When Monica Avila talks about methamphetamine, it is no longer just a drug.

Just a white powder made from batteries or Sudafed cold medicine. Just a substance that she would inject into her neck just to get out of bed in the morning.

Methamphetamine is not just a drug. It is a man. It is a beast.

"He, and I say he because I have a love affair with him," she said. "Whenever I needed him he was there, no matter what was going on with my life."

"He took everything I ever loved, first of all being myself. He took my children. He took my health."

Avila is now 36, and she has been clean since December 2005. But a life of meth addiction has taken from her things the rest of us take for granted. Things like knowing who we are without drugs dictating our thoughts.

But also things that aren't just things. Like people. Like children.

"I lost my five children. I lost my second husband, who committed suicide by police officer in the state of Washington after I left him."

She lost all of her teeth. She lost her health, and now has hepatitis-C.

Two of her children, ages 15 and 17, live with their father in the Central Valley. The other three were 5, 4 and 2 when she gave them up to the state of Washington eight years ago.

She recalled the eight months she spent as a "cook," when she still had her three youngest children in Washington. Armed guards high on meth kept the property under constant surveillance.

"I don't know what they thought they'd do if the police showed up," she said.

Two trailers, less than 20 feet apart, held the things most important to her at that time.

In one trailer she and her husband cooked "lithium dope ... batteries, that kind of thing."

In the other, her three children lived.

She said she finally gave up her three youngest after her then-husband pulled a knife on her and subsequently went to prison for a year.

But she knew she would go back to him when he got out.

"I wasn't going to drag my children through it anymore," she said.

She started using when she was 13. She had her first stint in rehab at 15. She started injecting at 19. Her parents used. Her brothers used.

Her second husband was extremely abusive. She shot up to escape the pain, to be in her own world. But her own world was just too good to ever want to leave.

"I couldn't even quit shooting dope when I was pregnant with my child. My son was born under the influence of methamphetamines."

She said at her peak she was shooting an 8-ball, or 3.5 grams, of meth a day. She stayed up for two weeks straight, passing out for just minutes at a time.

She never held down a job when using. She stole. She hung out with dealers.

She had several wake-up calls that finally motivated her toward recovery. Her abusive ex-husband giving her a huge black eye. An arrest for drug paraphernalia. A concerned brother showing up at her dope house unannounced, telling her he would call the police if she didn't call family and check in once a week.

She is now more than 18 months sober. She has a new husband and a dog. She is training to be a drug counselor, helping kids battle the same demons she fought.

She said she has no shame, as she wipes the tears out of her eyes.

"If it weren't for the life I lived, I wouldn't be sitting here today talking to you," she said.

"I was a bad mom, but that wasn't me, that was the addiction, and that was the drugs.

"The main message is that if it wasn't for God, I wouldn't be here, I would have been dead a long time ago.

"The tears, they're knowing that I'm living today."

The reporter can be reached at 582-0471, ext. 3043.

(Sept. 25, 2007)