Number seeking treatment for meth addiction risen steadily since mid-1990s

Without her mother, Stacy Sullivan-Jones wouldn't have ever overcome a 17-year addiction to methamphetamine.

Without her mother, Sullivan-Jones wouldn't have ever gotten high. Her mother, Karen Daugherty, a drug user for as long as she'd known her, gave her a hit of meth when she was 16.

Using meth was just for fun for Sullivan-Jones at first -- she could go days without sleep and finish numerous projects -- but after a while getting high became an obsession.

"The addiction just takes you further and further. You're not happy with snorting it anymore, so you smoke it. You're not happy with smoking it anymore, so then you're shooting it," said Sullivan-Jones, a recovering addict since 2006.

Together, Sullivan-Jones and Daugherty, who has been sober for eight years, operate Mending Hearts, a transitional housing facility in Cape Girardeau for women recovering from drug and alcohol abuse.

Sullivan-Jones and Daugherty are two of the thousands who've dealt with drug addiction in Missouri. On average, 58,000 Missourians are struggling with an addictive disorder every year, according to the Missouri Department of Public Safety. A total of 7.5 percent of the 58,000 have identified methamphetamine as their drug of choice, said Mike O'Connell, public affairs officer with the department.

As meth lab seizures in Missouri have continued to rise -- the state ranked No. 1 in the nation for nearly 10 years -- admissions to treatment centers across the state have steadily increased since the mid-1990s.

According to Missouri Department of Mental Health's Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse, which oversees the state's publicly funded substance abuse treatment centers, there were 4,375 admissions through November last year for people seeking treatment for methamphetamine addiction. In 1993, there were just 146 admissions related to meth use. The number skyrocketed to more than 6,000 in 2005, just before the federal government passed the Combat Meth Act, a law that regulated the sale of over-the-counter sales of pseudoephedrine.

Access to recovery

Addicts have access to a variety of centers statewide, said Bob Bax, director of public affairs for the Department of Mental Health, and there are 23 treatment programs within 50 miles of Cape Girardeau. Treatment for meth addicts accounts for about $8.3 million of the annual treatment budget for the department.

"We know that methamphetamine use is a serious problem and all treatment programs must be prepared to help those with this addiction," Bax said. "Treatment success is more likely when services focus on the individual person's needs and recovery means a return to work, stable housing, better relationships and less criminal activity."

While staff members at the Gibson Recovery Center in Cape Girardeau treat all addictions the same, executive director John Gary said recently they see recovery from meth use as more time-intensive. Treatment begins with a 21-day inpatient program, which is usually followed up with a structured outpatient program.

Recovering addicts can spend up to 12 months or longer in the center's outpatient treatment program. For meth addicts, the focus is to make them feel welcome and to connect them with a long-term support system, Gary said. In outpatient treatment, addicts work with a relapse prevention therapist and often connect with faith-based partners who support the Gibson Recovery Center's mission.

"We're working with them to reconnect with life skills," Gary said. "It can be extremely difficult. There's going to be irritability, some depression and often the 'poor me' syndrome."

Teddi Griggs, also a recovering meth addict and staff at Mending Hearts, remembers going through intensive behavioral management at a treatment facility in northeast Missouri.

Griggs said she didn't want to accept treatment for the first four months and focused only on her anger.

"I fought it. I was mad and didn't want to be there," she said. "It was something that was said in group one time, though, and I said 'that's me.' I am addicted. I'm addicted to anything. I have an addictive personality."

Now at Mending Hearts, she's focused on helping other addicts. She's learned to change her behaviors and has found a support system in Sullivan-Jones and Daugherty.

"Treatment saved my life and turned my life around," Griggs said. "I'm glad to have a more settled life and not to be doing the run around thing with the drugs."

Kicking addiction

For years before Sullivan-Jones and Daugherty wanted to help other drug users, before they understood their own addiction, the two couldn't get out of bed without getting high first. They couldn't function without methamphetamine.

"It's very addictive because it gives you this false sense of you can do anything. You can clean a house for days, you can work, you can run," Sullivan-Jones said. "You feel like Superwoman."

Sullivan-Jones' addiction mirrored her mother's. Daugherty's drug addiction began after her daughter's birth when she began taking diet pills. It wasn't long before she replaced diet pills with meth, taking the drug before work and during work, causing her to stay up for days. When her children were home, it didn't seem wrong to let them use the drug as she was. Both women said while they were high, it felt like they were a perfect parent, employee and housewife.

Kicking a meth addiction is infuriating, Sullivan-Jones said. The "crash" makes you angry, agitated, paranoid and ill.

So, in a nontraditional form of treatment, she spent the first month of recovery asleep in the basement of her mother's sponsor. It was another six months before Sullivan-Jones could think clearly or make a decision on her course of treatment. She'd hit rock bottom, but she'd made a choice. It was time to get clean.

"No matter what you do, how many treatment centers are available, it still comes down to a choice. Nothing is going to make that addict change except for that addict," Sullivan-Jones said. "I was just so sick. I couldn't get up, I couldn't go to work, I couldn't take care of my daughter, I couldn't do anything. I was wore out."

After about 18 months of what she calls intense counseling sessions, where like Griggs she learned new behaviors and about her addiction in general, Sullivan-Jones began to see herself change. She began to understand the hold drugs had on her life. And for the first time, she saw how much her mother had changed. Still, Sullivan-Jones said if her mother hadn't stopped using meth, she wouldn't have either.

"When you don't think there's anything wrong -- because it's a family thing -- you're not going to fix anything," she said. "Her probation officer saved our lives."

Mending Hearts

Daugherty and her daughter aren't fooling anybody. They're not doctors, they're not certified counselors, but they are educated. At their business Mending Hearts, open since 2008, they've taken the tools they've used to fight addiction and are using them to help other women in the beginning stages of recovery.

But, for those staying at their facility, which houses 10 women, they can expect to not have an easy recovery.

"I'm the cop here," Sullivan-Jones said. "I think using ... it's absolutely ridiculous. And I'm tough. These women can turn their lives around if they would just listen."

The women know, however, that addiction is different for every person and that not each woman who applies to stay at Mending Hearts is ready. They're prepared to fill five of the beds in the next three weeks but don't expect all five women to show up.

"Maybe out of the five, three will come. If you're not ready, you're not; I'm not mad at you," Sullivan-Jones said. "But don't come here and play the game. What's going to happen if you go back out there, you're either going to die or you're going to go to prison."

Recently, Mending Hearts received a state grant to pay for the facility in full. They're not going to stop helping others, the mother-daughter duo said recently, and plan to apply for a new grant soon to install new windows.

ehevern@semissourian.com

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