Recovery from addiction can be a tough climb

Elmer isn't sure why he first shoved a needle into his arm some three decades ago. Maybe it was a combination of boredom and stress. Maybe it was environment.

"It was Vietnam and everybody was doing it," said Elmer, a combat veteran of the Army's elite 101st Airborne. "I started right off the bat with heroin."

After his discharge, Elmer said he managed to hide his addiction from his employers at Kennecott and other mines throughout the West. "A good junkie," he said, "can hide it pretty easy."

But as the addiction deepened, his secret was eventually exposed. He lost job after job. He lost his wife and four children.

"Things got so bad I was living under bridges. I was down to owning a knapsack and working day jobs, stealing, whatever it took to get some dope."

After hitting bottom 2 1/2 years ago, Elmer, a skilled carpenter, began the long journey back to respectability. He now drives every morning from his Tooele home to a Salt Lake methadone clinic where he pays for his own treatment. He has his own car, a steady job and a repaired relationship with his children, and he is paying taxes.

"I will admit it," he said. "I have tried dope again and it's not the same. Clean is so much better."

For many, the descent into addiction is an indescribable hell. But the climb back out can be even worse.

Pain so agonizing that death seems a viable solution. And then there's the despair.

"You wake up in the morning and just want to die," said Joshua, a 25-year-old addict in the early stages of recovery. "You want to quit, but you know you can't. Every junkie would quit if they just had the chance."

Joshua got his chance. A Salt Lake man found him begging for spare change and became his benefactor, paying for his treatment at a private clinic.

He was lucky. Roughly four out of every five addicts in Utah cannot get into treatment even if they wanted to. Public treatment programs are full, and most addicts are destitute.

"I stole for drugs," smirked one former addict. "I guess I could steal for money to pay for treatment."

Some get financial help from their churches to pay for treatment, others have understanding employers and there are a handful of private foundations that help.

But those programs reach only a tiny fraction of those wanting help.

Currently, more than 20,000 Utahns are in government-supported treatment plans, and an estimated 2,000 more are paying for treatment themselves at private clinics. That still leaves about 80,000 Utahns who need treatment.

If they abide by the law, their turn in a treatment center may never come.