Pubdate: Sun, 21 Oct 2001 Source: Olympian, The (WA) Copyright: 2001 The Olympian Contact: http://www.theolympian.com/forms/lettrfrm.shtml Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/319 Author: John Graber Part 2 Of 2 METH IN SOUTH SOUND 'All I Could Think About Was What A Horrible Person I Was' Lacey Woman Escapes Addiction, Finds Partner LACEY -- Two-year-old River Russell slips his feet into the size 8 yellow rubber boots that have caught his eye, smiles and dances gleefully back and forth in front of the couch in his living room. He raises his hands and triumphantly announces, "Mommy!" At close to 30 pounds, River is happy and healthy now. But things weren't always this way. He was born four months premature at just 1 pound, 10 ounces. He was born so early that his eyelids had not completely developed and were still fused shut. His mother, Millisa Maninger, had gone into labor after she fell down the stairs in her home. She was still unsteady after having stopped using methamphetamine just two weeks before. She had been using so much of the drug, she can't remember how much her daily dosage had grown to. After the baby was born and the doctors told her River would need open-heart surgery, she says she hit the lowest point in her life. But River's problem only strengthened her resolve to deal with her problem with meth once and for all. "All I could think about was what a horrible person I was," Maninger said. Two weeks later, she checked herself in to a drug abuse clinic. Except for one relapse about four months into her recovery, she's been clean and sober for two years. How It Started Her troubles with substance abuse started when she was a teen-ager. She says she was living in an abusive home, and she was trying to deal with an undiagnosed bipolar disorder that caused wild mood swings. Eventually she moved in with a foster family, but the pain of the abuse she had experienced didn't go away. She turned to alcohol and marijuana to self-medicate, but it only led to more problems. She was married by 17 and pregnant by 18. She dropped out of Timberland High School in Lacey during her senior year to care for her new daughter, Sunny. She says she wasn't ready for the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood, and she slipped into alcoholism before finally leaving her husband. She moved to Seattle and says she remained sober for three years. She began drinking again when she started traveling back to Lacey periodically for work. She met the man who would become her second husband when she attended a party at his home. When he initially laid a couple of lines of methamphetamine out on the coffee table, she thought she wasn't interested. But the idea seemed less dangerous the more she drank. "I knew the very first time I used methamphetamine it would be a problem," Maninger said. She was on top of the world. She could talk to people without hesitation, she felt in control of her life, and people seemed to like her better when she was on the drug. "It was like somebody gave me a Superman cape and said, 'Go for it,' " Maninger said. She managed to stay off meth while she was pregnant with her next three children, though she did smoke marijuana while pregnant with her third child, Mariah. Things weren't too bad back then. She could still hide her use from most of her friends and family, and was active in her children's school activities. "I just kind of dosed myself," Maninger said. "I still slept at night. I took vitamins and went to work. I was thinking, 'I'm not like those people. I'm not picking at my skin. I'm not stealing from people.' I just thought I was totally unique." But her husband turned abusive shortly after their wedding. That marriage eventually ended, too. In an action she can't explain other than to say she was not thinking clearly while on the drug, Maninger sold her house, even though she didn't have a place to stay. Her two older children went to live with Maninger's sister, Angela Rivera. The two younger children, who were 4 and 2, lived with Maninger in her car. Rivera now figures that, at the time, she was just as sick as Maninger because she needed to help her as much as Maninger wanted to be helped. "I was a single mother of three, and I was taking care of her children," Rivera said. "I was giving her my savings." Rivera now thinks that she only made things worse for her sister by trying to make things easier for her. "It was like I was swimming in a lake holding her over my head so she did not have to feel the cold or the wet and I was taking all of it," Rivera said. "When I finally dropped her, it was a big shock for her." Lost Control Eventually, Maninger moved her children into a home off College Street, where she lost all control of her habit. By then, she was using as much meth as she could get every day. There was almost no furniture in her home other than a television and a couch. The electricity was on only sporadically because she didn't pay the bills. They went for four months without water at one point because she didn't have the money for the service. She had her meth, though. Maninger cut herself off from her children by moving into an 8-by-8 room on the side of the house. Users and dealers were coming over at all hours; she thought they were being nice by getting her high. What she didn't realize at the time was that they were stealing everything she owned while they were at it. In her mind, her children basically didn't exist anymore. Her oldest daughter had turned into the mother in the home. "Thinking back on it, I can't remember ever cooking them a meal," Maninger said. "There were tiny handprints on the door," she said. "It was them begging me to come out and make them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just to cuddle with me." Mariah, who was 4 at the time, was found by Maninger's ex-husband walking down College Street by herself. He then obtained legal custody of his biological children. "The day I went to court to redeem myself and tell the judge I wasn't using drugs, I got high," Maninger now admits. Ready To Quit At that time, Maninger was five months pregnant with River and weighed about 95 pounds. She was ready to come down and quit using. "Quitting wasn't hard," Maninger said. "Life was hard. My emotions were hard. I was responsible for myself for the first time. I had been such a good manipulator that I had never had to be responsible for anything." The day Maninger graduated from a rehabilitation program was one of the happiest days in her sister's life. Rivera had stopped talking to her sister by then because she couldn't bear to see Maninger destroying herself and everyone around her. "We looked at each other, and we started bawling," Rivera said of the graduation. "I couldn't help it, not because she was sober but because of the person she had become." That's when another longtime meth user, Jack Marney, started showing up at her house, talking about getting off the drug, too. "Not one person I have ever used with didn't say they want to get off this drug," Maninger said. Marney had been using the drug for about 10 years and living out of his car. He had tried to kick the habit a half-dozen times and figured it was just going to be a fact of life. But he did quit. Once clean, he turned himself in to the police because several warrants had been issued for his arrest for trafficking stolen property to support his habit. He spent two months in jail for the crimes. Now he's out, has a full-time job, has been clean for almost a year and is Maninger's partner. Maninger is active with her children's Parent-Teacher Association and is a Girl Scout troop leader. Marney and Maninger say they are relying on each other, not methamphetamine, to help them through their problems. Maninger has gotten to know herself and her children for the first time. She enjoys being a good neighbor, but doesn't think there is anything extraordinary about her. "I guess I have a normal life now," Maninger said. That's just the way she likes it. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth