RECOVERY FROM METH MESS SAVES WOMEN

Methamphetamine can make you do almost anything: live with a drug
dealer you despise, steal even though you were raised to know better,
forget your children in a drug-induced frenzy and then ignore them
when the drug dumps you in a lethargic heap.

Liberty Mauch, 23, and Amanda Fields, 32, described the lows of their
drugging days frankly, but they looked haunted when they talked about
losing their kids.

Child welfare workers took them away. What churns the women up inside,
looking back, is how even that low wasn't enough to get them to give
up meth, not right away. It just sent them into a deeper spiral of
binge drugging, often so messed up they didn't bother to attend
scheduled visits with their children.

But that's in the past.

Mauch hasn't touched meth in almost two years. Fields has been off the
drug for 18 months.

And Micki Knuckles thinks that they and all the other people
successfully battling the demon of addiction deserve some
recognition.

Knuckles, director of Willamette Family Treatment Services, has
organized a Sunday celebration to honor people recovering from drug
and alcohol problems. It's the second annual Recovery Rocks party,
Knuckles said, to remind people that despite all the horror stories
around drug and alcohol abuse, there's reason for optimism.

"With help, people do get better. They can make changes," she
said.

But it's not easy.

Mauch used meth while she was pregnant with her daughter Raven, now
3.

"She was born with drugs in her system," Mauch said, yet miraculously
healthy despite that. But by the time Raven was a year old, Child
Welfare Services had to intervene and took Raven away.

"I was homeless, and I was using," Mauch said. "I was going to drug
court. I was in and out of jail."

Fields was a certified nursing assistant with a husband and two
children and a seemingly ordinary life. She started using
methamphetamine to lose weight when she was 24, "but I couldn't get
skinny enough," she said. She managed to kick the drug while she was
pregnant with her third child, but started up again after the baby was
born.

"I thought I'd do it, just to get off this pregnancy weight. But I
went back to it like I'd never stopped," she said.

She lost her job. Her husband lost his. And they lost their children
as their slide continued.

Mauch stopped using when she got word from the state that it was
preparing her daughter for adoption. The thought of losing Raven
forever was the push she needed. She entered treatment and was
eventually able to get her daughter back. She stayed clean through a
second pregnancy and gave birth to Sequoia four months ago.

Fields sought help because she was tired of being so tired. "It would
take two weeks to recuperate," from a high, she said. "I wanted a life."

She called Willamette Family, but getting in wasn't easy. The agency's
residential treatment program for mothers and pregnant women - the
only one in Lane County - has state funding for 35 women and five
children, but actually houses about 45 women and 17 children in
treatment with a four-to six-week wait for women with children and
six weeks to 2 1"2 months for women without children, Knuckles said.

"I called them every day," Fields said. "I begged." She finally
entered treatment on Jan. 4, 2001, and has been clean since. She and
her husband now have custody of their children, she said.

Fields and Mauch credit the center for helping them stop using, but
also for teaching them how to have a healthy, sober life. Meth had
robbed them of elementary skills: planning, cooking, even bathing.

"Once I had been clean from meth, I had to learn to live all over
again. I had to learn how to clean my house," Mauch said.

The two also say that the women-only treatment facility helped them
stay focused in a way that co-ed treatment doesn't. Men can be a real
distraction to women trying to recover, Mauch said.

And distractions are the last thing women in recovery need, Knuckles
said. The intensive program in residential care keeps clients busy
from morning to night, and they're encouraged to attend 12-step
meetings, she said.

"It's group therapy, counseling, behavior modification, coping and
skill building," Knuckles said. "You get a pregnant IV drug user in
here, and it's going to take a whole lot more than a 12-step approach."

Mauch said she had never had relationships with women before coming to
Willamette. "I hated other women, and they hated me," she said. Now
she has strong friendships with women who have shared some of her
traumas: violent relationships, bad drugs, and the guilt of poor parenting.

Both she and Fields have gone through the in-house treatment, been
outpatients and now live in subsidized housing and participate in
after-care programs that keep them in contact with the center and with
other people in recovery.

The two have plans for the future that don't include
drugs.

Fields and her husband are back together, and she hopes to hire on at
the Willamette Family Treatment Services center when she completes the
after-care program.

And Mauch, a single parent, plans to study nursing so she can support
her kids.

"I want to give them the best life I never had," she
said.

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RECOVERY ROCKS

Celebrating sobriety: A community party from noon until 7 p.m. Sunday
at the Washington-Jefferson Street Park with music, children's
activities, food, a raffle and auction to raise money to cover the
cost of the celebration. Any additional money will go to the
Willamette Family Treatment Services Center's Child Development Center.