KICKING METH: IT'S NO MYTH.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

The invisible part of Oregon's methamphetamine epidemic is people such as Carla George - addicts who, in spite of public skepticism about the effectiveness of treatment, have kicked their habit and are productive citizens.

Changing public perception of meth addiction is one of the chief goals of the Oregon Medical Association's Governor's Task Force on Methamphetamine, a dozen-member panel that will issue recommendations later this year for improving treatment and prevention efforts. The panel's mission also is to find funding other than state revenues to support the effort.

"We have to teach the public about the disease of addiction. Until people understand that, people will not be willing to fund money to treat the problem," says Dr. Ron Schwerzler, medical director at the Serenity Lane treatment center in Eugene and a member of the OMA panel.

The public myth of meth being an unbeatable addiction is the No. 1 challenge facing treatment officials, according to a score of drug treatment program directors surveyed from around the state, says Karen Wheeler, addiction policy manager for the state Department of Human Services.

Several studies, including a recent one done in Washington state for the federal government, show meth addicts are no less likely to succeed in treatment than people addicted to other drugs.

When communities give up on meth addicts, allow no place for them in the community, the addicts have little choice but to return to the people and places that will lead them into relapse, she says.

"Meth addicts recover at the same rate as people addicted to cocaine, barbiturates and other stimulants," Wheeler says.

While news reports often link meth use to crime and child neglect, most users do not commit crimes other than possessing and selling drugs. Yet people don't understand the difference between criminals, who must be held accountable, and addicts, who need effective treatment, Wheeler says.

"The American Medical Association and other experts agree that meth addiction is a chronic disease just as asthma, diabetes and heart disease are," she says.

Changing the public's perception is key to improving addiction treatment and prevention at a time when the state's meth epidemic is growing at a rate that cannot be ignored, Schwerzler says.

In the six years that he has been with Serenity Lane, alcoholism has fallen from two-thirds of the center's patient caseload to one-third, he says.

"Our No. 1 problem in society has always been alcohol. No doubt about that," Schwerzler says. "Meth we have seen blossom. The No. 1 public health problem in the state of Oregon is methamphetamine use and addiction. We are criminalizing a disease, in my opinion."

For Carla George, recovery wasn't the result of the prison sentence she served for theft, forgery and drug possession. Even though she used no drugs in prison, she got out still addicted to the meth lifestyle. Depressed and destitute, the false promise of bliss in a syringe held a strong draw, she says.

But George also wanted to reunite with her three children, even though they told her they hated her - and George hated herself for what she'd done to them.

At Sponsors, the Eugene-based nonprofit transitional housing program for released inmates, George found the help she needed to change the one thing all addicts need to change: everything.

For an addict, the everyday world is full of people, places and things that trigger psychological urges to use drugs. Music, clothing, even certain smells were triggers for George. The Sponsors program helped her find new things to fill her life.

"Sponsors is actually where I learned to change my life," George says. "Without that program, I can't say I'd be clean today."

George got out of prison in June 1997, got a job, got an apartment, got her children back, enrolled in school and started a new life.

Unlike most recovering meth addicts who lead quiet lives in the community, George now supervises a recovery support program at the Relief Nursery and tries to get on any government board or commission that works to widen public understanding of addiction and recovery.

"I feel like I have a voice. It's a voice for everybody who has been where I've been," says George, who hasn't used drugs since she went to prison in 1996.

While people see the ripple effect of addiction - broken lives and broken laws - they don't see the ripple effect of recovery - reunited families, productive citizens, she says.

Her children, for example, know close-up what drug addiction does and what it takes to recover.

"Even though I went to prison, I've taught my children," George says. "I tell them, 'That's a criminal thought. Or, that's an addict move.' It stops them. They think about it. They saw where I've been. They don't want to go down that road."

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Carla George in 1996