By Antonio Ramirez
Navajo Times
WINDOW ROCK – It’s known as the Devil’s drug, G, crystal, ice, and methamphetamine.
Like a fire this narcotic hasspread throughout the Navajo Reservation and it hasleftmany to question what it will take to treat those afflicted.
As a former user and dealer of methamphetamine, Theresa Paul spent years struggling to fight addiction. She took shelter under a tree in the back of a slate-gray beaten truck, attempted suicide several times, and failed numerous times to stay clean.
Then everything changed.
While dealing in a casino parking lot, Paul was caught by the police. She wasthrown in jail and awaited an 18-year prison sentence. Behind cold metallic bars a deep sense of worthlessness set in, but Paul rationalized that she had more to live for and decided to pray.
“I prayed. I prayed hard. I prayed for three days. I prayed. I opened my Bible, I read it, I prayed. I cried, I prayed,” said Paul.
Whether by fate or luck, her prayers were answered and the sentencing never came.
Instead she was released to a treatment center in San Antonio, Texas called Victory Outreach. It was her third time there. The first was after a suicide attempt in 2004 when a group of people from the church offered to buy her a bus ticket to go and seek assistance from the facility.
“I wasn’t ready then, I just wanted to go. I knew I had to get out of here,” said Paul.
Her first trip to Victory Outreach was unsuccessful. She left, got high, and walked the streets of San Antonio for about a week without shoes, food, or shelter. A cop found Paul and took her to the emergency room. From there she was sent to a mental institution for about a month.
Afterwards she was placed in another treatment center and when that was over she found a church willing to pay for her bus ticket back to the reservation.
Paul does not remember the second journey to Victory Outreach.
“The third time was the charm,” said Paul. “Out there they taught me it’s like a spirit – addiction is a spirit, temptation is a spirit – and that the outer core of what we see is(us) battling with the spirit inside of us.”
After her third trip to the treatment center Paul spent a year on probation under the close supervision of the local pastor, his wife, and a probation officer. Over the course of the next six years, Paul’s life changed drastically. She attributes this new life trajectory to human compassion orchestrated by “the hands of God.”
The root of all trouble
Paul had very little guidance as a child. She was born to an alcoholic father who has spent his entire life in and out of prison, and into a family with a notorious reputation for alcoholism, substance abuse, and violence.
As a six-year-old child, Paul experienced sexual abuse. She said this left her sad, lonely, and unable to communicate with her peers. As a result, most of her childhood has been intentionally forgotten, except for her mother’s baking.
“She used to decorate cakes for us. At Easter time she used to make little Easter bunny cakes. She taught me how to make cookies – baking stuff. That’s all I remember. I think a lot of stuff I tried not to remember,” she said.
By the time she reached high school, Paul said she thought very little of herself and was very susceptible to peer pressure. She was a loner who had no one to talk to except for her sister and mother.
When her sister, a big partier, convinced her to try a cigarette at the age of 14, her battle with substance abuse began. That very same night Paul smoked marijuana and within less than a year she was drinking and smoking “rocky tops” – weed with cocaine sprinkled on top.
By sophomore and junior year she was doing speed – a pill form of methamphetamine – and LSD.
Despite the heavy use of drugs and alcohol Paul excelled in school. Maintaining a high GPA throughout high school, she graduated with a 3.92. She could have made the cutoff for Stanford or Harvard.
Still, Paul said she was unhappy and continued to use drugs and alcohol.
“I used to go to school drunk and I smoked weed in the restrooms. But the teachers never turned me in because I was still functional. I was still completing my work,” said Paul.
During her senior year, Paul said she noticed that people talking about smoking meth were laughing and enjoying life.
“That’s what I wanted,” she said. “I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be in the crowd. I wanted to be acknowledged I was there.”
When considering what smoking methamphetamine did for her that senior year of high school, Paul said, “I felt accepted.”
Experiencing meth
The high off ofmethamphetamine is euphoric. Paul related it to the high Bradley Cooper got in the movie “Limitless.”