Photo by Karen Quincy Loberg

Carrie Serres changes daughter Madison's diaper in their room at Prototypes Women's Center in Oxnard, where 38 people are being treated for drug and alcohol abuse and an additional 15 are waiting for beds and government funding.

METH SITE

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Methamphetamine robs the brain of gray matter that controls memory and emotion. It acts like a warp-speed metronome on the heart and can cause the body temperature to rise so fast cerebellum protein sizzles like bacon.

A stimulant made out of ingredients that can include fertilizer and brake fluid, meth rots teeth and causes users to claw at their skin. It blocks impulse control, triggering the kind of behavior that made a Fillmore construction worker jump onto a spinning drill bit and hug it with his arms as if it were a carnival ride. He lost his grip and was thrown headfirst into steel rebar.

He died.

Medical examiner reports show the drug caused or contributed to at least 38 deaths in Ventura County over the past three years, from a 35-year-old man who was found dead in the filled bathtub of a Ventura motel to an Oxnard man who was smashing cars with a construction barricade. He suffered a fatal heart attack after police shot him with beanbags.

The drug haunts communities everywhere, flooding jails and treatment centers with users who have lost their jobs, families and ability to care.

Some experts say meth is as addictive as heroin because it seduces the brain with increased dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes people feel pleasure. Withdrawal from methamphetamine starves the brain of dopamine and is marked by months of severe depression, a reason virtually all recovery includes periods of relapse.

'Why aren't we doing more?'

In Ventura County, about 36 percent of the nearly 3,000 patient admissions into government-funded rehabilitation programs last year involved methamphetamine, more than any other drug.

Even more alarming, 71 percent of the 4,845 people arrested in Ventura County last year for being under the influence of a narcotic had meth in their system, according to Sheriff's Department lab records.

But as a county task force including court officials, police and drug counselors works on measuring the crisis and planning how to fight it, observers argue that less is being done to actually treat meth addiction. Three residential treatment centers in the county closed or lost government funding in the past year, and officials at others worry likely cuts will limit their services. Addicts who need detoxification and around-the-clock treatment are often asked to wait two months, sometimes longer, sometimes so long they're no longer interested in recovering. Teenagers who need inpatient care have to go to Malibu.

"There is a huge unmet need," said Lynn Jones, administrator of the Prototypes Women's Center in Oxnard, where 38 people are being treated for drug and alcohol abuse and an additional 15 are waiting for beds and government funding.

"The response to the huge unmet need is a loss of treatment facilities in the last year. Something doesn't add up here. We know we can make significant inroads into this problem, so why aren't we doing more of it?"

Fewer people enter treatment

Ventura County's drug and alcohol treatment program has gained a reputation for innovative and aggressive care, including a pilot program that breaks tradition by not focusing on all substances, but, rather, just on meth.

But state funding for treatment has stayed flat for seven years though costs climb steadily. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a 10 percent cut in the Proposition 36 program that provides drug treatment for criminal offenders. That could cost Ventura County $260,000.

The number of meth users in county treatment programs has nearly tripled over the past seven years, according to state records. But over the past two years, meth treatment numbers have dropped — from 1,395 admissions into programs two years ago to 1,035 last year.

County treatment leaders say falling numbers could mean fewer people are calling meth their drug of choice. They say people may be staying in treatment longer and that the success of the programs may be cutting down the number of people who fall to the drug.

Tina McDonald, clinical director of Miracle Recovery Centers in Ventura and Oxnard, contends more people are using and fewer are getting help.

"As money becomes less available and programs become less available, there's a real feeling of hopelessness," she said, noting limits in government money could force her centers to cut the amount of counseling addicts receive. "I think what we're seeing is that the funding stream is drying up."

Arrested four times

Carrie Serres has beautiful teeth, white and straight as a movie star's. Every night, she soaks them in a plastic container. Her real teeth rotted and were pulled because the meth she used on and off for 19 years constricted her vessels and starved her gums of blood.

The scars and white pockmarks on the inside of her arms — those are real. Serres injected meth into her blood because the feeling was more powerful. It would soak her body in a tingling, blurring warmth. It wasn't like sex. It was sex, the rush alone bringing physical release.

Her story is standard fare in meth circles. She was arrested four times for crimes including possession, receiving stolen property and forgery for writing a check in someone else's name. She tried to quit meth more times than she can remember. Tried.

She is 37 and has six children. Her eldest is 20 and is in jail after being arrested for domestic violence. Two other children are in North Carolina with their father. Her 7-year-old daughter has been placed for adoption. Her 5-year-old son lives with his grandmother.

That leaves Madison, who is 2. Serres was pregnant with her when she was last arrested. If a judge hadn't sent her to treatment, she would have gone to prison. Madison would have been placed in foster care.

Instead, Serres and her daughter landed at Prototypes in a huge Craftsman home next to a nine-hole golf course off Oxnard's Victoria Avenue. She was there as a patient for 15 months, learning how seeing old friends or being in certain places can make her crave the instant escape of a needle in her arm.

Now she's a graduate who still lives at the treatment center with Madison in a box of a room decorated with a few toys, a small TV and a treatment graduation certificate. She works in the center's parenting program and aspires to be a counselor. She has been clean for two years and six months.

"I've had a few years clean time before. That's what I always wanted to do, but I didn't know how to cope," she said. "You start feeling. You're not used to feelings. You feel like feelings are going to kill you."

Turning people away

About 80 percent of the women at Prototypes are addicted to meth. Many come through the court system and have been told treatment is the only alternative to jail and their best chance at keeping their children.

The center expanded earlier this year, but administrators worry beds will stay empty, though more than two dozen women wait for openings.

Most of them can't afford the $2,500-a-month price of care and can't get enough help from government subsidies.

"The reality is that drug addiction is so devastating that by the time they've come into treatment they've lost everything," Jones said.

Programs that rely too heavily on government subsidies have difficulty surviving. Cuts in funding caused Rainbow Recovery Center in Oxnard to shut its doors about a year ago, taking away 15 beds for women trying to recover from methamphetamine and other drugs.

Casa Latina, a residential program aimed at Spanish-speaking women and their children, was so deep in the red the program closed in July. The Rescue Mission Alliance's Lighthouse program took over the center but hasn't applied for government subsidies because of its faith-based approach.

In April, the Lighthouse will also take over the Oxnard property once used by the Rainbow center and open a 17-bed treatment facility. The organization is dependent on private donors and doesn't charge fees, meaning it serves people who otherwise couldn't afford treatment.

Services United, a treatment program in Santa Paula, shut down a residential center called Un Paso Adelante, or One Step Forward, two years ago.

A second center, the Joshua House, lost its government funding last year and now charges clients from $500 to $2,200 for treatment, next to nothing compared to private centers that routinely charge $6,000 and are sometimes covered by insurance.

Benito Juarez, executive director of Services United, admits most people who want into his program can't afford any fee.

"They're turned away," he said.

Some of those people may turn back to drugs. Others end up in government-run outpatient programs that are far less costly to run than residential centers and are being expanded.

Trying to cause change

In one $50,000 pilot program funded by the county, eight users sit in a conference room three times a week, baring their souls in group therapy. Kleenex is set out on a table but people let tears stream down their faces.

Photo by Karen Quincy Loberg

In Ventura, Jessica Domingo sheds tears during her graduation from a methamphetamine recovery program.

"We let everything out," said a 23-year-old woman from Oxnard who started using meth five years ago to lose weight and provide an escape from family and personal pain. "I feel more free, more open, more social. I understand things better."

Most treatment encompasses users of all drugs and alcohol. The pilot program that started in November focuses on methamphetamine.

Counseling sessions are more frequent but shorter because the drug wounds areas of the brain that control attention span. Small rewards are planned for people who stay clean because research shows incentives increase chances of success. People who snort the drug learn their cravings and treatment needs may be different from people who smoke it.

Some experts argue outpatient treatment is the best way to battle meth because the chance of relapse is so high. They say addiction is a disease that can't be cured in one fell swoop but needs ongoing care and the 12-step belief that change happens day by day.

"It's a chronic lapsing condition," said Dr. Igor Koutsenok, associate director of the Addiction Training Center at UC San Diego. He is alarmed that society views any relapse as failure.

"What I'm saying is we should stop judging treatment effectiveness by a single outcome," he said. "It's not appendicitis; it's diabetes. Hope is there."

More than 30 percent of the people admitted to county outpatient programs for meth and other drugs complete their treatment, on level with state averages. Jones of Prototypes said about 5 of 10 women complete an inpatient care cycle that can take nine months.

She maintains users need intense control and care at the beginning of their recovery and then need outpatient care to stay clean.

"They're trying to address the issues on the front end," she said of the government emphasis on outpatient care. "That's not a pathway to success."

Cycle of relapse

Failure happens so often in any treatment that it emerged even in a carefully guarded tour of Prototypes. A crying woman sat in an office with a staff member. She's in the program but started using again. This was an intervention. Carrie Serres tried to quit so many times she can't pinpoint it with a number. Mona Burt, an addict turned counselor for Miracles for Moms, tried five times. Shane Healey, a Camarillo man who has been clean for a year, tried eight times.

"It's a matter of finding the underlying problem, and it's not drugs," he said. "It's a sense of security. I didn't like to feel pain. I didn't like to feel lonely."

The failures test the patience of taxpayers who shoulder the burden of users cycling through treatment programs as if they were on a loop. A study by the San Diego Association of Governments that suggests one routine meth-driven criminal case cost taxpayers $94,000 in jail care, treatment and other expenses doesn't win people over either.

"There's not a lot of sympathy, and I do understand," said Tina McDonald of Miracles for Moms. "There is some real scandalous behavior. So much of the crime is committed by meth addicts. The angrier our society gets and the less focus we have on treatment, I just think it gets worse and worse. I think there's just a feeling of hopelessness."

Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, leader of a meth task force, said she thinks the cycle will change as people realize that rising meth use means a greater risk of home robberies, stolen cars and identity theft by addicts desperate for money.

She also acknowledges a $16 billion state deficit means it could be years before there's more money for treatment or other programs.

"Are we underfunded? Absolutely," she said, suggesting agencies will have to look to the federal government as well and may have to find better ways of using existing resources.

"If we give up hope, we might as well close the doors."

A chance at recovery

In a room where blinds are closed and two candles provide the only light, there is a cautious sense of optimism. Seven women — all recovering addicts — sit on beige sofas at a friend's graduation ceremony that is really more of a beginning than an ending.

Jessica Domingo, who uses her mother's maiden name, came to Miracles for Moms in Ventura after being arrested for being under the influence, her third such bust. She used the drug for three years. The day her grandmother died in an assisted living center, Domingo was trying to buy a meth pipe. She wasn't at the bedside.

Photo by Karen Quincy Loberg

Carrie Serres reads a bedtime story to daughter Madison in their room at Prototypes Women's Center in Oxnard. Serres has been clean for two years and six months.

After she was arrested, Domingo was given a list of drug treatment centers to call. The first several places she contacted were closed, which she interprets as proof of society's indifference.

"They think we're all junkies and we're going to end up back on the streets," she said.

But treatment has helped her understand that meth was an exit door, a way to escape whenever and whatever she wanted. And if outsiders don't care and don't understand, she knows the other woman in her program do. They realize that if she makes it, they can, too.

Domingo hopes proof that she's clean will persuade a judge to sentence her to probation. She wants a job as a dental assistant. She wants to stay clean but knows the odds are stacked against her.

"I don't think any of us can be too confident," she said. "I'm more confident than I used to be."

Ventura County Medical Examiner-Coroner's Office links several victims to meth use

Methamphetamine caused or contributed to 10 deaths in Ventura County last year, according to the medical examiner's records.

January: A 58-year-old man was found dead at his home in Simi Valley. Officials say he died of methamphetamine toxicity. He also had hypertension.

January: A 53-year-old woman was found collapsed on her couch in Santa Paula. She died of toxicity caused by methamphetamine and methadone. She also had been struggling with clinical depression.

March: A 31-year-old man from Santa Paula died in a hospital emergency room after being found having a seizure. He had injected methamphetamine and morphine.

April: A 22-year-old man was found dead in an unincorporated area near Simi Valley. He had taken methadone, methamphetamine and the prescription drug diazepam.

April: A 56-year-old woman's body was found in an advanced stage of decomposition in a Ventura motel room. She had had a psychiatric disorder and had taken heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine.

June: A 25-year-old Ventura man was found dead in his bed by his girlfriend. He died from toxicity caused by methadone and methamphetamine.

July: A 37-year-old man died in a hospital emergency room. He had arrived by ambulance from Highway 118 in Simi Valley. He had lost consciousness after complaining of indigestion, sweating and nausea. He died of cardiac arrhythmia caused by methamphetamine. He also had coronary artery disease and hypertension.

August: A 23-year-old woman was found dead in a Ventura hotel room. She had taken methadone and methamphetamine.

October: A 31-year-old construction worker from Fillmore was drilling holes for a highway sound wall when he jumped on top of an auger bit and wrapped his arms around the shaft of the spinning drill. He lost his grip and struck his head on steel rebar. He had been using methamphetamine.

November: A 44-year-old man collapsed on a boat dock in Oxnard and was taken to a hospital emergency room where he died. He had used methamphetamine and had a history of heart disease and hypertension.