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Meth imposes serious health risks
By John R. Crane
Journal Staff Writer
You see them in pictures. Maybe one is a neighbor, co-worker, relative, friend or just a passer-by on the street. Some appear healthy and adjusted, others emaciated and hollow-eyed, with open, runny sores and crow's feet creeping from their eyes. Alan Cook is program director at Cortez Addictions Recovery Services. Cook sees more than 200 clients per week at the facility, with roughly 20 percent seeking treatment for methamphetamine addiction, a "major increase," he says.
Journal /Sam Green Donna Sue Spear is a licensed professional counselor at Clarity Counseling in Dolores. The center offers its "Recovering Together" program to mothers trying to overcome drug addiction and their families. They are participants in an experiment in self-immolation: the insidious spread of methamphetamine use.
Described by users as a "great high," meth can make the brain feel as sharp as a chef's cutting knife, where everything is vivid and "crystal" clear. Highs last eight to 72 hours. Users are in constant motion; they refuse to eat and lose weight rapidly. "Dumpster diving" for junk to sell to support a habit is common. Some burglarize. Some steal from parents. Some explode into violence while "tweaking," or coming down from a high.
Dr. Mi-chael Due-hrssen, an emergency room physician at Southwest Memorial Hospital, sees several patients a week who are high on meth or coming down. Whether they smoked or injected it, they are usually agitated or "climbing the walls," he said. Some hallucinate, experiencing paranoia and time disorientation. "We may give the patient a depressant to calm them down or to treat high blood pressure," he said, adding that the patient is hooked to a monitor to be checked for life-threatening arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, common among users. Duehrssen may refer them to Cortez Addiction Recovery Services."We're seeing it (meth use) more and more here," he said.
Alan Cook, program director of Cortez Addictions Re-covery Services, sees about 210 clients at its facility per week; 20 percent are meth users. "We've seen a real increase (in meth use) on the Western Slope and in Cortez," he said. "There are lots of meth labs and it's inexpensive."
In 1998, 51 meth labs were seized in Colorado. That number skyrocketed to 450 in 2002. Five labs were seized in Montezuma County in 2003, none of which were in Cortez, said Cortez Police Sgt. Dennis Spruell, an agent with the 22nd Judicial District's Drug Task Force. Meth addiction cases were 2.9 percent of public facility admissions in 1991, compared with 37.8 percent for cocaine dependency. By 2003, cocaine treatment percentages fell to 22.2 percent, but meth treatment numbers skyrocketed to 22.4 percent, according to the state Department of Human Service's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division.
"Jane," who spoke on condition of anonymity, is a 20-something former user from Montezuma County who was addicted to meth for a year and a half in her early teens. Hooked after the first hit, she smoked or snorted it whenever she could. She tried it for the experience, after an older male friend offered it to her and her friends. "As you start coming back down, you want it again," she said in a phone interview with the Journal Wednesday. Coming down was no fun. She was irritable, cranky when she needed more. She slept 48 hours after three-day highs. She wore baggy clothes and stayed at friends' houses to hide the addiction from her parents. She was high at school.
Friends had bloody noses, open sores and rotting teeth from lack of hygiene and corrosive chemicals taking their toll on meth's notorious "dry mouth." As lack of saliva stops breakdown of chemicals in the mouth, acids eat away tooth enamel. One friend went into seizures at a party. Another died. Jane frequently had trouble breathing; her jaws hurt from chewing so much gum.
She forced herself to eat a bowl of soup every day. Chewing solid food took time. But she chomped on her fingernails and smoked packs of cigarettes daily. She noticed a problem when her cheeks were sunken and she was 45 pounds underweight.
"Your body doesn't have time and you don't want to eat," she said, "so why bother with it?"
She decided to kick the meth on her own, slowing down to two or three hits during the last year of her fling with the seductive mixture of Crystal Drano, phosphorus, ammonia, battery acid and other substances. After a two-and-a-half year ride, she stepped off without a scar. She hasn't touched it in seven years. "I was one of the lucky ones," she said. However, she still feels cravings when she sees people taking hits at parties or in bar bathrooms.
Physical, psychological destruction
What caused Jane to behave and look the way she did?
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, methamphetamine mimics the brain chemical dopamine. Known as the "pleasure neurotransmitter," it enhances pleasure sensations.
When meth enters the brain's circuit, cells accept it as if it were dopamine, releasing more dopamine. This intensifies pleasure, which lasts all day. When the effects cease, the user crashes and craves more meth.
Unlike cocaine, which the body quickly metabolizes, meth stays active and unchanged in the body longer. The body excretes the chemicals through the skin, causing itchy, oozing sores.
"It can take 14 months for the brain to resume normal function," said Cook. People who manage to kick the habit remember cravings and high energy levels months later. Former users can have forgetfulness, difficulty focusing, restlessness, micronutrient deficiencies and anemia.
Meth also stimulates serotonin and norepinephrine receptors in the brain. Increased norepinephrine causes increased anger, diminishes rational thought and releases adrenaline, leading to high blood pressure and rapid heartbeat. Blood vessels in the brain are damaged, increasing the risk of stroke.
According to the state Department of Human Services, Colorado saw 16 methamphetamine deaths from 1995-1998. That number more than doubled from 1999-2002 to 38. Since there are no drugs to treat meth addiction, behavioral therapy combined with psychological counseling is a method of treatment, said Donna Sue Spear, licensed professional counselor with Clarity Counseling in Dolores. The physiological chaos occurring during meth use manifests itself in horrendous ways for abusers and their loved ones.
"Jill," a Montezuma County resident, whose 40ish son, "Bob," has been addicted to meth for two to three years, calls the drug "bad news." It turned her son from creative, kind and considerate to "rude" and "smelly," she said. He went from excellence at his health care job to unemployment. He's about to lose his home, which is in disarray. Jill has spent between $5,000 and $10,000 helping Bob buy gas, paying the occasional bill, court costs and spotting him $20 here and there. He frequently curses, flippant when Jill presses him to seek treatment. "He always smarts off' about it," she said.
Bob has been arrested twice on unrelated charges in the last two years and ordered by a judge to go into mandatory rehabilitation. However, Jill's hopes were crushed when his admittance date was delayed due to clogged facilities. Bob occasionally sleeps at Jill's house - to come down, eat and shower. When asked if she would let Bob move in, she said: "I don't think I could live with him."
But she refuses to lose faith in her son. "You have this instinctive hope," she said. "You just can't give up."
Aftermath and Treatment
Illegal drugs cost the nation $110 billion in treatment, law enforcement and health care costs annually, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. With children caught in the middle of meth's scourge, treatment for addicted parents is imperative, Spear said. Of 2002's 450 lab seizures in Colorado, children were found in 30 percent of them, according to National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.
Clarity Counseling offers a Recovering Together Program for mothers addicted to drugs, primarily meth. Spear said children are forgotten victims, as parents forget kids' needs while searching for the next rush. "Child neglect and abuse is a huge problem," she said. Clarity Counseling receives a yearly $125,000 federal grant from American Humane to treat 30 families for drug addiction. To qualify for the program, a family has to have a report of abuse or neglect, Spear said.
Spear sees three groups a year at the center, averaging about nine families a group. Treatment lasts a year. Most of those families are struggling with meth addiction. The counseling involves three phases: addiction treatment, family skill-building and individualized treatment such as career counseling. Clients must participate in three recovery activities weekly, include a 12-step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, going to a domestic violence support group session and church activities. And for Spear, it's just as much for the children as for the parents. Children are thrust into a harsh, chaotic world not of their choosing, Spear said.
When a parent is on meth, three hours feel like 15 minutes. Those numbers are reversed for a hungry or sick child. And those numbers can add up to tragedy. On top of neglect, children can be exposed to dangerous chemicals that can explode or kill with toxic fumes if mishandled.
Spruell, of the Drug Task Force, said he is uncomfortable when entering a meth lab. "It's always scary," he said. "You don't know what you'll knock over or whether you'll blow yourself up."
In Montezuma County, no one is certified to declare a building free of meth's dangerous chemicals, said Spruell. Clearing homes of chemicals is up to the owner. The Task Force recently adopted a policy of posting notes on empty homes informing people that it once housed a meth lab. However, most labs seized by the Task Force have been portable, found in hotels or vehicles. Detoxifying hotel rooms becomes the responsibility of the hotel. The living conditions alone can be hazardous. Five girls were surrounded by squalor in a home Spruell raided. Food and fecal matter littered the floor. "It was something I wouldn't let my dog stay in," he said.
But for the meth-abusing parents, it's just a way of life as they filter out other details of their lives, doing everything they can the get the next high. "If you can think of it," Spruell said, "they've done it."
As to meth treatment, Cook said CARS has a unit where users can detox in 72 hours. However, the drug's aftereffects linger. At CARS, treatment is short-term, Cook said. The service can only keep customers for weeks at a time, resulting in a high relapse rate, which is 80 percent to 90 percent, he said. "If we can keep someone longer, recovery rates are better," Cook said.
CARS provides counseling involving talking about meth's effects, exploring motivations to quit, finding ways to resist the drug and to develop self-esteem. A lot of CARS' meth clients are fresh out of jail, involved in domestic violence, dabbling in petty crime or have been caught in a sting, Cook said. Many clients have accompanying mental illness. Many meth users at CARS had bi-polar disorder before use, Cook said. Treatment for those patients is two-pronged.
Using a cognitive-behavioral approach, counselors encourage patients to try different, more positive thought patterns. Psychotropic medications are frequently prescribed.
With cocaine's decline and the drug world's turn toward methamphetamine, users, relatives, health professionals, counselors, law enforcement and innocent children have a long, hard battle ahead.
"I didn't know it was going to hit home," Jill said.
Link
By John R. Crane
Journal Staff Writer
You see them in pictures. Maybe one is a neighbor, co-worker, relative, friend or just a passer-by on the street. Some appear healthy and adjusted, others emaciated and hollow-eyed, with open, runny sores and crow's feet creeping from their eyes. Alan Cook is program director at Cortez Addictions Recovery Services. Cook sees more than 200 clients per week at the facility, with roughly 20 percent seeking treatment for methamphetamine addiction, a "major increase," he says.
Journal /Sam Green Donna Sue Spear is a licensed professional counselor at Clarity Counseling in Dolores. The center offers its "Recovering Together" program to mothers trying to overcome drug addiction and their families. They are participants in an experiment in self-immolation: the insidious spread of methamphetamine use.
Described by users as a "great high," meth can make the brain feel as sharp as a chef's cutting knife, where everything is vivid and "crystal" clear. Highs last eight to 72 hours. Users are in constant motion; they refuse to eat and lose weight rapidly. "Dumpster diving" for junk to sell to support a habit is common. Some burglarize. Some steal from parents. Some explode into violence while "tweaking," or coming down from a high.
Dr. Mi-chael Due-hrssen, an emergency room physician at Southwest Memorial Hospital, sees several patients a week who are high on meth or coming down. Whether they smoked or injected it, they are usually agitated or "climbing the walls," he said. Some hallucinate, experiencing paranoia and time disorientation. "We may give the patient a depressant to calm them down or to treat high blood pressure," he said, adding that the patient is hooked to a monitor to be checked for life-threatening arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, common among users. Duehrssen may refer them to Cortez Addiction Recovery Services."We're seeing it (meth use) more and more here," he said.
Alan Cook, program director of Cortez Addictions Re-covery Services, sees about 210 clients at its facility per week; 20 percent are meth users. "We've seen a real increase (in meth use) on the Western Slope and in Cortez," he said. "There are lots of meth labs and it's inexpensive."
In 1998, 51 meth labs were seized in Colorado. That number skyrocketed to 450 in 2002. Five labs were seized in Montezuma County in 2003, none of which were in Cortez, said Cortez Police Sgt. Dennis Spruell, an agent with the 22nd Judicial District's Drug Task Force. Meth addiction cases were 2.9 percent of public facility admissions in 1991, compared with 37.8 percent for cocaine dependency. By 2003, cocaine treatment percentages fell to 22.2 percent, but meth treatment numbers skyrocketed to 22.4 percent, according to the state Department of Human Service's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division.
"Jane," who spoke on condition of anonymity, is a 20-something former user from Montezuma County who was addicted to meth for a year and a half in her early teens. Hooked after the first hit, she smoked or snorted it whenever she could. She tried it for the experience, after an older male friend offered it to her and her friends. "As you start coming back down, you want it again," she said in a phone interview with the Journal Wednesday. Coming down was no fun. She was irritable, cranky when she needed more. She slept 48 hours after three-day highs. She wore baggy clothes and stayed at friends' houses to hide the addiction from her parents. She was high at school.
Friends had bloody noses, open sores and rotting teeth from lack of hygiene and corrosive chemicals taking their toll on meth's notorious "dry mouth." As lack of saliva stops breakdown of chemicals in the mouth, acids eat away tooth enamel. One friend went into seizures at a party. Another died. Jane frequently had trouble breathing; her jaws hurt from chewing so much gum.
She forced herself to eat a bowl of soup every day. Chewing solid food took time. But she chomped on her fingernails and smoked packs of cigarettes daily. She noticed a problem when her cheeks were sunken and she was 45 pounds underweight.
"Your body doesn't have time and you don't want to eat," she said, "so why bother with it?"
She decided to kick the meth on her own, slowing down to two or three hits during the last year of her fling with the seductive mixture of Crystal Drano, phosphorus, ammonia, battery acid and other substances. After a two-and-a-half year ride, she stepped off without a scar. She hasn't touched it in seven years. "I was one of the lucky ones," she said. However, she still feels cravings when she sees people taking hits at parties or in bar bathrooms.
Physical, psychological destruction
What caused Jane to behave and look the way she did?
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, methamphetamine mimics the brain chemical dopamine. Known as the "pleasure neurotransmitter," it enhances pleasure sensations.
When meth enters the brain's circuit, cells accept it as if it were dopamine, releasing more dopamine. This intensifies pleasure, which lasts all day. When the effects cease, the user crashes and craves more meth.
Unlike cocaine, which the body quickly metabolizes, meth stays active and unchanged in the body longer. The body excretes the chemicals through the skin, causing itchy, oozing sores.
"It can take 14 months for the brain to resume normal function," said Cook. People who manage to kick the habit remember cravings and high energy levels months later. Former users can have forgetfulness, difficulty focusing, restlessness, micronutrient deficiencies and anemia.
Meth also stimulates serotonin and norepinephrine receptors in the brain. Increased norepinephrine causes increased anger, diminishes rational thought and releases adrenaline, leading to high blood pressure and rapid heartbeat. Blood vessels in the brain are damaged, increasing the risk of stroke.
According to the state Department of Human Services, Colorado saw 16 methamphetamine deaths from 1995-1998. That number more than doubled from 1999-2002 to 38. Since there are no drugs to treat meth addiction, behavioral therapy combined with psychological counseling is a method of treatment, said Donna Sue Spear, licensed professional counselor with Clarity Counseling in Dolores. The physiological chaos occurring during meth use manifests itself in horrendous ways for abusers and their loved ones.
"Jill," a Montezuma County resident, whose 40ish son, "Bob," has been addicted to meth for two to three years, calls the drug "bad news." It turned her son from creative, kind and considerate to "rude" and "smelly," she said. He went from excellence at his health care job to unemployment. He's about to lose his home, which is in disarray. Jill has spent between $5,000 and $10,000 helping Bob buy gas, paying the occasional bill, court costs and spotting him $20 here and there. He frequently curses, flippant when Jill presses him to seek treatment. "He always smarts off' about it," she said.
Bob has been arrested twice on unrelated charges in the last two years and ordered by a judge to go into mandatory rehabilitation. However, Jill's hopes were crushed when his admittance date was delayed due to clogged facilities. Bob occasionally sleeps at Jill's house - to come down, eat and shower. When asked if she would let Bob move in, she said: "I don't think I could live with him."
But she refuses to lose faith in her son. "You have this instinctive hope," she said. "You just can't give up."
Aftermath and Treatment
Illegal drugs cost the nation $110 billion in treatment, law enforcement and health care costs annually, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. With children caught in the middle of meth's scourge, treatment for addicted parents is imperative, Spear said. Of 2002's 450 lab seizures in Colorado, children were found in 30 percent of them, according to National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver.
Clarity Counseling offers a Recovering Together Program for mothers addicted to drugs, primarily meth. Spear said children are forgotten victims, as parents forget kids' needs while searching for the next rush. "Child neglect and abuse is a huge problem," she said. Clarity Counseling receives a yearly $125,000 federal grant from American Humane to treat 30 families for drug addiction. To qualify for the program, a family has to have a report of abuse or neglect, Spear said.
Spear sees three groups a year at the center, averaging about nine families a group. Treatment lasts a year. Most of those families are struggling with meth addiction. The counseling involves three phases: addiction treatment, family skill-building and individualized treatment such as career counseling. Clients must participate in three recovery activities weekly, include a 12-step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, going to a domestic violence support group session and church activities. And for Spear, it's just as much for the children as for the parents. Children are thrust into a harsh, chaotic world not of their choosing, Spear said.
When a parent is on meth, three hours feel like 15 minutes. Those numbers are reversed for a hungry or sick child. And those numbers can add up to tragedy. On top of neglect, children can be exposed to dangerous chemicals that can explode or kill with toxic fumes if mishandled.
Spruell, of the Drug Task Force, said he is uncomfortable when entering a meth lab. "It's always scary," he said. "You don't know what you'll knock over or whether you'll blow yourself up."
In Montezuma County, no one is certified to declare a building free of meth's dangerous chemicals, said Spruell. Clearing homes of chemicals is up to the owner. The Task Force recently adopted a policy of posting notes on empty homes informing people that it once housed a meth lab. However, most labs seized by the Task Force have been portable, found in hotels or vehicles. Detoxifying hotel rooms becomes the responsibility of the hotel. The living conditions alone can be hazardous. Five girls were surrounded by squalor in a home Spruell raided. Food and fecal matter littered the floor. "It was something I wouldn't let my dog stay in," he said.
But for the meth-abusing parents, it's just a way of life as they filter out other details of their lives, doing everything they can the get the next high. "If you can think of it," Spruell said, "they've done it."
As to meth treatment, Cook said CARS has a unit where users can detox in 72 hours. However, the drug's aftereffects linger. At CARS, treatment is short-term, Cook said. The service can only keep customers for weeks at a time, resulting in a high relapse rate, which is 80 percent to 90 percent, he said. "If we can keep someone longer, recovery rates are better," Cook said.
CARS provides counseling involving talking about meth's effects, exploring motivations to quit, finding ways to resist the drug and to develop self-esteem. A lot of CARS' meth clients are fresh out of jail, involved in domestic violence, dabbling in petty crime or have been caught in a sting, Cook said. Many clients have accompanying mental illness. Many meth users at CARS had bi-polar disorder before use, Cook said. Treatment for those patients is two-pronged.
Using a cognitive-behavioral approach, counselors encourage patients to try different, more positive thought patterns. Psychotropic medications are frequently prescribed.
With cocaine's decline and the drug world's turn toward methamphetamine, users, relatives, health professionals, counselors, law enforcement and innocent children have a long, hard battle ahead.
"I didn't know it was going to hit home," Jill said.
Link
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
