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Methamphetamine: Stories and Letters of the Hidden Costs
by Users, Loved Ones, and Parents

   Hello, My name is Toni, and I am a meth addict. I had dabbled in drugs through out my life but then about 6 years ago I became a victim to Meth. I am a functioning addict, but now have a temper from hell. I went threw a brief rehab and that kept me clean for four months. I have always been so head strong and so independent that this makes me sick! I have never been controlled by anyone or anything, then came meth! I am 52 years old and going to school to be an attorney, my husband of 9 years, is 38 and in the medical field. When we first met I was clean and had so much energy, Since then I got involved with meth and when I did stop I found I didn't the energy that I did even 6 years ago. I hated not being able to stay up late with my husband and do the things that we use to do. Not an excuse just the facts, when I went back to using I could stay up late and go for walks and ride motorcycles. My husband says he would rather have me sleeping then to be back on the drugs. The complication behind all of this is money. You can't afford it and yet you can't afford to get off of it. With no insurance you are basically screwed. Attached is a letter to the editor of our local news press I was disappointed when it wasn't published because it was all the truth. I wish everyday that I could be sober like I was 6 years ago and live a life that I use to know. With laughter, and trust, love and tears. With meth I am basically just num but I an awake. What a concept. When I first starting using it didn't seem to be as addictive, I don't know if it has changed over the years but I wish it was like it use to be. It would make it easier to walk away.Thanks for letting me share a little horror with you. In rehab there was a story of meth and how it owned you it is also attached. Thanks again for the ear..................
--Toni

   Hey... Im 19 years old and live in FL. Yes, a beautiful place, I know, but we all take it for granted. I grew up along the panhandel and just because it's FL doesn't mean I grew up rich. With my dad being an Alcoholic and my mother being addicted to pain killers because of her back problems. She made them worse by never doing anything, depressed because of my dads verbal abuse. I was the wild child..."slealing the van", smoking weed, getting into trouble but made good grades in school. My mom was my best friend, I was like her crutch.... Also stood up for her, made her laugh all the time, basically kept her sain. I have a little sister and older one. I was in 6th grade when I started smoking cigarettes. Now, by 7th grade I started smoking weed... Wasn't adicted but smoked watching family guy and before bed. I started dating a guy that was 4 years older than me. (I looked and was mature for my age). He was from New Orleans and I fell in love with him over a peiord of time. By 8th grade I had tried coke a few times (the come down was so bad that I decided I hated that drug), and did pills like loratabs here and there, but wasn't an addict of anything but cigarettes. I was working, going to school, helping with my fathers car note and food on the table, keeping my mom sain, spending time with my boyfriend. My dad was almost unbearable to be around, the only reason why I would come home for a few days when I wasn't with my boyfriend was to therapy my sisters and mom, and to buy food because my dad wasn't making that much. okay so school is beginning to be a little much so I decited to get my GED by 9th grade. One month later, I HAD to move out. I moved to New Orleans ( my mom moved out that same week to neworleans at my aunt's) I lived with my boyfriend. I Had dreams of being a model, doing hair and makeup, being a phycoligist, or Dr... We lived with his mom at her apartment, because we were saving for our place, while my mother was at my aunt's about 10 mins away. His mom sat in the hallway smoking crack all night getting me to look out the window for her. She always thought someone was in her closet, or in the kitchen, and you better believe the bult lock was ALWAYS locked and the peep whole had toilet paper in it. She would crawl around on the ground rubbing her hands around looking for a "dropped peice" and when she wasn't doing that she would be in a stare zone at the wall. Blinds shut. no sound. if any or none she still would say "whats that? omg come here I hear something... its in my closet. someones at the door." Finally My boyfriend and I would walk by to go to the living room and if she would say anything we just ignored her. She would sleep all day and repeat it ever night. One day my boyfriend was at work and I tried it with her. I know, after explaining how she was I was just so curious. Once i did, It felt so good for 5 minutes then i just wanted to do it again because the intense rush went away. I felt so good, and didn't tweak like she was. I never tried it again, it was only an experiance I knew how strong minded I am about some things..... uhhhh (Luckily my boyfriend was going to be at the house soon or I would have probably taken another hit. Then maybe another...)...But I never did it again. Found out my mom was hanging out with her started smoking that shit... She got adicted to it and introduced to the basers in NewOrleans. FUCK. What do I do now?! Okay, I tried helping my mom for over a year after starting, talk after talk, didn't do anything... My boyfriend by this time is being mentally abusive to me and one day it got physical... I wasn't going to sit around for years, and take his bullshit. I was very wise at this point of my life and relized he was dragging me down in life, lazy smoked to much weed, and the only reason why I left with him was because of my dad and i latched on to the first person I could.... So I moved back to FL. Oh yes I was free!!!!
   My friend and I got jobs at Hooters and got our own apartment. I quite weed.. It made me to lazy to get anything done. I then started modeling and traveling to south FL exct. My roommate introduced me to this man, he is charming, so sweet, the smartest man I ever came across, funny and is filthy rich. We endedup haningout alot... So much to where I was never home... We would go to Europe flying commercial... The bahamas in his jet. and basically I feel like im living a dream with a dream and he that treats me like a queen,... This is when the beginning of what leads me here begins. He smokes ice alot. I mean ALOT. He's able to do things during the day, all his important work and stuff, but at night is a diffrent story. When I first met him about 8 months ago, he asked me if I wanted to try..... I tried it thinking that I wouldn't do it again. But my god when I took that hit, blew it out.... I felt sooo damn good I just was miss untouchable!! Nobody warned me about THIS drug, It was my first time seeing it, let alone trying it. Okay, my personalitly is very out spoken and just always happy and love to talk. When I took that hit I was on top of the world, I felt like king kong. I was just amazed about how quick I knew I loved this drug and how quick my boyfriend and I bonded!! My heart racing and I had so much energy. My mind setting was so positive and you think im bubbely sober, well Im 100 times bubbely high. And for me, Just now saying that sentence I just said made me relize that im truely addicted. I wasn't depressed and stuff like most people think about problems and run to drugs and blame their problems. He turned into my boyfriend 6 months ago and we travel. He has a jet and 2 planes so we go all over...... OMG now is when im just relizing how long its been since I've tried ice. It feels like it was just yesterday! But it wasn't and I havn't considered myself addicted or an ice smoker until now. I am home a week in a half out of a month. Sometimes a little more than that. When I am, I Sleep, work, pay bills, hangout with my friends and visit family, and catch up on my eating. During the day(even a day after you last hit), I can't eat, forcing myself to eat just makes me gag. I have lost 13 lbs, and being a model its sapose to be good.... But im looking too skinny, thats not good. I look in mirror with no makeup on and see pale skin, my bags are sinked in and dark, my mouth taste gross, and get all emotional and cry about things going on through my head that normally wouldn't make me cry going on through my head.. I feel like im a non smoker because It's not everyday. This weekend I'll let tell you how things went. I will be with him and we will get high all night, stay up on the computer and talk about anything and everything (my voice is almost gone right now by the way). A friend will come over and bring the stuff (usually 2 8balls at a time) and smoke with us. Sometimes we smoke so much that the other day I sat there watching him sweat really bad, walking around opening all the droors, roaming (searching) through everything making a mess, then we sit on the computer all night. HE is a smoker for years and this weekend I relized he is DELERIOUS and has phycological problems.. The other night he got a flashlight and went out side walking around the yard and telling me he can feel the energy of the pill he dropped (The pill had dropped 7 hours before). I was tired of hearing about that freakin pill and he would close his eyes and start saying "I feel the energy in my other house, Its there in my other house I know it is", when we didn't even go to his other house. Now, that freaked me. He just hadn't been to sleep and hadn't eaten. I grabbed him got him in the house gave him water and got on the internet to search and learn about ICE. I read him some things it said and made him relize he needed to put the pipe down for an hour. There is a friend of our that comes over sometimes and I can tell she has lost the touch of reality. She is just so crazy that shes actually funny. She even asks if shes even real. Her brain is totally fried, she even knows it, but this is the only life she knows. I SAT BACK THIS WEEKEND SMOKED ICE, NOT NOTICING I WAS ADDICTED AND WATCHED MY BOYFRIEND AND FRIEND AND DON'T WANT TO END UP THIS WAY.
   He doesn't sleep AT ALL. He will go to sleep once a week for 15 minutes to 2 hours. That's it! I've seen him go three weeks without it in Europe once, but it totally takes over him (and me) once we got back. I will be awake for 3 days, then feel depressed, VERY light headed, completely egzausted feeling like I can't move, and crash for a day.... Then I will have a day or two of recovering then repeat for another 3 days. Go home for a week or 2 then be with him for the other 2. travel with him and if My Agency calls about a photo shoot, I will fit that in as well. I am egzausted, getting high is making me physically sick and relizing how mentaly ill my boyfriend is at times. I live two lives and they are split right in half. I model and WONT give that up and enjoy my life of eating and sleeping and drug free... And my other is this. A hard working man that treats me so respectfully, we explore the world together and get high.
    IM home now. Yesterday is when I decided I am not going to do it again. He agreed to it too.... told me he wants to quite too. I hope so, because I already know this is going to be hard when I go see him next week. TO THE PEOPLE THAT HAVN"T TRIED IT YET: Just don't!!! It's fucken true, the damn shit will take over you! You WILL get addicted not knowing it, even if you only do it on accations, "benges". I will keep you posted each month on how im holding up.. Thank you for reading this.
-- M

   Hi. I am writing for the 2nd time this month. My 1st time is the Story starting off saying "hey im 19 years old". I wanted to update you all on what I thought was an addiction I just relized I have and could overcome and me worried about my boyfriend- to my boyfriend has been in the hospital for two days. He wokeup in horrible pain throughout his head and face.. They said he has nerve damage. He if very confused and not himself... He tells me he also has brain damage too. I truely believe it was from smoking ice for so long and so much of it with no sleep. His nerve endings and nerves in his brain are messedup and his whole face hurts and his head is inHUGE pain, he can bairly talk and when he does he just keeps saying "im just all fuckedup theres no more of me left now. I feel lost and don't understand. everything hurts Im never going to feel the same." I just can't hear that comming from his mouth, it KILLS me so fucking bad to hear him stutter saying those words. I tell him don't lose hope, God is with him. I hope this damage is reversable... Im comming tomorrow to be next to him.. This will be my last time writing until things change, Praying, if they do and he gets back to normal. I am going to be by his side through this recovery and PRAY its not forever, for there is NO MAN in this world with such repect for a woman like he is and no man that is as smart as this man I have every met in my life. God Bless.
-- M

   My ex-husband is a meth addict. I was with him for 11 years, 5 of which he was in prison. I didn’t realize what an addictive personality he had when I married him and had a son with him. Like most women, I think I thought I could save him and make him a better person. Not that he isn’t a good person, but when he is doing drugs he is a completely different person. Not ever doing any drugs myself I didn’t notice all the signs at first. It wasn’t until after months of drastic mood changes and behavior changes that he finally admitted to me what he was doing. The next 3 years after that got progressively worse. We had brought his 3 kids into our home as well as the son we had together. Not really having a mother in the picture, I felt we were finally giving them a good home where they could have some hope of turning into happy well adjusted kids. Unfortunately my husband started using meth and that all went up in smoke. He would go off on all of us, especially me, for no reason. He would disappear all the time for hours. When there was a time where we were always together and always did things as a family, he no longer cared to be around us. When he was at home he was either acting like a jerk, or sleeping so hard you couldn’t wake him up for anything. He stopped sleeping in our bed and would spend all his time downstairs watching tv, usually porn. He would work at a job for a month maximum, and then either quit or get fired and take his sweet time finding another job. I ended up having to get a 2nd job just to support our family of six. This didn’t stop him from writing checks for cash and overdrawing the account, or from spending money on drugs. The more I put up with it the worse it got. No matter what I did it didn’t matter. I could cry, scream, withdraw, beg it didn’t matter. I could issue ultimatums, have him go to marriage counseling, ask that he go to drug counseling, nothing I did worked. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and I kicked him out, for good this time. The last two years I have still tried to help him, even after he has threatened me and my family, cheated on me, stole from me, I still try to be there for him. I have gotten him into detox and rehab programs, which he never stays at. I have loaned him money, which he has never paid back. Everything I have tried doesn’t work. He is now in jail again, and I think he might be there for a while this time. At this point I have given up on him. I never thought I would say that, but I don’t know what else to do. I still love him, but it is almost like the love I feel for someone that has passed away. All my good memories of him are spoken about as if he wasn’t here anymore. I still tell my son, who is 5 now, that his daddy loves him but he is just sick right now and maybe one day when he gets better he can see him again. but in the meantime I have pretty much given up hope that he ever will get better. I hope that anyone that thinks about doing meth, and especially if they have a family, to please think about the fact that you are not only hurting yourself, but you are putting your family through so much grief and pain that they will be scarred forever.
-- Kerry

   My attorney put it best when he described me as a "dysfunctional human being." For a brief momemnt, I was angry at him. Not even one minute had passed before the cold slap of reality left me speechless. For the next week, all I could do was think of points that proved him right.
   There are behavours and patterns that non-addicts take for granted. I remember before I ever used, my mind worked much differently. A credit card bill would arrive, and I'd immediately pull out the check book and pay it. Now my mind tries to figure out who I can put off paying without losing property, a place to live, utilities, or worse yet suffering any more legal troubles. You know your priorities are severely off course when you donate your plasma to score a sack.
    At this point, in my life, I'm using about a gram in one session, and not "reupping" for another month. When me and my ex girlfriend lived together, we were using 3.5 grams every 3 days. My desire is to quit completely. I've prayed for death, before, just to get away from it. I no longer experience any feelings or euphoria from using it. All I earn from the session is crushing feelings of guilt, depression, hopelessness, and loneliness. The driftwood I cling to, in the drowning sea that is addiction, is the personal progress I've made in the last 2 years. I went from being homeless, to having a nice 2 story place, a 2006 year vehicle, and a job I like.
    They say the key to quitting is dealing with what drove you into using. If you spend long enough walking, you can completely forget where you came from. The reason I started doesn't even cross my mind anymore. The truth is, it carried me so far away from that moment, it never crossed my mind until today. For me personally, drug use gave me an edge socially. It made my mind work 2-3 times faster than others. Every situation I encountered, became a game of chess. Who's going to argue with someone crazy enough to shoot his own hand to prove he's not afraid of your gun?
    So back to how it started for me. I've been overweight since I was 12. I spent my teen years homeschooled lacking any social development. I felt like a loser. Somehow, I had only scratched the surface of the depth I would assess myself a loser. What little social interactions I had, were spent watching the skinny people pair up like Noah's Ark. Hitting 16 years old and realizing how unattractive I was, and how socially inept I was, could only be described as hearing the prison cell door slam on day one of a life sentence. Instantly, feelings that God betrayed me caused me to start trying to change my situation. I ended up working out in a gym for 2 years, starving myself. My desire was so intense that hellfire and damnation could not have shaken my determination. Two years later, I had lost just enough weight and started doing simple things like using hair gel. At age 18, I had my first real love, my first girlfriend. Experiencing your first heartbreak as an adult is crippling. Especially, when you have no idea how to recover from it. So, I jumped into the first relationship I could. This 4 year rebound became the foundation of my life. It was the driving force behind my college, my career, every life choice. As a couple, we ballooned back up. 2 years worth of work was undone. I had my sure thing, though. I wouldn't have to worry about changing myself or pretending to be something I'm not so a girl would be with me.
    As you're reading this, I can already hear your thoughts. How pathetic! I know I was/am. Needless to say, when the relationship ended, I was hollow. I had no direction, a severely broken heart (got a tattoo of a broken heart when it happened), and a head full of unanswered questions. To my rescue, friends decided to do whatever it took to help me deal with the pain. The next day, I found myself surrounded by people I knew, who were all smoking meth. At that point, I had lost it all and had nothing to lose. Immediately, I was overtaken by the willpower to control my situation. I wanted to not be the loser who got dumped, but be the guy who had 2 girls hanging around him all the time. Well, I worked with my ex, so I got to see that become a reality. Not only did I provide my own answers to all my unanswered questions, but I lost a lot of weight, and became a ladies man. I had defeated the worst pain I ever felt, escaped from prison while serving a life-term, and started leading crowds instead of begging to be a part of them.
    Facing that means, confronting the fear that without meth, I could become that sad, pathetic oaf. The best way I could describe how overpowering your mind can be, as an addict, is this. Imagine all the thought in your head whooshing from one side to another. My thoughts shift so radically from one moment to the next. That alone is on par with a very mild panic attack. Now the horrific part is imaging the withdrawal symptoms. Staring down the barrel of that immediate future is like when you first start to drown. I'm sure everyone gets different withdrawal symptoms. Personally, I lose complete interest in sexual activities. I lose personal momentum in my life, trading it for pessimistically watching my life spiral downward. At some point, I get the urge to eat about 6 times a day. Unfortunately, anything I eat causes me extreme bouts of pain as it does not even try to digest properly. Social withdrawl becomes this desire you have to go through hell on earth. All you have left, all that keeps you sane, are the little self-destructive habits you have learned. There's smoking, driving way to fast and aggressive, confessing your sins with too great of detail to friends, family and co-workers, drinking dangerously high levels of hard liquor, just to name a few.
    Day one of being clean, you have the abililty to trust other people who have been there. Their words are like someone running through a house flipping the lights all on. Someone is presenting a path for you, a path that leads to your greatest desire. Then a couple of months go by. You begin to isolate yourself, in your mind. Those people don't know what I'm feeling? They are just saying what they say to cure an addict. It's their sick need for the validation from accomplishing that task, that's why.
    So I remember that if my way of thinking go drastically in another direction, it will have to come back the other way. Just like the pendulum completing it purpose. It is within every one of us to fail and to succeed. Failing is not just a possibility, but it smaller degrees very likely. Allowing yourself to be consumed with an drive to change, that will push you to keep trying. Hell, you're reading this. That's not because you have chosen to accept defeat. I say this last part to the addicts reading this. You KNOW you're different. Deep down you believe it to the point no one could shake that belief. You have found yourself capable of doing things you didn't think you could do. Well, before, it was probably something bad. But you have just as much potential to do the impossible and succeed. God knows I'm trying everyday.
-- R

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