SPRINGDALE — Jackie, a 32-year-old woman who asked that her real name not be used, has lived a life centered on methamphetamine for much of the past 14 years.
Two failed marriages, lost custody of a son and a life that turned eventually to crime are what she has to show for her drug use. At the core of it, she said, was her inability to give up a drug that she hates and loves at the same time.
She's trying to change.
Jackie is voluntarily at Decision Point, a residential drug treatment center in Springdale where the number of clients involved with methamphetamine ranks second only to those reporting alcoholism. She was midway through the month-long treatment program when she was interviewed.
Jackie began to dabble in mind-altering substances at 15. She'd tried alcohol, marijuana and cocaine by the time she was 18. While those substances gave her a high, none of them gave her a hook, a real desire to do them again.
"But, oh, that meth. That was the thing," she said.
Jackie was 18 and newly married when she and her husband first tried meth.
"I was sold. It made me feel different than I felt. I felt pretty, invincible. I had lots to say. Whatever I lacked in self-esteem, it filled that hole," she said.
And it controlled her weight, a common attraction for women users. Jackie went from a size 13 jean to a size 5 in two months. The confident, free feeling meth created led to new, intimate social levels. She cheated on her husband. Her marriage lasted 15 months.
It was hard to hold a job. She missed a lot of work because of meth binges. Jackie learned to sell meth to support her own addiction. Learning to make it herself was the next step.
"I wanted to learn. It was another element in being able to take care of my addiction," she said.
After being arrested for selling to an undercover Arkansas State Police officer, Jackie entered a drug-treatment center. It was there she met the man who became her second husband. He was meth-addicted, too.
They completed treatment and got married.
She stayed clean while pregnant with her only child, a son now 9 1/2 years old. But her husband soon became friends with a dealer and they were back on meth.
She was soon sticking her son in front of the television to keep him occupied while she smoked or snorted meth with her husband.
The marriage lasted until a couple of years ago, when meth and the desire for more created relationship problems. He left her.
But it was her next relationship that would propel her to her current point in life.
Jackie was working at a doctor's office in central Arkansas last year when she met a medical student from Northwest Arkansas. He specialized in methamphetamine -- making methamphetamine, she said.
"Here was a medical school student, he makes my drug of choice and he wants to sleep with me. Wow," Jackie said.
She left her job, consumed by her new relationship. Soon they were cooking meth at his house, friends' houses, while camping.
Her now ex-boyfriend didn't complete medical school. Jail derailed him.
Charges for conspiring to "manufacture" meth are pending against Jackie in central Arkansas.
She lost her son. He now lives with his father.
Jackie said she came to Decision Point voluntarily, knowing the lack of a future in the drug. She said she's feeling healthier, although her arms still show dried-up veins and a mass of scar tissue that will serve as permanent reminder of what once made her feel so good, but ultimately brought her misery.
Still, she had her doubts about whether she can quit.
"The last three to five days I've been really obsessing over it," Jackie said. "If nothing else, if I could just smoke a little [meth], it would be a relief. But I know what would follow.
"This sucks."