11/03/09 Bend
In the darkness of a drug addiction, life is unpredictable. "Life on the streets was hard, especially being a young man in a hard core addiction and all the people I ran with were all 20 years older, heroin addicts," says recovery drug addict Kelly Meyers.
"I um, I was kidnapped once over a drug deal that went bad, I was taken out into the woods and stripped naked and beat up," recalls recovering addict Kara Williams.
For many addicts their habit costs hundreds of dollars a day. "In my entirety of my addiction I guarantee you that I've spent well over a million dollars that wasn't mine on drugs," says recovering addict Zane Isbell.
A life of crime is inevitable. In 2009 Deschutes County Sheriff's Deputies and Bend Police have arrested and cited 865 people for drug related offenses. In 2008 866 people. The youngest arrest in the past three years, eleven years old.
Archie Hamilton became a notorious shoplifter to pay his dealers.
"They liked guns, they liked gold so there was a lot of jewelry, clothing, nice clothing, tools, anything that wasn't bolted down and if it was bolted down I could still figure out how to get it out of there usually," says Archie, "I was either being chased by cops, being run out of a department store, or hiding in someone's backyard or shed," he remembers.
"One night when I was working narcotics Archie was walking down the road I knew that he had a bunch of warrants for his arrest, I went to confront him he knew me, I knew him and he reached inside of his coat to grab what was later like a throwing star type thing and I almost shot him that night," says Bend Police Officer Mike Maunder.
"I've been arrested in Deschutes County 57 times, and I've been to prison five times," says Hamilton. He spent nine of his fifteen years of addiction behind bars.
They all agree, it's a lonely life.
"Everybody's out to rob the next person and you'd fall asleep at the wrong time and you'd get robbed," says recovery addict Tom Fiedler.
One message they all want to make clear, "Once you get, the methamphetamine grabs a hold of you, most people do either the rest of their life in prison, they either go insane, or they die. Not many people are able to make it out of the darkness," says Hamilton.
