Treatment produces miracles every day

Each woman is chaperoned into the bathroom. She washes her hands. Then shirts get pulled up to the bra line and pants pulled down to the knees. Each person has to turn around, naked, so there's no way to hide black market clean urine or anything else in clothing.

Still supervised, each person urinates in the cup. If the urine is too diluted, it's not accepted. If it's not the right temperature, it's not accepted.

A "dirty UA" could mean being kicked out of a rehab program or being sent to jail.

"It's a constant evaluation of the new techniques they use to beat the system," said John Bradley, president of the drug testing company NWS.

Bradley's company plays a vital role in the state's efforts to monitor men and women who have used meth. NWS does all the testing for the state Division of Child and Family Services in Salt Lake County.

But all the women and men interviewed for this series say an addict comes to treatment on his or her own time.

"I think when you're ready, you're ready," said Kathy Garcia, who wasn't ready until she landed in prison. She'd been given every chance in the world, all the treatment skills in the world, but she didn't take any of it seriously until she was behind bars. "When you've had enough, you've had enough."

At the House of Hope, Mindy is seven months clean.

Like many, the lithe 26-year-old mom has been down the rehab road before, without success. She worries that she can't make it in the world without meth.

"If I ever go back out there, I think I will die. That scares me," she said. "I'm sure I have another high in me. I don't think I have another recovery in me."

So in program after program, many of the same factors are emphasized:

Accountability; structure; getting to the root of why they used in the first place; identifying triggers that will send them back to drug use; finding positive people to spend time with and finding positive ways to occupy a life spent filled with taking drugs, coming down from drugs, finding money for drugs, buying them again. And on and on.

"You just can't stop using," said Donna, who is four months clean. "You have to change why you started using in the first place, and that's hard to figure out."

Denise White, who is now in the state's Excell substance abuse program at the Utah State Prison, amazingly quit a heroin habit cold turkey. But she could not stay away from meth.

Stories like White's are frequent in the meth treatment community.

"It takes a long time with meth," said Karen Williams of Odyssey House.