thc-detection times

METH USE BECOMING MORE WIDESPREAD IN U.S.

CHICAGO - She gets her latest grade from her theology professor -- it's a "check-plus," the highest mark she could have received.

The tall, fair-haired student, older than most of her classmates, smiles slightly and shrugs it off, as if it's not such a big deal.  But she knows better, especially given her circumstance a year ago, even little more than two months ago.

Her name is Robin -- she's a 35-year-old mother of three and college student earning an undergraduate degree on scholarship.

She's also a recovering addict who spent much of last year strung out on methamphetamine, a drug more often associated with Western states and rural areas that's spreading to other pockets of the country, including a growing number of urban areas.  Some people manufacture meth in mom-and-pop "labs," others in hotel rooms.  Still others, mainly dealers, have it shipped to them from large meth-making operations in the Southwest and Mexico.

Robin, who'd never tried the drug until last year, found her meth dealer in downtown Chicago through a posting on a popular online bulletin board.  She had used cocaine in the past -- but was immediately drawn in by meth's cheaper, longer high.

"I'd stay up for three or four days and drive around with my children in the car.  I was a zombie," said Robin, who shared her story on the condition that her last name not be used.

Now her father is caring for her kids, ages 8, 12 and 15, and she is attempting to get her life back together.  Her focus is staying sober and finishing school, while she attends support groups and lives in a halfway house.

She remains, in many ways, a woman on the edge.  A relapse in February, for instance, sent her to the halfway house's detox unit, only a few weeks after she moved in.

Drugs have long been her coping mechanism, a way to run from her problems and ease her pain.  But after years of struggling with addiction, she is determined to make it -- without methamphetamine or any other drug.

Dr.  Jekyll and Mr.  Hyde With a plan of taking classes this summer, she still hopes to graduate by the end of next year with a history major and special ed minor and would like to get a job teaching high school.

"I think I could relate well to kids who have problems," said Robin, whose own troubles began as a teen after her parents divorced and her mother decided to leave her with her father.

Feeling utterly abandoned, she soon turned to alcohol and drugs.

"I don't think she ever has gotten over her mother leaving," said her dad, now retired at age 61 and living in nearby Skokie.

Until that happened, he says, she was "absolutely the perfect kid." But by age 15, she had already entered rehab for the first time, and at 17, left home to move in with her drug-dealing boyfriend, with whom she had her first child.  She calls the years that followed "a horrible progression" that led to a marriage to the father of her other two children and divorce, troubles with money and accusations of child neglect.  She didn't make a serious attempt at getting sober, long term, until she was 26 and pregnant with her third child.

She managed to stay off drugs for eight years and remarried in 2002.  But the pressures of trying to go to school and keep her family going sent her back to her old ways in early 2004, prompting her second husband to eventually leave her.  She also was stripping at bachelor parties to earn money and found the drugs in that scene difficult to resist.

This time, though, she discovered a new drug -- methamphetamine -- not fully understanding what she was getting herself into.

"I thought it was like coke, so I was snorting it like crazy," she said, describing how it kept her up for days instead of hours.

It wasn't long before she started smoking it and, as she continued to use, the drug's nastier effects quickly set in.  She got sores on her face and, as sometimes happens with meth use, couldn't stop herself from scratching them.  Her 5-foot-7 frame became so emaciated that, at one point, she weighed only about 100 pounds.

Meanwhile, her kids -- a girl and two boys -- had to get themselves up and ready for school.

"I was physically there, but I wasn't there," Robin now said.  "You don't realize what it's doing to your life.  It's real cunning stuff."

Her current boyfriend said seeing Robin high was like watching a real-life version of "Dr.  Jekyll and Mr.  Hyde."

When she's sober, he said, "I'm a big fan of hers -- and very proud of what she's been able to accomplish."

But on meth, he said, there was a dark side, behavior he describes as manipulative and "dangerously self-destructive."

Last summer, and at his urging, she tried going to rehab but left almost immediately.

"That is when I kind of withdrew," the boyfriend said.  "It was obvious she didn't want to be sober and I loathed the person she was high."

On New Year's Day of this year, her father had enough.  He consulted an attorney and called the police.  After she admitted to officers she'd been using drugs, Robin went voluntarily to a hospital and then to the halfway house.

"I still love her but, boy, I sure don't like the things she does," her dad said.  "It's heartbreaking is the word for it -- absolutely heartbreaking to see her ruin her life and the lives of everybody around her."

He and Robin met to talk during a counseling session in recent months.  He remembers telling her how he felt.  She remembers him yelling angrily until she had to leave the room.

"Just take it.  You deserve it," she remembers telling herself.  But she said she has enough of her own guilt to handle, especially when it comes to her kids.

"In the past year, they've seen too much," she said, her eyes looking downward as she shakes her head.  "These are the consequences -- and I'm going to be dealing with them for a long time."