Pubdate: Wed, 28 Dec 2005
Source: Daily Home, The (Talladega,  AL)
Copyright: 2005 Consolidated Publishing
Contact:  http://www.dailyhome.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1632
Note:  also listed as contact
Author: Saige Newton
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

FIGHTING TO STAY CLEAN

The stories about the deadly drug methamphetamine are basically the 
same and too few have good endings.

Recovered addicts, if they don't land themselves in prison and do 
live to tell about it, have much to say about this drug that has 
wreaked havoc on small-town America, weaving its way in and out of 
backyards, mobile home parks and million-dollar homes.

The recovery road with meth is a long and turbulent one -- and it's 
often a path addicts can't stay on, said Bessie Limberis of 
Jacksonville, who was an addict for two years at the start of the millennium.

Now 31, she was a young 20-something college student at Jacksonville 
State University -- a sorority girl with a life filled with parties, 
dating, and basically anything other than studying.

She had already experimented with drugs, and it was nothing for her 
to snort a few lines of cocaine and drink a few beers before driving 
herself home.

A bad car accident left her with a broken back and a liquid morphine 
and pill addiction -- not uncommon drugs for people with severe back injuries.

Over the period of a couple of years, Limberis dropped out of college 
and began working at her well-known family business, Roma's Pizza & 
Steakhouse, located on Jacksonville Square.

They hired a girl that Limberis befriended, who led her to try "ice," 
as meth is often called.

"We went to this guy's house and you could tell by the outside of his 
house that he was a meth addict," Limberis said. "Meth addicts start 
projects and don't ever finish them. This man had about 20 different 
projects going, all unfinished."

After that night, she stayed awake three solid days and lost 12 pounds.

Limberis was hooked, not just for the weight loss but also for what 
she was able to accomplish in the hours she would normally be sleeping.

"My weight has always been an issue for me," Limberis said. "Meth 
just sheds the pounds off of you. I turned into a skeleton.

"I began staying over at that guy's house all the time, and I'd tell 
my family I was going to Wal-Mart and be gone for 5 hours," she said.

Looking back on it now, there are weeks that she can't recall what she did.

"They're just a blur," Limberis said.

She started writing checks from their business, all for $300, and cashing them.

At the time, it cost $300 to buy an eight-ball of meth, she said.

"My mom knew it was going on, but she also knew if she didn't allow 
me to have the money, there's no telling what I would do," Limberis said.

Then, she got into a year-long relationship with a "cook" who would 
gladly buy her a gallon-bag of meth and let her do what she wished with it.

Caught

Limberis was asleep in her boyfriend's mobile home one day when there 
was a combustion explosion and the two stayed on the run from law 
enforcement for five days, with no clothes, food or money.

"I knew I was in trouble then -- big trouble," Limberis said. "I've 
never been so scared."

But it wasn't until her sister-in-law turned her in that she actually 
went to jail.

"They wouldn't even set me a bond at first and when they did, it was 
a $270,000 cash bond because I was considered a flight risk since I'm 
from Greece," she said.

Limberis stayed in the Calhoun County Jail for four months because 
she refused to tell her mother she had a problem and she needed rehabilitation.

What triggered her decision to finally go to rehab was seeing the 
jail regulars, coming in and out of jail, time after time.

"I knew I couldn't be one of those people," Limberis said.

Clean

Limberis' family located a rehab in the West that was geared toward 
meth addiction.

At Narconon Drug Rehab in California, she spent five months in their 
scientology-based program, where she rose at 4 a.m. and jogged 3 miles a day.

"They believed in vitamins, exercise and sauna sessions," Limberis 
said. "It was crazy, but their stuff really worked.

"Jail is not a place for recovery," she said. "People claim they've 
found God in jail and they get out and they forget God."

Limberis wrote letters to everyone she ever hurt during her addiction 
and overall it instilled in her the willpower that if she was offered 
the drug again, she would turn it down.

She returned to Jacksonville in 2002 as a convicted felon and did 
drug court for 18 months instead of jail time.

"I was scared to death about coming back," Limberis said. "But all I 
did was go to work, go to drug court and go out to eat and to the 
movies with friends.

"I am so proud of my recovery. And I feel so much better physically. 
I love waking up in the morning feeling rested. For lack of a better 
phrase, I'm just high on life," she said.

After being hooked on meth for two years, Limberis has been clean for 
three years.

Today, her vices are limited to caffeine and cigarettes and her life 
is back on track.

She's looking forward to getting married in a few weeks and hopes her 
story will save someone else.

The reason the drug has become such an epidemic among girls is the 
weight loss, Limberis said.

"Plus, it's easily accessible and used to be pretty cheap," she said. 
"It's truly the hardest drug to overcome out there. It's just a black tunnel."

It changes everything

Even after recovery, it affects your life, said one mother whose son 
was addicted to the drug for four years.

John, 31, who did not want his last name used, is a former Talladega 
resident who said he, too, experimented with harder drugs like LSD, 
and that led him to meth.

"I've never had an addictive nature," John said.

It became a social drug for him, and then he needed it every day.

"I had to go to jail, be put in a place where I couldn't be near 
meth," he said.

After doing jail time for a month and then rehab for another, John 
has been clean for seven months, but he said meth has reaped 
repercussions on his life more than anyone will ever know.

He has had to pay for it dearly, having to patch relationships with 
his family and being behind on his bills and taxes.

"My two sons have played a major role in my recovery," he said.

His sons now live with their grandparents and he visits them as often 
as possible.

He also goes to church every Sunday.

"And I don't put myself in that situation of being around it," he said.

Family intervention was the only way, said John's mother, who also 
wished to remain anonymous.

"I couldn't be a one-woman warrior. I sat down with family members 
and law enforcement and worked out a drug intervention plan. It was 
tough, but it was better than visiting the graveyard.

"I firmly believe that a family who is afraid to put their foot down 
will be that user's worst enemy," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman