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Methamphetamine: Stories and Letters of the Hidden Costs
by Users, Loved Ones, and Parents

My story
    I met this guy,way back when we were both younger. Fast forward to years later,and we ended up hooking up for a month or two. He was a known meth smoker, and I never did that,but I had experience with lots of other drugs so I didn't judge,but didn't indulge either. He was pretty strung out,and for the most part meth free and I got to know him a little. I liked him a lot,at least I thought I liked the him I thought I was getting to know. He left the state though,and three years later he popped back into my life. This time,though,it was "for keeps" and he and I were planning a great future. Yeah,right! He wasn't on meth at first,having come from the back woods and without access. I live in a metro area. Soon,he got high again. Soon, I tried it too. I thought it was the answer to all of our problems. We were closer than ever, feeling better than ever. What a huge trap, what a giant lie! The high is no comparison to the misery this drug will cause. The paranoia, the anger, the total craziness that come with this drug is hell. We weren't able to talk, sex was out of the question,all we did was fight and argue. Of course, meanwhile I'm paying for everything because prince charming didn't come with a job, just 6 kids with 4 different women, 2 warrants, and a mean disposition when he was coming down, which was all the time. Four months after reuniting with someone I thought I loved, I'm left with an addiction, late bills, and hurt feelings. Him? Oh, he went back to the back woods, and is living happy go lucky while I try to untangle the hell my life is now. Meth is a trick, an illusion,that everything is okay,while meanwhile everything goes to a low that will surprise you with its quickness and depravity. I wish I knew then what I knew now, and if you're smart, you'll stay away from this junk so you'll never have to say the same.
--Sharrell

   Hi everybody. I found this forum after running out of options with my new wife. i knew she used before we got together. she says she smoked for 10 years heavily. i had no idea what kind of monster she had living in her. it overrides all. her own children, me, everything. cold. numb. she wants nothing but to get high and tweek all night for days on end. i know that i should have known better but i am naive.
   i want to go to sleep if not next to my wife then at least knowing that she is in the house. and the same when i wake up. not so. gone before i go to sleep gone when i awake. just me and the kids at home. wishing she was here.
   i look at her youngest son. he has abandonment issues and clings to her at all times only to be yelled at "get the f--- away from me!!!!" he cries. hes only two and she cant stand being around him. she leaves him crying his eyes out and he watches her leave. we all watch her leave. when i look at him i see myself down the road. hollow. loving someone that will never be able to love me back. always wanting her but never getting that time.
    she only has time for me at 4 or 5 in the morning. a time that im hard asleep. she encourages me to use. to smoke it. i dont do it. but she wants me to. knowing well what it does. but if she can get me to start then she will be sure to be in supply. she is willing to sacrifice me, her husband to this demon. she has already given her children.
    its a hard reality that i just cant accept but know to be true. this marriage will never work. she can never love or want me. she doesnt even love or want her own children. i love her so dearly. i want nothing but to hold her and let her know she is loved. take care of her. but i am only a convenience to support her habit.
    im told that im handsome but i never hear it from her. she rejects me constantly. her husband. my self image is at an all time low. she only says sweet things when she wants something. manipulation. but it seems so real to me.
    i want out of this one-sided relationship. i cant get out of this because i love her so much. but its not real. she doesnt really love me. she just needs me. i think about her poor kids. what will happen to them without me. i work, have a house and cars. i make a living. something they never had.
    dont be me. run. run and dont look back. its not too late for you my friend.
--Patrick

   I wrote back in September of 09 i was 18 . My name is Irma im 19. Ive tried to stop using meth and succeded for a while. I started college and it was hard working full time , so i stopped going to school and quit my job. I thought to myself ill get clean and start over , but i dint know that it was going to be hard. I didnt use meth for 4 months, i thought i was good i had beaten it i did it all by mmyself. I moved from the state i was alll better i was starting to be happy again i would day dream about it sometimes but i would drive those dreams away i told my self that i diddnt like or what it anymore... i was just lieying to myself. For a while i was able to say NO to it and i would leave the place were they were using it but i would see from a distance with juelusy in my eyes wanting it more and more everyday. It got better after a while eveyrday that passed i felt stronger but there wasnt a day that went by that i didnt think about it. I was afraid to make freinds thinking what if they use i dont want to get involved with it i had to keep away. Then i would tell myself with one time that u get high you can stop again it will be ok... I still said NO to it. The desires got stronger with time I wanted it i made myself belive thats who you are. That i didnt have to be like most addicts i wouldn't lose everything I stopped before I could stop agian when I wanted to. That I didnt have to keep saying NO to it it was my freind it wouldn't harm me becouse i could stop, I was strong enough for that. I was decided to use one last time before i left it for good i told myself just the tought of it made me shake i was happy i was looking for it like it was adate. I planned it out i will do it once and stop... Well i got high and all i could think of was telling myself thank you that this was not  amisteak, i wanted it and it wanted me. My plans of doing it once vanished in an instant and i didnt care that they did i was high i got what i wanted. I was chasing the high that i would never find again i didnt want to stop again i wanted it more and more i would tell myself one more week since i was never going to do it again. i told myself that for about 2 months until i ran out of money. I was hurting for it. I STOPPED and i havent used it agin since its been 2 months and i dont want it i see it and it makes me nuases i hate it its not my freind. WE CAN DO IT MY FREINDS LETS SEE THE END BECOUSE ITS WE SINK OR SWIM AND THATS HOW ITS GOING TO BE.
--Irma

my story
    my name is heather and im 20 years old. ive never used meth myself, but it has run my family for far too long.
    this is my story. my mother was born into a house where both parents used drugs. meth being the main issue. my grandma grandpa mom cousin and sister have all fell into meths destructive path. as a child my mom and grandma were always a big part of my life and took me and my sister everywhere with them. wether it be to a hotel to cook meth or to dairy queen to have our family talks..they were all we knew, my father was in his own world as an alcoholic and left us to my mother to raise on her own. they were constantly high off of meth. at that age i didnt know. they both sold meth, made meth, and did meth. we constantly had people in and out of our house, and not jus any ol people, TWEAKERS. i grew up in the projects and we had a constant flow of traffic coming in and out at al hours. i still remeber the times when my mother would spend hours oon end in her room and leave me and my sister to do our own thing. my mother always had diff men in and out of her life and told us she was addicted to sex. meth only fueled her fire. relationships were always turned into violence. one time when im sure my mother and her boyfriend of the time had to be pretty high, my mothers boyfriend held me my mom and my sister hostage for two days. my mom still stayed with him. the drug had a constant hold on her and it ran her life. by no means am i trying to knock my mom, she did raise me and my sister on her own and we made it out ok, but this was just the beggining before everything started to fall apart.
    my sister was a straight a student her whole life. she would go to school when we were little and come home and teach me everything she knew. we were best friends, she was very popular and had many friends. but she was a bigger girl.
    my sister started using meth at 15. i believe she wanted to lose the weight,but she says she started smokin with my mom. she had met a guy who was 26 and they started dating. my mother never really disciplined us, so my sister and dude stayed in our house for awhile. i started to realize something was wrong when one day i woke up to my sister and my mom fighting in our living room. (meth brings out all your anger) to this day i still dont know why they were fighting, but after that my sister moved away to stay with her boyfriend in chandler. she dropped out of school and gave up on life. i remember my sister coming to visit me and i could barely recognize her. she droppedfrom like a size 18 to a size 9 in a matter of maybe one month. it was hard for me to watch my sister following in my moms steps. after all she had worked for. at her worst, my sister had went to my lttle sisters bday party and dropped a g pipe in front of my step mom. my step mom threatened to callthe cops and my sister couldnt handle the guilt. she wanted to kill her!! after all, who was she to judge. finally my dad had a wake up call and made her go to rehab. my sister got clean but only because she got pregnant. she still has many problems mentally and emotioinally that i believe the drugs brought out of her. my dad also lives in a constant state of guilt knowing that he wasnt there for us, he believes its his fault.
    back to my mom. my mom had two babies one in 02 and one in 04. in 04 my brother was born.they found meth in his system and cps came back into our lives. ill never forget the day i found out they were taking us away from my mom. it killed me. i remeber my dad coming to pick me up from school and telling me i had to go home with him, and i couldnt see mymom. cps took me and both of the babies. this was the breaking point for my mom. i remeber sneakingout of school to try to see her since my dad wouldnt let me, and when i got to her housse and knocked on the door, she hid from me. she was so far gone off of meth that she didnt want me to see her. i was 14 years old and to me it was the end of the world. my dad adopted both babies so we wouldnt get seperated. but it took a while for my mom to try to starighten up. she missed her kids and the onl way shed get visits would be to go to rehab. so she did it!! she got clean after all those years and was clean for about 2 years. she was staying clean in order to keep her visitation rights, but soon my step mom decided she didnt want to "confuse" the kids so the visits slowly but surely stopped. it broke my moms heart and she started using again. all it takes is a lil moment of sadness and BAM meth to the rescue. since then my mom has had two more babies. she lives off and on sober. meth has taken a toll on her body and she lives with hep c and pancreitis. her stomach is swollen to look like shes 9 months pregnant every day. she still doesnt get to see the other two babies and i honestly believe thats what hurts her the most. i love my mom, and i forgive her for all the things she put me thru unknowingly. i guess the point im trying to get across ismeth affects everyone around you, even if you dont think it does. now im 20 years old amd ive never tried meth. my cousin who is also 20 has now begun to smoke meth. she has a baby and her dad uses too. it kills me to watch my cousin suffer. she, like me. has been thru alot and she doesnt realize what shes doing to herself. her dad lost his job last year and he was their only source of income. since he lost his job my cousin has been out in the streets trying to get money and meth to pay her dad for watching her daughter while shes out running the streets. im at a point where im so tired of fighting this drug that i dont know where to help her. i jus keep prayn itll all stop, but the battle with meth will never end. if you or a loved one is doing meth, PLEASE by any mean possible help them get out asap. the longer you use it the harded to break it.
--heather

Update to "My Story" (Januray '10)
    What I maybe didn't make clear in the first writing is the sheer misery I went through with this man on this drug. When we were first together,he was a dream,too good to be true. The SECOND we used meth we were doomed as a couple. He was a rabid fiend,and would go through any  hustle to get dope. He changed,I changed immediately and completely. He was mean,critical and nasty, and I was too. There was no understanding each other unless we were having sex,which wasn't that frequent as he couldn't pretty quickly. We screamed abuse at each other,and then he started to try to hit me. After the first time I told him we had to live apart. I still loved him,but I wasn't about to get beat on. He moved out,then came and was physical with me again. I thought he went to the woods to stay,but he came back and shacked up with someone. Right after the new year, Mr. Romantic came to my house,forced me to smoke way too much meth, hit me, robbed me, and then raped me brutally,telling me sick things throughout the entire thing,as well as recording parts of it. This,more than anything else,should warn you. It should let you know the evil of this drug. Stay away from it.
--Sharrell

   i am a 24 year old mother with four beautiful children and my husband is addicted to meth. we dated in high school and continued our realtionship after we graduated. he is two years older than me and life has not always been so easy. we married when i was 18 and he was 20 and had our first son months later. i knew he had a social drug problem but he would only use cocaine or sometimes pain pills occasionally when financial problems occured. i stressed about those two substances and made him see a doctor to evaluate him to see if an antidepressent was needed (his family has a history of depression/ bipolar disorder and drug abuse). he took the antidepressent for awhile and soon after started a new job on the night shift so he could go to emt school to become a firefighter during the day. things couldn't be better. we had two children and i was expecting twins.we went on dates every friday, to church on sunday, and took our kids to the park or just fun stuff together as a family. then i started to notice a new group of friends showing up at our house when i got home from work. the kind that seem to scatter when you pull up. i told him those people looked shady but he assured me they were just friends from his new job. months passed and each day was getting worse. the house started getting trashy, he didn't take showers or care if he smeeled, he would say he was at work then his boss would call to ask me where he was because he didn't show up, he missed our kids birthday parties because he was passed out on the couch after staying up for days, all of our valuable belongings started missing, then all of the sudden he quit his job and failed emt school which he had an A in half the year. i started looking through his things when i found pipes, baggies, messages from other girls in his phone,and eventually found out he was using meth. after that he lost his mind. he threw things at me, screamed at our kids, would break things of mine if i made him mad, broke windows in our house,trashed my brand new car by putting metal in it so he could scrap metal for money. he started stealing from other people's properties.he would disappear for days at a time and he didn't care about us anymore. now he has two warrants for his arrest charges that could lead to felony's his children are scarred of him and i am left brokenhearted watching the man that i love with all my heart kill himself with this powerful drug that will consume your life no matter how much control you think you have. but i can't let my kidsa or myself be around it anymore it's too dangerous.we are getting divorced and he is willingly signing all his rights away to his kids because he says the drug and high he gets from it is more important. i want all people of all ages to know that this is the most powerful drug i have ever been around. it will take you from the person you are and the dreams you have and the ones you love to having nothing at all. you have no respect for anyone especially yourself. STAY AWAY FROM METH OR YOU MIGHT AS WELL SIGN YOUR SOUL TO THE DEVILTHE FIRST TIME YOU USE IT!!! within one year our life fell apart. he is homeless and not going to live much longer the doctors say his lungs are already crystalizied and it probably won't be a year before i have to tell my four children who are 5, 2, and twins that their daddy is dead...
--JILLIAN

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