He originally financed his habit through full-time
construction jobs. After a day of framing, drywall and finish work, he
stayed awake all night using drugs. "Once I started using meth
intravenously, I had it with me at work and used it whenever I could," he says.

Though meth isn't considered an expensive drug, Swenson's habit skyrocketed
to where he used enough to cost $150--then $300--a day. Taylor explains
that, in Utah, meth usually costs between $80 and $90 a gram. While
addicted, Swenson eventually used more than a gram a day. "My addiction
started slow, then ate away at my life," he says.

Swenson reached the point where he literally slept for a week at a time. "I
tried to force down food. I couldn't do much of anything. I wouldn't get
out of bed again until I knew there was some way I could get more drugs. I
was ashamed at what I was doing to myself and didn't want to answer to it."

He says he experienced a moral dilemma over how to support his habit. "By
then, I really wasn't an employable person. I only held jobs for two weeks
to three months. Each time, after a while, I just stopped going in to
work." He pawned his tools. He forged and bounced checks. He told his
family whatever they needed to hear to lend him money. "Ten times out of
10, as soon as I had money, I bought drugs. I had lost control." Even
though his Dodge Dakota was paid for, he lost it when he took out a loan
against it that he couldn't repay. When police pulled him over, Swenson had
no valid license, no insurance, a fake sticker and an unregistered truck.

Death and Hope

A pivotal tragedy in Markham's life involved James, a heroin addict she
viewed as a big brother. Both she and Chelsea grew close to the man she
still views as a wonderful person who happened to struggle with addiction.
She feared he would do too much heroin, nod out and forget to breathe.
After six months of sobriety, he decided to use again one night when
Markham planned to visit. She remembers, "He called multiple times, saying,
`come over, come over.' During our last conversation, I thought I lost the
phone signal." James didn't answer when she knocked on his door. She and a
friend climbed up to look in a window. They saw him slumped over, still
holding his cell phone, blue, cold and dead. "He overdosed, vomited on
himself and died," says Markham. The fact that James kept trying to call
her during his last moments was haunting. She experienced post-traumatic
stress disorder.

Though her parents didn't know about her addiction, they were tired of her
behavior. She and Chelsea moved in with another friend who was a drug
dealer and her supplier. Markham used a lot of Ecstasy. For a moment, she'd
feel OK. For months after her friend's death, Markham says she was on a
meth binge that seemed unending. Then she'd come down, her mind racked by
images of finding James. She says she didn't neglect Chelsea in the sense
that she was always bathed and fed, but admits to totally abandoning her
emotionally. "She had her Xbox and Play Station. She was entertained, but
definitely not by me," Markham says.

After her arrest, Markham was court-ordered to the Odyssey House program
for women and children. Lambert explains that pregnant women or those with
up to three children may enter the treatment program. "We treat them as a
unit, offering a full course of assessments in individual, group and family
therapy to address parent and child interaction skills. They learn to have
the ability to set boundaries to enter and maintain healthy relationships."

Markham and her daughter have undergone a lot of therapy together. They
examined Chelsea's sorrow, answered her questions and addressed Markham's
neglect, including an incident when Chelsea witnessed a male friend of
Markham's injecting meth in their apartment. Chelsea asks Markham pointed
questions, such as, "Why wasn't I enough for you?" Markham says, "It breaks
my heart that my daughter wasn't enough to keep me off drugs, but at the
time, she wasn't."

Today, Swenson finds it ironic that although he went to jail an estimated
50 times, there is only one drug offense on his record -- for possession of
drug paraphernalia. Though most of his jail stays lasted only a night or
two, he was on probation for a felony forgery at age 19. He served seven
months in the Oxbow Jail at age 24. He says he found a measure of peace in
jail. He earned his high school diploma and began attending 12-step
recovery programs. Yet the second he got out, he started using drugs again.

Robert Gray says that both Markham and Swenson suffer from the bane of
every addict--a compulsion that, unless treated is 100 percent fatal. He
describes meth as a "monster nightmare, an evil drug that came out of the
deepest darkest office of hell." Gray has been a missionary in the LDS
Substance Recovery Program for eight years.

The 12-year-old program is modeled after the 12-step program in Alcoholics
Anonymous. "No earthly power can relieve that overpowering compulsion to
use drugs," says Gray. Within the LDS 12-step program, participants are
counseled to obey a passage from the Book of Mormon in First Nephi, Chapter
8, where Lehi has the vision of a straight and narrow path and an iron rod.

A Taste of Calm

Gray explains that when the addict or alcoholic can see no possible way
through his addiction, he is advised not to take counsel from his fear, but
to hold on to the iron rod by doing three fundamental things: Read
scripture daily; pray every day; and go to a daily substance-recovery
meeting. "It is hard not to resist the still, small voice within that is
the spirit of Jesus Christ," says Gray. "If an addict endures and goes
forward, he will reach step 12, which, in AA, is described as `a spiritual
awakening, or serenity with the grace of God.' At that time, he carries
this message to his whole family, and to other addicts who still suffer."
He adds that if an addict lets go of the `iron rod,' he goes down strange
and forbidden paths that lead to death, jail, disease, divorce, fear and
anxiety.

Swenson has now put his trust in the program--and been drug free--for six
months. "There's a sparkle in his eye called hope," says Gray. Swenson has
a job installing flagpoles, attends church and is welcome in his family
home after a long estrangement. He tells his story today because people
always said he could offer great help to others if he could get off drugs.
He attends four LDS Substance Recovery meetings each week. "I've had my
first sense of being peaceful. My first taste of calm," he says.

Markham continues to credit her recovery to the Odyssey House treatment
program. She has been clean for a year. She regained custody of Chelsea and
they live in Odyssey House's transitional housing that helps former addicts
ease back into traditional society. She has a full-time job. Markham
continues to explain to Chelsea that some of the adults she knew and loved
were drug addicts, and will not return to her life.

"Meth addiction is very aggressive. There are constant triggers to use,"
says Marjean Searcy, coordinator for the Salt Lake City COPS Meth
Initiative. "Women who are in a substance-abuse program say that the smells
of certain cleaners trigger them to want to use meth. Whenever one woman
walked down a certain street, it triggered her to want to use. The only way
to beat meth is to completely change friends and change lifestyle."

Lambert feels that the fact the Odyssey House program offers help to both
mothers and their children is significant. "One of the barriers that keeps
women from seeking treatment is that they don't know what to do with their
children [while they're in treatment]. Our concern is to break up the whole
multigenerational cycle of child neglect and abuse and substance abuse by
getting the mothers and children treated." Regarding Markham's success, he
says, "It's great to see an addict grow and overcome difficulties and build
a new life. As a mother, an employee and a citizen, Heidi has become
responsible in every way."

The Hard Numbers

Dan Swenson and Heidi Markham aren't alone.

In 2002, the ADAM (Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program) funded by the
National Institute of Justice, evaluated 872 adult male and female
arrestees at the Salt Lake County Metro jail within 48 hours of their
arrests. They found that some 30 percent of males and 40 percent of females
tested positive for meth use. That year, Salt Lake City females and males
ranked fourth--and sixth--highest in the nation for arrestees testing
positive for methamphetamine.

The upward trend continues according to statistics from the Utah Department
of Human Services Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. The year
2003 marked the first time that more women were admitted for treatment for
methamphetamine use than alcohol, says B.J. Van Roosendaal, Public
Information Officer for the Division. Admissions for meth use accounted for
over 31 percent of female treatment admissions.

In 2001, methamphetamine surpassed marijuana as the drug most commonly
abused by patients in treatment programs, and its popularity is ongoing.
While marijuana remains one of the most frequently used drugs in Utah, in
2003 (the latest year for which statistics are available) the gap between
meth and marijuana widened significantly, with some 24 percent of total
treatment admissions listing meth as their drug of choice while only about
18 percent picked marijuana, according to Van Roosendaal. During 2001, over
2,400 women were treated in Utah for addiction to meth, which is 37 per
cent of the state's substance-abuse population. These women are distinctive
from Utah's general treatment population in that they are significantly
younger: 40 percent had not yet completed high school. According to Van
Roosendaal, methamphetamine appears to particularly appeal to young women.

Kevin Taylor, deputy director of the Salt Lake County DEA Metro Narcotics
Task Force, explains that law enforcement has worked hard to defeat the
problem of meth labs in Utah. While there were 260 labs seized here in
1999, this year DEA agents seized about a hundred. Taylor says in the past
five years, the DEA has aggressively pursued the incarceration of
methamphetamine cooks. Changes in laws have made the precursor chemicals
required to make meth--such as iodine and pseudoephedrine--harder to obtain.

Yet busting the labs hasn't done away with the demand. Despite the DEA's
successes, "Meth is still the drug of choice in Utah," says Taylor. Today,
most of Utah's meth is imported from California and Mexico. When Marjean
Searcy became coordinator for the Salt Lake City COPS Meth Initiative in
1998, she says police discovered about one lab a day in Salt Lake City. "As
far as meth being available and people choosing to use meth, use is still
going up despite the fact that there are fewer labs," says Searcy. "While
we used to find meth that was 80 percent pure, still wet and obviously made
locally, today Utah's Californian and Mexican meth is above the 90 percent
purity level." She adds, "Lots of meth addicts will go two to three days
before they come off their high completely. During this time they don't
eat, sleep or take care of their children. Then they crash, become
irritable and sleep constantly. Their lives fall apart quickly because of
the way the addiction works."

- --Carolyn Campbell

Chemistry Lesson

Why do Utahns such as Heidi Markham and Dan Swenson use meth? Glen Lambert,
executive director of Odyssey House, explains that the drug interacts with
the pleasure centers of the brain to alter brain chemistry. It causes brain
elevations of the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine. High
dopamine levels can cause feelings of intense pleasure and norepinephrine
increases alertness. B.J. Van Roosendaal, Public Information Officer for
Utah's Department of Human Services Division of Substance Abuse and Mental
Health, says that while cocaine offers a short high that lasts 20 to 30
minutes, one aspect of methamphetamine's appeal is that it can offer a high
that lasts for hours. Meth--which can be snorted, swallowed, injected or
smoked--can be made anywhere: in a house, hotel room or van.

There is a reaction similar to the "fight or flight response" as the drug
boosts heart rate, respiration, blood pressure and body temperature. While
cocaine prevents the normal recycling of dopamine once it's released, meth
goes a step further and actually enters the nerve cell to cause excess
dopamine release. "It fires up such an overload of dopamine that it would
be hard for a person naturally to feel anything to approach that," says
Lambert. The user feels energetic, invincible and incredibly powerful. A
meth-induced high artificially boosts self-confidence. "There's a feeling
of `I'm everything. I'm on top of the world. I feel good about myself,'"
says Lambert.

Because she was initially able to continue working and hide her addiction
from her family, Markham's story illustrates the phenomenon that
methamphetamine brings an illusory impression that it is harmless. Lambert
explains, "If you use heroin, you pass out and don't sleep, so you know you
are not functioning, but with meth the ability for denial is greater, no
matter how dysfunctional your life becomes."

Lambert adds that meth use "really increases irresponsibility, as the drug
becomes more important." Typical signs are employment difficulties and
declining school attendance and grades. "There are antisocial activities
such as living a criminal lifestyle to support the habit. As behavior
becomes riskier, there's a tendency to get involved in a series of highly
dysfunctional relationships," he says. Sexual behavior also becomes
riskier, adding a greater likelihood of sexually transmitted disease.

As a stimulant, meth tends to increase paranoia and violence, says Lambert.
"The incidence of domestic violence increases. If you have a propensity for
mental illness, such as a developing schizophrenia, meth use will make it
much worse."