Garcia tried to maintain some semblance of family life during her drug use. She and her husband held good jobs. They bought a house.

But like addicts coming off a meth run do, she often slept for days.

Garcia recalls waking up to her children dumping fruit punch, raw eggs and cereal on the floor and running around naked. She said the scene scared her but didn't move her to give up drugs. She spent the next few years in and out of treatment and jail. She divorced and lost custody of her three children. She continually abused her numerous second chances.

"I don't think they were hard enough on people," Garcia said.

Every time she was on the brink of getting clean, she would relapse whether it was through a new boyfriend or an acquaintance at a bus stop. Even an overdose that put her in the hospital with convulsions wasn't jarring enough. She got high two weeks later.

At some point during her drug use, then chronically overweight, Garcia switched from smoking meth to injecting it. She shed 95 pounds in four months.

"Guys were hitting on me," she said. "I was attractive."

But she also thought she was going crazy. Meth-induced paranoia made her see things. She threw powder on the bathroom mirror thinking it would reveal a hidden message. She thought her neighbors were out to get her. She slept with knives.

Garcia said she told God she couldn't handle life anymore. She prayed for something to take her away from the meth and the beatings. She landed in prison and decided she could go one of two ways: "I can stay sick or I can get better."

Garcia is due to be released in January. She wants to mend relationships with her mother, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. She would eventually like to get her three children back.

"I have to be 100 percent. Selfish as my addiction is, I didn't want my kids in that. I love them. I do. But I can't lie. I chose meth over my kids."

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E-mail: romboy@desnews.com