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In Sierra Vista and Cochise County alike, the struggle to get clean from a methamphetamine addiction, while enormously difficult on its own, is compounded by a debilitating lack of resources available for addicts and their loved ones. There are few rehabilitation services available, and the ones that are accessible are constantly overwhelmed by a growing number of methamphetamine addicts and shrinking resources to help those addicts.
Both local law enforcement and drug counselors in the county agree, when coupled with the extremely slim chance of recovery for most hardened methamphetamine addicts, the odds of getting clean in this county are frighteningly small.
For Iris, who is now on the road to recovery, the challenge to curb her methamphetamine addiction is one she has been struggling with since she was 19.
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The 44-year-old, mother of three said she seriously tried to quit on three occasions. For each go at sobriety, each failure, there have been relapses and suicide attempts.
"I thought for a long time suicide was my only way out," said Iris, who asked that her last name be withheld. "I couldn't get free from the drug and thought I had no other options but taking my own life."
This time, Iris said she is sure that things will be different. Iris has been nearly free from methamphetamine for more than a year. Her 8-year- old daughter moved back in with her in Sierra Vista last year.
But the accomplishment has been tainted by relapses, the last, and only since she moved to Sierra Vista, occurred three months ago and interrupted a nine-month, drug-free stint. Despite the setbacks for Iris, it's a freedom she has never experienced before. It is the first time she has been free of drugs and alcohol since she was 12.
The only thing unique about Iris's situation as a recovering methamphetamine addict looking for help is that she is still alive.
Unlike many other hard drugs, the addiction to methamphetamine is intensely psychological. Traditional narcotic or opiate-based drug withdrawals are not normally a factor, but in their place is an intense emotional connection to the drug. A body adapts to living with the methamphetamine and is slow to feel happy without it.
When kicking the habit, the impacts of person's addiction are difficult to decipher from a mundane symptoms like the cold or flu.
Most addicts usually see few immediate affects from stopping their usage and are instead subjected to long periods of overwhelming anxiety and depression.
This occurs because when addicted, the drug quickly destroys the body's ability to feel pleasure, destroying the brain's dopamine production and leaving the user intensely tired, depressed and often suicidal.
Because the withdrawal is often not symptomatic and the majority of the drug leaves the body relatively quickly after use, recovery cannot come in the form of detox. Instead, users must recondition themselves through intensive counseling and therapy.
While the best way to get off the drug still is debated among counselors and physicians across the country, one thing is certain. According to drug counselors at SouthEastern Arizona Behavioral Health Services, unlike other illicit drug use, a recovering methamphetamine addict can experience debilitating desires to use again for as long as six years.
"It is probably more difficult to get off of (methamphetamine) than any other drug that's out there today," said Debbie Garrett, director at SouthEastern Arizona Behavioral Health Services.
The center provides a variety of treatment options for addicts and alcoholics of all types, with patients required to be there as part of a court order as well as walk-ins seeking help on their own.
Garrett said that at least 50 percent of the people seeking help through the center have some stage of a methamphetamine addiction. While some of the drug counselors estimate that number could be as high as 90 percent, one thing is clear.
"It's overwhelming us and our ability to make sure people get the treatment they need," Garrett said.
Compounding the problem is that fact that the vast majority of methamphetamine addicts at the center, and likely those not seeking help as well, Garrett said, are also alcoholics or addicted to some other drug.
"They use alcohol or (marijuana) to counter the effects of the meth ... to get the high but try to make coming down not as painful," said SEABHS drug counselor Carrie Keith.
If the road to recovery were not perilous enough, addicts of all types in Sierra Vista and Cochise County face a lack of access to resources that is catastrophic, the counselors said.
Throughout the entire county, there is no in-patient services for methamphetamine addiction. Other than a inpatient youth detox center in Douglas, the closest facility is in Tucson. Outpatient services are limited to the overburdened SEABHS centers in Cochise County and a few other, smaller resource centers such as the LifeCare Center.
While the county has several half-way houses, abuse shelters and other temporary living quarters for those often afflicted by addiction, most require their occupants to be drug-free prior to moving in.
"What ends up happening is instead of getting help, there is this sea of night zombies, addicts out on the streets moving constantly to stay wired," Iris said. "People wander from drug house to drug house, staying long enough to get a fix and find out where the next one is coming from ... they don't get help because there is not a lot of help around."
In all, SEABHS drug counselor Jenny Montague estimates the likelihood of ever getting free from an ingrained methamphetamine addiction is about 5 to 10 percent. The more severe the addiction, be it from intravenous use or multiple drugs used, the less likely the chance of ever getting clean.
"The addiction is so strong ... it pulls you to your grave, it just won't let go." Montague said.
To battle her own demons of addiction, Iris is now committed to giving back to those who have failed in their attempts to get clean. She has enrolled in classes at Cochise College and hopes to become a drug counselor.
In the end, Iris said she has something now that for the first time in her life drowns out the desire for methamphetamine.
"Hope, I have hope ... I am sick and tired of being sick and tired and I just want to feel alive again," she said.
It's a feeling she said never surfaced during the depths of her 25-year depression in drugs, a motivation she repeatedly ignored when faced with jail time, poverty and the loss of her children to drugs and abusive relationships of their own.
While the odds are against her, she is more smiles than tears. Despite battle scars, the story of her history of domestic violence, self-inflicted suicidal aggression and the debilitating effects of drugs and alcohol, there is a happy ending of sorts.
There is hope.
nicole ray wrote on Jun 21, 2009 3:35 PM: