UP IN SMOKE - LIVES RUINED BY CRACK ADDICTS

Levi was a typical teenager -- he liked to party, didn't listen to
his parents and probably cared a little too much about being cool.

However, the combination of rebellion and the need for acceptance
proved to be a nearly deadly combination for Levi who first tried pot
and began drinking heavily while still attending an Okotoks high school.

It wasn't until he was 19-years-old that he was introduced to cocaine
at a party.

After his first experience with the drug he became an occasional user.

"Nothing really mattered at that time," he said. "Just hanging out
with friends and partying."

Several years later Levi (Levi is not his real name) was ordered to
enter rehab due to a number of run-ins with the law. At that time he
mainly went to deal with his addictions to marijuana and alcohol. He
was able to stay off drugs for almost a year, but when he moved out
with friends his life soon went off the rails.

"I really liked (rehab)," he said. "But then I moved out of my
parent's house and started drinking again and by the next year I was
partying again."

However, Levi doesn't blame his friends or falling in with the wrong
crowd for his relapse.

"It is the party scene," he explained. "It is really not the people
because everyone has their own poison and mine was cocaine and crack."

Levi said at least 90 per cent of the people he knows do some type of drugs.

It took six months with a serious ongoing crack addiction before Levi
realized he again needed help.

"I moved into my mom's basement and basically smoked crack for six
months," he said.

Finding the drugs was not difficult, he added.

"Five years ago when I first started all this you could find pot
anywhere and now that is the way crack is," he said. "You can get it
here (Okotoks) or in Black Diamond or High River, but if that didn't
come through Calgary is the easiest place to get. I knew several
people who were moving a lot of it."

Sporadic work and selling marijuana and cocaine helped him fuel his
addiction, he said, which was beginning to take a toll.

"I was very paranoid," he said. "I would go to my room and turn the
lights off and leave all the lights on outside and stare at the crack
under my door to see if I could see shadows."

The addiction had ripple effects when Levi moved in with his mother
after being evicted from his apartment.

She said the hopelessness of the situation really hit home when he
moved in. Previously she would keep an eye out for her son, driving
by his apartment, but could only guess at what he was doing.

"When I would drive by I could see that his lights were on at 5 or 6
in the morning and I knew he'd been up all night," she said. Without
a home, Levi's mother said she needed to take him in.

"I knew if I kicked him out he would die," she said. "I thought I
could straighten him out, but you can't -- they have to want to do it
themselves."

After several months in the throes of a drug addiction, she knew Levi
couldn't kick the habit alone.

"He was very paranoid," his mother said. "I would come home and every
blind would be shut and every door locked. He would hide in a room
with a knife. He would have a knife hidden in every room."

Finally, one day Levi's mother came home to find six police cars
outside of her complex and her home trashed.

"He had to hit rock bottom," she said. "I think when he saw that he
realized he needed help."

However it took two months before Levi could enter the Lander's
Treatment Centre in Claresholm. In July Levi entered a three-week
residential program and has maintained his sobriety ever since.

But his mother knows that a relapse could happen at any time.

"When people ask me how is Levi I say he is good today," she said.

Both later attended another week of counseling at the Lander's Centre.

"It was awesome," she said. "We learned how to cope with everyday living."

With nine months of sobriety behind him, Levi said he is thankful for
what rehabilitation has done for him.

"When I'm not on crack I'm a likeable human being," he said. "I get
respect. Before people's parents hated me and told their kids to stay
away from me."

Now, again living on his own with a full-time job and the respect of
friends and family, Levi said he is finally happy and said he hopes
his story will prevent others from making the same mistake.

"I know kids don't want to listen, but it is not a wise choice," he
said. "It was fun at first, but that feeling goes away really fast
and then it really goes to hell. Everyone wants to make their own
choices, but it is not worth it. I look back now and I can't believe
I'm still alive."