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(Editor's Note: While American forces are fighting wars overseas, we face a war on the home front. It's not fought with guns and tanks, but the challenges are just as serious -- and deadly. Methamphetamine. This highly addictive drug knows no socioeconomic boundaries. Starting in today's issue we will explore the depths of the epidemic. This is one woman's story.)
Houck said, she thinks of the man who sentenced her to 22 months behind bars, Hood County district judge Ralph Walton. probably be dead." She was sentenced Jan. 17, 2006. Her projected release date is Oct. 15, 2007. She stole, she said, to help finance an addiction to methamphetamine that she didn't shake until her arrival at this 10-floor fortress in the shadow of Reunion Tower. She wants Hood County to hear the story of her addiction, Houck said, so that would-be addicts might avoid the pitfalls. "Eighty percent of arrests in Hood County are meth-related," Houck said. "Of the other 20 percent, five are burglaries and the rest are for hot checks. I would save my cash for drugs and write checks for my bills and groceries. "I robbed people of services. That's what I'm doing time for." She was introduced to another controlled substance, cocaine, over 10 years ago in Florida before she moved to Texas. "I used cocaine in Florida and nearly died from it. I had gotten so tiny. It was 5-9 and 100 pounds. I looked like a stick person. It was heartbreaking." She was drug-free in Hood County for four months. That changed in one blurry night. "I was extremely intoxicated at a club," Houck said. "My friends wanted me to drive home, and I knew I couldn't drive. One of them handed me something and said, 'Try this. It will wake you up.' I thought it was cocaine. It was meth. I snorted a line, about as long as a pinkie finger." The perceived effect, she said, was sobriety. She drove. "That first night, I probably did four or five lines of meth," Houck said. "It kept me up for two or three days. When I went home, my mother just about freaked out. I was sitting in the house and said, 'Mom, look, there's a cop in the tree.' I was hallucinating. My mom stayed up with me all night." "I went to work in the Forest Hill Police Department, and they didn't know I was on meth. Then I worked for the Everman Police Department, and they didn't know it. What meth changed most about me was my physical abilities. I became really hyper. "I would overwork myself. At Forest Hill, I would stay out till 1 in the
morning catching dogs until they called me in and said, 'Houck, take a "One of my goals when I get out is not just to go back to animal control work to save animals, but also to save humans. I want to teach people the effects of meth, that meth is death. It's killing a lot of people who don't realize what it's doing to their bodies. "I was very athletic growing up. I was on the swim team, and I was a runner. Now, I have to use two inhalers every day because I messed up my lungs from smoking meth." She'd done short stints in county jail before arriving at Dawson. Her initial expectations for rehabilitation at Dawson were minimal, she said. "There's nothing wrong with what the judges do. They do a good job. But they don't realize that in sentencing, they're just sentencing you to time. Anybody can do time. Anybody can sit here and get three free meals a day and not have to worry about paying bills. It's like a stop in time. Then when you get out, you go right back to the same life you were living. "Judge Walton sentenced me to jail. Then I found out about Texas Hope Literacy." Texas Hope Literacy is a Christian-based educational program implemented recently in select statewide prisons. Among its guiding lights at Dawson are sergeant Mary Lavlais and volunteer Lucy Smith. "They work with you and listen to you," Houck said. "They don't just put you in the dorm and leave you alone. I had an attitude problem when I got here. I was a closet druggie. I was very selfish and spoiled and got what I wanted. These people taught me that that's not the way it's going to be anymore." "They're teaching me to deal with everyday life that I haven't dealt with in years." The Texas Hope Literacy curriculum is taught on the 10th floor at Dawson.
It's not a right for inmates. It's a privilege. toilet paper on my bed. That was a smack on the hand for breaking rules. Then I got in trouble for selling my medications they give me here. "That life isn't me anymore. I'm learning on the 10th floor that I have to pay the consequences, even for things in my past that I thought I got away with. Little things happen to me here like somebody stealing from me. I get so mad. Sgt. Lavlais tells me, 'Baby, you left the door open just like your mother left her purse open. Then somebody took from you just like you took from your mother. Now you understand how your mother felt." "Sgt. Lavlais and Miss Lucy are teaching me that I can change. Texas Hope Literacy is for people who are ready to start a new life rather than sitting around and doing nothing but time and then going out and messing up again." She's determined to stay clean when she's released in some 14 months. She believes she will. "The first time somebody offers me meth, I'm going to remember the last thing judge Walton said to me: '22 months.' That's a long time to sit here. I've never been locked up this long." She was physically abused in two marriages, she said. She said she intends to be self-reliant when she's freed. "One of the things I'm learning on the 10th floor is that I don't need somebody in my life," Houck said. "These people are teaching me that I am somebody and I can be somebody without anyone else." Houck contacted the Hood County News last month, volunteering to tell her story. She doesn't regret doing so, she said. "I wanted to share my testimony with Hood County. My aunt suggested it, and I said, 'No, that's embarrassing. I know so many people there.' But if I can't be honest with myself and the people who know me, then who can I be honest with? "So I wanted Hood County to know. And I want all the drug dealers to see. I know I'm responsible for destroying my life. People say, 'You snorted it and smoked it. It's your fault.' That's right, I did. "But if it weren't for the dealers out there pushing it, the problem in Hood County wouldn't be nearly as
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