LIFE OR METH

The TIMES Talks To One Man Who Is Choosing Life

Russell Meredith likes to move when he talks. He paces back and
forth, laughs and often gestures to get across his points. Especially
when he talks about what crystal meth did to his life.

"It's like someone getting possessed by the devil," Meredith said.

The Maple Ridge man has been living in a rehab facility in Abbotsford
for the last month, and has spent more than 30 days clean and free of
the drug that was slowly killing him.

Before he came to the centre, he had spent two years living in tents
in the bush and ravines around downtown Maple Ridge, one of the
dozens of homeless people who most people see only as a nuisance or a threat.

Until a few months ago, Meredith was reluctant to try rehab again. He
had already left one program after a dispute with another recovering addict.

He credits his new life to a woman who worked at the Salvation Army's
Caring Place.

The drug was killing him.

The changes to his body - weight loss and broken teeth were the most
obvious symptoms - but they were happening so gradually that he
hadn't even noticed.

When he came in to the Caring Place one day, the woman pulled him
aside and told him exactly what was happening.

"'Russ, look at you, you're dying, you're going to die,'" she told
him, Meredith said.

She shocked him out of his downward spiral and helped him get into
the rehab program.

Meredith began his descent into addiction seven years ago when he
moved to Maple Ridge.

He had been living on the streets in Vancouver for some time, but he
found it was a dangerous place.

"You do or you die if you're out there," he said.

When a friend of his inherited five acres in Maple Ridge on 256
Street, it seemed like a golden opportunity.

Meredith moved out to the rural property, trying to start a new life
by acting as a caretaker of the small house for his friend.

"I ended up getting into trouble," he said.

He started taking meth seriously for the first time.

He had tried amphetamines in the past, but crystal meth was different.

"This new stuff, it's no good. It's very, very bad for you."

He was quickly addicted.

"It's like putting your hand in a trap and having it clamp down on
you," Meredith said.

Most meth users smoke the drug out of glass pipes, but that never
worked for Meredith. He was an injection user, calling his hits "fuel
injection."

A single dose of meth, called a point, sells for around $10. At the
height of his addiction, he would do two or three points a day, and
up to three at once if he was partying.

The drug stayed in his system for so long that he could sometimes go
two or three days without a hit and still feel the effects. Usually,
he didn't let himself come down between injections.

He also started shoplifting, simply walking out of stores with merchandise.

He says he did it not for the rush or because he was high, but
because he just needed something to happen in his life.

"I didn't want to hurt nobody," Meredith said.

After he was kicked out of his friend's home because of his troubles,
Meredith found a cheap apartment in the district's downtown, near 224
Street and Lougheed Highway.

When the building was sold two years ago, he was evicted and found
himself with nowhere to go.

His parents had died while he was in jail, and his brother recently
died as well. He had no family to fall back on, and all his friends
were in the same lifestyle, many of them "unsavoury" people, Meredith said.

"That's when I started to live in the bush," he said.

Living in the bush was good at first, and he wanted nothing more than
to be left alone, he said.

Regular people and bylaw officers who kept him moving around were a
constant problem, Meredith said. And he kept getting in trouble for
shoplifting, once getting caught stealing shoes from Value Village.
He went to jail over and over again for petty crimes.

Some stores didn't even bother to call the police, simply throwing
him out after he was caught.

Under the influence of the drug, he could get frustrated and lash
out, waking up suddenly and throwing his bicycle around his campsite,
yelling and screaming, waking up his friends.

Over the six years he was on meth, he had gradually lost most of his
teeth. Meth use makes them brittle, and pieces would break off when
he bit into something cold. Even when biting a peach, the cracking
sound could tell him he had lost another piece of what was once a
big, white smile.

By the time he was told he was dying, he was sick of his lifestyle.
He had memorized every corner, ever driveway and every hubcap within
the orbit of his life. At 42 years old, he knew he couldn't keep up
living in the bush much longer. He wanted something else.

"I made a choice now, to not die. Only because maybe there's
something better I haven't seen yet."

Right now he is taking his recovery slowly. He doesn't go near
stores, where he might slip back into shoplifting, something
associated with his old life.

"I just think now in my mind - danger! Anything to do with the drug - danger."

Meredith knows if he goes back to the drug even once, he might not be
able to get back off it again.

"You've fucked yourself, automatically, once you do that," he said.
"One more time, I'll be dead."

He is about to start working through some of the 12 steps in his
recovery program, and hopes to find a job as a sheet metal worker or
a mechanic soon. Something to keep him busy will help him from
"wandering sideways," he said.

His best friend from his meth days, a Maple Ridge man named Rick,
entered rehab a week before Meredith, and the two of them are
supporting one another. Both are proud of the changes they can
already see in the last month. They are gaining weight, and Meredith
says he can see changes in his face as the dope leaves his body.

"Now that I'm off it, I don't want it," Meredith says. "Today the
word is no, tomorrow the word will be no, and so on and so on."