Pubdate: Fri, 22 Apr 2005
Source: Des Moines Register (IA)
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050422/NEWS10/504220402/1001/NEWS
Copyright: 2005 The Des Moines Register.
Contact:  http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123
Author: Philip Brasher, Register Washington Bureau
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

IOWAN TELLS SENATORS OF STRUGGLE WITH METH

Sen. Tom Harkin Brings Vicki Sickels To Tell Her Story To Make A Case 
For Expanding Assistance

Washington, D.C. - Vicki Sickels battled her addiction to 
methamphetamine for a decade, despite two short stints in treatment. 
The drug was just too powerful.

"It was love at first dose for me, the first time I did it," the Iowa 
woman told a Senate appropriations subcommittee Thursday. "It was one 
of those drugs that makes you feel like you can do anything or 
several things at once."

But the drug also nearly destroyed her life. Sickels, 41, couldn't 
take care of her young son or hold a job.

She finally got clean, but only after going back to a treatment 
program and spending three months in a halfway house, followed by 
three years living with her supportive sister - "my sister's 
three-quarters-of-the-way house," Sickels said.

"I learned to live again," she said.

She has since earned a master's degree in social work from the 
University of Iowa and now works as a chemical dependency counselor 
at Iowa Lutheran Hospital.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., who ran the Senate hearing, brought Sickels 
to Washington to make the case that the government needs to do more 
to combat meth.

"It won't go away until we do a better job of treating addicts," he said.

The government has provided $14 million in treatment money targeted 
to meth users over the past three years.

President Bush's 2006 budget would kill the program and instead give 
states more flexibility in what addictions they want to target with 
federal dollars. Overall spending for substance abuse treatment would 
go up 7 percent under the administration plan.

Charles Curie, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration, said rural areas in particular were not 
prepared to fight meth.

Urban areas already had treatment programs for cocaine users, while 
rural areas did not, he said. Treatment is similar for the two drugs.

Meth works by tricking the brain into releasing large amounts of 
dopamine, a chemical that raises the heart rate and produces feelings 
of well-being.

"What the brain tells you is that this (meth) is extremely important 
for survival," said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute 
on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Users are quickly hooked, and their lives begin to fall apart, Sickels said.

"Really what happens is you lose your mind. It gets to the point that 
meth was all I was doing," she said.

The drug can damage the brain in ways similar to Parkinson's disease, 
but the damage can be reversed if the user stays clean, Volkow said.

The first time Sickels sought treatment, in 1993, she relapsed after 
turning down a chance to go to a halfway house. She later tried an 
outpatient program, but it only required one session once a week. 
That didn't work, either.

Her recovery finally came in 1998, when friends took her to a 
long-term treatment program, followed by the time in a halfway house 
and then with her sister.

"I'm sitting here to tell you that treatment works," Sickels said.

Still, she said it took her a year to recover from the drug's 
effects. During that time, she got a job sacking groceries.

"It was all I could do to suit up and show up and just learn how to 
put one foot in front of another," she said. "During that year, I 
would feel really good about where I was and then really low. Highs and lows."

She tells people they couldn't pay her a million dollars to try the 
drug again, but she knows she is vulnerable at the "wrong place at 
the wrong time."

"I know how tricky it is," she said. "I work very hard to keep myself 
from becoming emotionally vulnerable and away from the places where 
it might be available."