Phil in Paris
03-29-2005, 09:00 AM
By Stephanie Good, T-R Staff Writer
Karen* grew up in Los Angeles. When she was a kid, her dad left the family, leaving her mother to raise their six children.
Karen's mother, with some help from Karen's grandmother, did the best she could, but had to work full time to put food on the table and keep the kids clothed.
When Karen was 14, she was ditching school and doing drugs. She ran away from home in search of adventure and excitement. She hung out with Hell's Angels bikers, gangsters, and drug users. Methamphetamine (crank), heroine, and pills called "reds" were a few of her drugs of choice.
When Karen became pregnant that same year, she went back home to her mother. She quit smoking, drinking, and using drugs because she wanted her baby to be healthy. However, her doctor said the child would probably be deformed or handicapped, and told her she should abort the child. Karen didn't want to believe that, and her mother and grandmother didn't believe in abortions.
At the age of 15, Karen delivered a healthy baby girl, but she still hadn't found the adventure and excitement she'd been searching for. So, she gave her daughter to her mother to raise, and two weeks after the baby was born she jumped on the back of a Harley and rode off in search of that adventure she'd been looking for.
Unfortunately, what Karen found was very different from what she'd imagined in her 14-year-old mind. "There were some cold, scary nights out there on the streets," she said.
When Karen was 15, she took a job dancing in a club. She made $1,000 to $1,500 a week, which she mostly spent on drugs. Karen said she knows her mother and grandmother cried a lot. "That's something you don't realize until you're older," she said.
It hurts her now when she thinks back on that time in her life. "You can't take back what you did and said when you were on it (the drug)."
Karen remembered one day when she was 16 that could have turned out much worse than it did. She said a guardian angel must have been watching over her.
She had taken 17 "reds" earlier that day. She got an urge to give her mother a call, so she went down the street to get a can of pop and use the phone booth outside the store.
As she was talking to her mother, Karen collapsed. A customer of the store saw her slumped down in the phone booth, ran into the store and told the cashier to call an ambulance. Luckily the hospital was nearby.
As she was being loaded into the ambulance, someone picked up the phone to see who she had been talking to. Tears were in Karen's eyes when she told of her mother waiting on the phone, not knowing what was going on, as she lay at the bottom of that phone booth.
The doctor on call pronounced Karen dead after paramedics couldn't get her heart started. They knew she hadn't been breathing for more than six minutes, and six minutes without a heartbeat often causes irreparable brain damage.
The hospital workers covered Karen's lifeless body with a sheet and started to wheel her down to the hospital morgue, but her mother arrived at the hospital as they were taking her to the morgue, and demanded they not give up trying to revive her.
Because of her mother's strong insistence, paramedics began again to attempt to start Karen's heart, and finally did. Karen was in the hospital for several weeks, and later found out the pills she had taken were laced with rat poison.
She said she didn't wake up for a long time. She knows after she left the hospital she went back to the streets, but there's a long blank period in her memory. She doesn't know if it was months or a year that her mind was in what she describes as a sort of waking coma.
On another fateful morning when she was 20, she woke up in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. She got up and found him dead with the needle still stuck in his arm.
She touched him and felt that he was cold, and she could see he'd been dead for awhile. Moments before he died, he had eaten a piece of candy, and the chocolate had run down his face onto his chin. "That's a picture I will never forget," Karen said. "Seeing him dead like that."
Unable to help him at that point, she was afraid to call the police because she was a drug addict herself; so she went into her room, gathered up her things, and left.
At that point, Karen felt she had no one to turn to who would understand, so she sought help from a man who was a loyal customer of the club she danced at.
He took her in and helped her clean herself up. She said he sat with her through the shakes, throwing up, and the crankiness that comes with drug withdrawal. He even taught her to read and write. They were friends for 20 years.
He has since died, but she'll always be grateful to him for helping her get off drugs and saving her life.
After she kicked her drug habit, she moved around California for a while, and then moved to the Nevada mountains where she worked in gold mines.
About 10 years ago, she saw an advertisement on the internet. Someone was selling their house in North Dakota, and even though she had never been to this state before, her adventurous spirit took over. She bought the house anyway, packed up once again, and headed east. She's lived in this area ever since.
Throughout her 50 years, Karen has seen the worst in people, although, she has also seen the best. She said she wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for the good of a few people who she found in places one would never expect to find them.
"I think there needs to be a little more compassion in this world," she said. "Humanity has to survive."
Karen said people in North Dakota are naive about methamphetamine. She said meth makers don't know what they're doing. It's not the same drug as amphetamine that is usually made in an actual lab and takes some form of scientific knowledge to understand.
Meth makers use old recipes which contain toxic chemicals, such as muriatic acid, starter fluid, and antifreeze. They often brew it in their bathtubs.
"Bathtub crank is made from some very nasty things. You don't know what you're taking," she said. "Maybe it's your first try. You could be killed dead-now."
Karen said there are only two possible outcomes for a meth addict: death or prison; and considering the side effects, there is really no benefit to even trying the drug. "Very few people I know have survived off it," she said.
All her friends she knew growing up who were drug users are either dead or in prison. "When you're dead ,you'll have no crank. In prison, you'll have no crank; so be logical about it. You might as well stop now. The people you love will suffer. They're the one's who will cry and mourn."
Karen said "crank" makes a person cranky. It destroys the balance in their mind between good and evil, sane and insane. At first they get things done. Maybe they get their house cleaned or do things they didn't feel like doing before; but later, "you scream at your wife. You scream at your kids. You beat your wife. You beat your husband. You beat your kids. You commit murder."
"It is possible to survive through drugs. I did." However, she said North Dakota is going to become like Los Angeles if people don't get meth under control.
Karen mentioned one of her brothers. He's 40 now and has been in prison almost continually since he was 18, yet most of his crimes were petty. When he gets out, he goes back on meth or commits a petty crime, violates his parole, and ends up back in prison.
She said in some ways it's easier for him in prison than it is on the streets. At least in prison he always gets fed. He is always clothed. He has a roof over his head, and he doesn't have to deal with the temptations he faces on the streets.
Karen said she's quite sure that's why, after 20 years, he can't seem to keep himself out of jail. He feels safer in a Los Angeles prison than he does on the Los Angeles streets.
"A lot of people don't take time to analyze themselves. There's a reason you get on the drug." Karen said people don't do drugs for the drug itself. They do drugs for reasons inside themselves that only they know.
"There was adventure in it, in some way," she said as she thought back on her experiences. "If I could do it again, I'd stay home. But I wouldn't have my daughter and six grandchildren. She broke the chain."
Karen's daughter now lives with her husband and six children in Los Angeles. They own their own business and home. Karen's first grandchild graduated at the top of her class and received a college scholarship.
Karen said through the determination of her daughter her six grandchildren stayed off drugs. "Keep your children busy." Karen said parents should get their kids involved in positive things like sports or other activities. If they're busy with activities they enjoy, they won't have time to start using drugs.
She said everyone has choices to make, and God gave people that ability to make their own choices. "Life is like standing in an alley with two paths on either side. One path looks boring. There are houses and picket fences and kids playing outside. The other path is dark but lit up with lights like the glitz and glamour of Vegas." She laughed.
"But if you look, you'll see one path is death and trauma and violence. The other path is hope, new experiences, and exploration. I hope everyone will choose the good path."
http://www.times-online.com/articles/2005/03/24/news/02meth.txt
Karen* grew up in Los Angeles. When she was a kid, her dad left the family, leaving her mother to raise their six children.
Karen's mother, with some help from Karen's grandmother, did the best she could, but had to work full time to put food on the table and keep the kids clothed.
When Karen was 14, she was ditching school and doing drugs. She ran away from home in search of adventure and excitement. She hung out with Hell's Angels bikers, gangsters, and drug users. Methamphetamine (crank), heroine, and pills called "reds" were a few of her drugs of choice.
When Karen became pregnant that same year, she went back home to her mother. She quit smoking, drinking, and using drugs because she wanted her baby to be healthy. However, her doctor said the child would probably be deformed or handicapped, and told her she should abort the child. Karen didn't want to believe that, and her mother and grandmother didn't believe in abortions.
At the age of 15, Karen delivered a healthy baby girl, but she still hadn't found the adventure and excitement she'd been searching for. So, she gave her daughter to her mother to raise, and two weeks after the baby was born she jumped on the back of a Harley and rode off in search of that adventure she'd been looking for.
Unfortunately, what Karen found was very different from what she'd imagined in her 14-year-old mind. "There were some cold, scary nights out there on the streets," she said.
When Karen was 15, she took a job dancing in a club. She made $1,000 to $1,500 a week, which she mostly spent on drugs. Karen said she knows her mother and grandmother cried a lot. "That's something you don't realize until you're older," she said.
It hurts her now when she thinks back on that time in her life. "You can't take back what you did and said when you were on it (the drug)."
Karen remembered one day when she was 16 that could have turned out much worse than it did. She said a guardian angel must have been watching over her.
She had taken 17 "reds" earlier that day. She got an urge to give her mother a call, so she went down the street to get a can of pop and use the phone booth outside the store.
As she was talking to her mother, Karen collapsed. A customer of the store saw her slumped down in the phone booth, ran into the store and told the cashier to call an ambulance. Luckily the hospital was nearby.
As she was being loaded into the ambulance, someone picked up the phone to see who she had been talking to. Tears were in Karen's eyes when she told of her mother waiting on the phone, not knowing what was going on, as she lay at the bottom of that phone booth.
The doctor on call pronounced Karen dead after paramedics couldn't get her heart started. They knew she hadn't been breathing for more than six minutes, and six minutes without a heartbeat often causes irreparable brain damage.
The hospital workers covered Karen's lifeless body with a sheet and started to wheel her down to the hospital morgue, but her mother arrived at the hospital as they were taking her to the morgue, and demanded they not give up trying to revive her.
Because of her mother's strong insistence, paramedics began again to attempt to start Karen's heart, and finally did. Karen was in the hospital for several weeks, and later found out the pills she had taken were laced with rat poison.
She said she didn't wake up for a long time. She knows after she left the hospital she went back to the streets, but there's a long blank period in her memory. She doesn't know if it was months or a year that her mind was in what she describes as a sort of waking coma.
On another fateful morning when she was 20, she woke up in the apartment she shared with her boyfriend. She got up and found him dead with the needle still stuck in his arm.
She touched him and felt that he was cold, and she could see he'd been dead for awhile. Moments before he died, he had eaten a piece of candy, and the chocolate had run down his face onto his chin. "That's a picture I will never forget," Karen said. "Seeing him dead like that."
Unable to help him at that point, she was afraid to call the police because she was a drug addict herself; so she went into her room, gathered up her things, and left.
At that point, Karen felt she had no one to turn to who would understand, so she sought help from a man who was a loyal customer of the club she danced at.
He took her in and helped her clean herself up. She said he sat with her through the shakes, throwing up, and the crankiness that comes with drug withdrawal. He even taught her to read and write. They were friends for 20 years.
He has since died, but she'll always be grateful to him for helping her get off drugs and saving her life.
After she kicked her drug habit, she moved around California for a while, and then moved to the Nevada mountains where she worked in gold mines.
About 10 years ago, she saw an advertisement on the internet. Someone was selling their house in North Dakota, and even though she had never been to this state before, her adventurous spirit took over. She bought the house anyway, packed up once again, and headed east. She's lived in this area ever since.
Throughout her 50 years, Karen has seen the worst in people, although, she has also seen the best. She said she wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for the good of a few people who she found in places one would never expect to find them.
"I think there needs to be a little more compassion in this world," she said. "Humanity has to survive."
Karen said people in North Dakota are naive about methamphetamine. She said meth makers don't know what they're doing. It's not the same drug as amphetamine that is usually made in an actual lab and takes some form of scientific knowledge to understand.
Meth makers use old recipes which contain toxic chemicals, such as muriatic acid, starter fluid, and antifreeze. They often brew it in their bathtubs.
"Bathtub crank is made from some very nasty things. You don't know what you're taking," she said. "Maybe it's your first try. You could be killed dead-now."
Karen said there are only two possible outcomes for a meth addict: death or prison; and considering the side effects, there is really no benefit to even trying the drug. "Very few people I know have survived off it," she said.
All her friends she knew growing up who were drug users are either dead or in prison. "When you're dead ,you'll have no crank. In prison, you'll have no crank; so be logical about it. You might as well stop now. The people you love will suffer. They're the one's who will cry and mourn."
Karen said "crank" makes a person cranky. It destroys the balance in their mind between good and evil, sane and insane. At first they get things done. Maybe they get their house cleaned or do things they didn't feel like doing before; but later, "you scream at your wife. You scream at your kids. You beat your wife. You beat your husband. You beat your kids. You commit murder."
"It is possible to survive through drugs. I did." However, she said North Dakota is going to become like Los Angeles if people don't get meth under control.
Karen mentioned one of her brothers. He's 40 now and has been in prison almost continually since he was 18, yet most of his crimes were petty. When he gets out, he goes back on meth or commits a petty crime, violates his parole, and ends up back in prison.
She said in some ways it's easier for him in prison than it is on the streets. At least in prison he always gets fed. He is always clothed. He has a roof over his head, and he doesn't have to deal with the temptations he faces on the streets.
Karen said she's quite sure that's why, after 20 years, he can't seem to keep himself out of jail. He feels safer in a Los Angeles prison than he does on the Los Angeles streets.
"A lot of people don't take time to analyze themselves. There's a reason you get on the drug." Karen said people don't do drugs for the drug itself. They do drugs for reasons inside themselves that only they know.
"There was adventure in it, in some way," she said as she thought back on her experiences. "If I could do it again, I'd stay home. But I wouldn't have my daughter and six grandchildren. She broke the chain."
Karen's daughter now lives with her husband and six children in Los Angeles. They own their own business and home. Karen's first grandchild graduated at the top of her class and received a college scholarship.
Karen said through the determination of her daughter her six grandchildren stayed off drugs. "Keep your children busy." Karen said parents should get their kids involved in positive things like sports or other activities. If they're busy with activities they enjoy, they won't have time to start using drugs.
She said everyone has choices to make, and God gave people that ability to make their own choices. "Life is like standing in an alley with two paths on either side. One path looks boring. There are houses and picket fences and kids playing outside. The other path is dark but lit up with lights like the glitz and glamour of Vegas." She laughed.
"But if you look, you'll see one path is death and trauma and violence. The other path is hope, new experiences, and exploration. I hope everyone will choose the good path."
http://www.times-online.com/articles/2005/03/24/news/02meth.txt