'I REGRET EVERY MINUTE OF IT'

Meth Addiction Cost Him Time With His Father, Now Deceased

GULFPORT - When James Porter started snorting crystal methamphetamines as a
freshman in high school, nothing mattered to him but his next fix.

By the time he was 17, he was skipping school so he and his girlfriend
could hang out at a drug dealer's house and snort the drug throughout the
day. He'd met his new friend one night after some other teenagers invited
him to go to a friend's house.

"I didn't know whose house we were going to," Porter said. "It was weird.

"Before that, there was this guy in my biology class that offered me a
plastic bag filled with some white powder and I said no. When I got to the
house that night with my friends, there he was. It was him."

By the time he met his new friend, he'd been drinking Jack Daniel's and
vodka for two years. He took his first drink when he was 13 and living in
Vancouver, Wash. Some classmates pulled out some alcohol one night, offered
it to him and he drank it.

When he later moved to Portland, Ore., he started smoking marijuana and
continued his drinking. From there, his life went from bad to worse. An
average student, making B's and C's in school, he never thought he'd end up
addicted to a drug.

But he did.

Because he was an only child, he said, his parents trusted him completely
and allowed him to do his own thing. They thought he was doing well,
keeping up his average grades and playing on the school's soccer team.

He later told his parents he'd gotten a job stocking shelves at a local
Wal-Mart.

"I never worked at Wal-Mart," he said. "I just told my parents that. They
believed me."

Little did his parents know that he was spending his days and nights with
his girlfriend at the drug dealer's house. They'd become good friends so
Porter and his girlfriend never had to pay a dime for their drugs.

"He just always had a lot," Porter said. "He'd pull out this white powder
and a razor blade and chop it up and he'd get a straw or a rolled up $5
bill and snort it. Then, everybody was doing it."

Porter said he refused his first offer for a line of meth, as he calls it,
but by the time the night was over, he'd given in to peer pressure and
snorted a couple of lines.

"When I didn't do it at first, they were teasing me," he said, "telling me
I was weak if I didn't do it. So, I did it."

The first time he snorted the drug, he remembers feeling an incredible
burning sensation in his nose followed by a bad taste in his mouth.
Probably 30 seconds later, the taste was gone and Porter and his girlfriend
were filled with energy.

"It's like cocaine, but the cocaine makes you numb," Porter said. "This
didn't."

Porter soon found himself craving the drug all the time. He, like his
girlfriend, was addicted.

When he snorted meth, he stayed up and active for 14 or 16 hours straight,
either dancing or going to clubs with friends. When he came down, he slept.

"I slept for 12 to 14 hours straight," he said. "My parents asked me then
why I was so tired. I told them I was just tired from working and soccer.
We were really close. My parents pretty much let me run me."

When Porter was 17, he decided to quit school, something he had to explain
to his parents. He told them he wanted to go ahead and get his GED so he
could enroll in college.

They believed him. Instead of doing what he said, Porter fell deeper into
his addiction. His girlfriend dropped out of school, too, and the two of
them started hanging out with the drug dealer every day.

For two more years, Porter and his girlfriend continued to do the drug
their bodies now craved.

"I couldn't get it out of my mind," he said. "I craved it. Once you take
it, too, you need more and more of it to get the energy you needed. That
was pretty much the way it was from the time I was 17 to 19."

At the height of his addiction, Porter was snorting at least seven or eight
"eight balls" of crystal methamphetamines a day, which is about eight
ounces of the drug, with an estimated street price at the time of $800.

In late January 1996, Porter would hear the news that would change his life
forever. His father was diagnosed with lung cancer and expected to live no
more than six months.

His son kept snorting the drug he craved until just three weeks after his
father's diagnosis. "I thought he had like six months," he said.

On Feb. 16, 1996, Porter's father died of lung cancer. He was 64.

"That's actually what snapped me out of it. I just didn't want to do drugs
anymore. I knew my dad wouldn't have wanted me to do that. That's what it
took for me."

Porter spent two weeks suffering from withdrawals from meth. He was
vomiting, nauseous, itching, unable to sleep and experiencing night sweats.
In the midst of it all, he was grieving, too.

"It was all about my father," he said.

He now warns others to stay away from the drug. He uses his own addiction
to explain why the drug use has horrific effects on a person.

"It's easy to get hooked," he said, "and it can kill you. Think how you
would feel if you lost a family member and then turn around and ask
yourself how your parents would feel if they lost you to drugs."

Porter mostly remembers the losses he's suffered as a result of his addiction.

"All those years with my parents, with my dad, were lost and I'll never be
able to regain them," he said. "Now I regret every minute of it. Learn from
someone else's mistakes. Drugs are a path to self-destruction."

After his father's death, Porter moved to Meridian, where he earned an
associate's degree as a licensed practical nurse. He also got an
associate's degree in business.

He was doing well until he moved to South Mississippi and got angry at a
boss for discrimination. He said he ended up smoking some marijuana and
committing credit card fraud. He's currently drug-free, and expected to be
released from the Harrison County jail any day now.

From here, he's headed to California to take care of his ill mother. He
also wants to get away from the people he knows who uses drugs.