Treatment produces miracles every day

No one wants to look at meth addiction close up.

No one really wants to look too long at the bad teeth and bad skin on women whose quest for drugs long ago trumped their desire for personal hygiene. They have "meth bites" on their faces and arms from a maddening sensation under the skin. It's one of the most disturbing physical manifestations of meth use — the drug causes a sensation in the nerve endings causing users to think they have bugs under their skin. So, they pick and pick and dig at their flesh until it is raw and bloody.

No one wants to think too hard about the filthy houses, where neglected little children live in homes where the water and electricity have sometimes been turned off.

The outside look at meth addiction is ugly, but the inside look at how addicts came to this life is often a darker, more complicated journey. And that is where a legion of Utah therapists and counselors — who give their days and evenings offering tools to kick the habit — come in.

In multiple interviews in recent months, Deseret Morning News reporters interviewed dozens of therapists. In residential programs, outpatient programs and drug treatment facilities, reporters found a bank of men and women who often are the only people who have not given up on these addicts. People who know that relapse is a part of recovery. They know addiction — especially meth addiction — can never be kicked with the simple call to "just say no" to meth.

"This is a disease that tells you you don't have it," said Kimberly Jackson, a social worker at The Gathering Place in Orem. "It's a monster. It talks in your ear as if it's your best friend."

It's not easy to walk away from a friend that makes you feel like you're smarter, prettier, thinner than everyone else.

Meth addicts measure their sobriety first in days, then weeks, months and maybe years, if they make it that far. Heather White, at NWS Drug Treatment, has been clean for three weeks.

Sarah Hughes, at Cottonwood Family Treatment Center, eight months clean.

Carol Morgan, at the Chelsea Street Project, 30 days clean.

One way authorities and treatment centers make sure people stay clean is through urinalyses, or UAs. It is one of the many humiliating aspects of rehab.

About 50 recovering addicts a day come to the modest office building near 4000 South and Main Street in South Salt Lake.

They show personal identification every time, even though the staff knows them because they come one, two or three times a week to have their urine tested for drugs.