Hopefully high: A story of addiction and recovery
Kyle Cole's life used to revolve around consistent meth use; today she's been clean for almost a decade
Cody Ewers
Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: Beyond
Ever since Hillsdale law enforcement cracked down on clandestine methamphetamine labs a few years ago, meth-related arrests have decreased dramatically, but that doesn't mean Hillsdale County has eradicated illegal drugs.
"Hillsdale County still has a serious drug problem, and meth-cookers have only gotten smarter on where and how they cook their drugs," the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department Detective Division Commander, Captain David Braxmaier, said. "In the last few months there have been about 28 arrests made - that's pretty high - and those aren't just minor possession charges, we're talking ounces of cocaine, marijuana, opium and vicodin."
Although there is a growing problem of prescription drug use, especially among high school students, Braxmaier said he fears methamphetamine more than any other drug he battles in Hillsdale, even cocaine, because nine times out of 10, first-time users are hooked.
Hillsdale County Prosecutor Neal Brady said methamphetamine peaked during 2002-2004, but thanks to some legislation making it harder to acquire the raw materials, police efforts and the spectacle of meth-chefs blowing themselves up, the threat in Hillsdale has decreased.
Brady said despite the decrease, he still considers methamphetamine the third most prevalent drug, according to arrests in Hillsdale, behind marijuana and cocaine. Braxmaier said last year, the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department busted two labs with six cases of components, or sets of cooking materials.
Braxmaier fears for the safety of the entire community, especially given the direct correlation between the drug industry and other crimes.
"Lots of people are going to smoke a joint for their own use," Braxmaier said. "But there are dopers breaking and entering, stealing other people's property and selling it all for drugs."
Braxmaier said the worst part about these situations is that even if the perpetrators are caught, the victims rarely obtain restitution for lost or damaged items because the user has already pawned everything away for his fix.
To Hell and Back Again
Few know the evils of the drug world better than 34-year-old Kyle Cole, a Coldwater resident.
Cole, a Michigan native who spent her early years travelling from city to city in Oklahoma, first smoked marijuana at 13. She soon found she was allergic to the plant and began drinking instead. She said it all started as an escape to the nomadic and abusive upbringing she had as a child.
Cole remembers "Wahoo" beer runs, where she and her friends would steal Little Kings Cream Ale from the back of beer trucks when they stopped to make a delivery and run away screaming, "Wahoo!"
A little while later Cole's boyfriend first introduced her to hard drugs, with "green window pane" acid strips.
"I remember my friend Lisa and I used to look at each other and watch each other's faces melt," Cole said. "I met Lisa at a drug house - she was a runaway."
Cole said her first taste of cocaine was too intense, and after moving back to Michigan, in 1989, and having her first child, Richard, in '92, she quit using.
"I quit because I had seen a lot of people in hospitals, and watched a lot of people over-dose and I didn't want to end up like that," Cole said.
However, Cole's husband at the time, Lance, reintroduced her to cocaine.
"This time [the cocaine] tasted like cotton candy," Cole said.
Lance is now in a coma and has a 17 percent chance of survival, Cole said. While cooking meth in his basement, recently, a container blew up in Lance's arms as he attempted to open a locked door in his haste upstairs - where his two children, now in foster care, were - to dispose of his experiment gone wrong.
Braxmaier refers to meth-cook "scientists" like Lance as "the Beavis and Buttheads of the industry" because they all think they're chemists, but so many of them end up the same way.
After Cole left Lance, she asked her new boyfriend, Shaun, what a meth buzz felt like. He would frequently sneak away to shoot-up but was too embarrassed to face her while on the drug.
In 1998, Cole and Shaun took a road trip to California; she still remembers the complete control meth had over her life.
"I could stop the other drugs when I wanted to," Cole said. "But with meth, it was like I needed it for everything. I'd wake up and shoot to think, brainstorm and problem solve. I once stayed up for seven days just brainstorming."
During the next three months the two of them headed west with a trunk full of drugs: marijuana, meth and cocaine…but mostly, they had meth, Cole said.
"I could taste it and smell it coming through my pores," Cole said.
Things got so out of control in California Cole's mother bought her a ticket home, she said.
"When I finally got to the airport, after nearly missing my flight - due to meth withdrawals - my mom literally scooped me up from the airport, and I don't remember anything for the next week," Cole said. "When I woke up I found out I was three months pregnant."
During her week-long blackout, Cole's mother fed her crumbs of bread and drops of water while her body rid itself of the dependency on meth.
After this experience, Cole never again touched another drug. She would soon have two children to look after, and one who knew his grandmother better than his real mom.
But the grasp of meth would not let Cole go so easily. Her boyfriend Shaun returned from California after doing some drug-related jail time there, and Cole's forgiving nature and loving attitude brought him back into her life.
"He cooked it all over," Cole said. "I stayed away from it as much as possible. The smell of denatured alcohol [used to separate the red Sudafed from the ephedrine - the hardest and most dangerous part of the process] gave me bad headaches."
Cole said Shaun wanted to quit, but because of his addictive personality, he couldn't do it on his own. He would have to go to drug meetings to break the habit, but that meant facing his former clients, and he didn't want to hear what his product had done to their lives.
Although she didn't want him to use anymore, Shaun still cooked and dealt meth - and he owed his buddy, Jerry, a favor.
"He asked me to drive him to Jerry's for the deal," Cole said. Shaun was giving Jerry some meth to sell so he could make some money and pay off a few debts. "After the transaction Jerry got into his car and tapped two towels together - I looked at Shaun and said, 'Honey, it's a set-up.'"
Sure enough, moments later cops swarmed them and threw Shaun to the ground. Cole said she yelled that she was pregnant, so they were gentle, but the cops "really roughed up Shaun" because he dragged her into it.
Shaun and Cole both received prison sentences.
This is frequently how dealers are caught in Hillsdale, Braxmaier said.
"After a bust one doper will rat out another doper, there is really no loyalty with them," Braxmaier said.
They shipped Cole off to a minimum security prison in Alderson, W. Va. (the same one in which Martha Stewart served her sentence).
One CNN description of the detention center reported no perimeter fence, and inmates spending time playing volleyball, tennis and even aerobics.
"It was like summer camp," said Cole of her 11 months spent behind bars.
Cole went through an intensive drug treatment program in Alderson, and afterward served six months at a work release in Indiana.
Shaun was away for much longer, and it certainly was no camp for him, Cole said.
Now, Cole has a steady job and is back with her newly-released boyfriend Shaun. The two of them plan to move to Florida next month with Richard and Jayden, her second child, to start new lives.
Shaun will restore old cars and Cole will work part-time and go back to school for massage therapy. She said she hopes to eventually be a physical therapist with her own massage therapy center where people can go to get back into shape and good health.
Reflecting on her experiences; time in prison, two cocaine overdoses, and many other "crazy times," Cole said she is glad she went through it all and is out the other side physically unscathed. She refers to it as a roller coaster, in that it seemed like forever when she was going down, but now that it's over it seems so short.
"Everything happens for a reason," Cole said. "It made me a better mom, and I sure wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for everything I've been through. My kids and I have great relationships and they tell me everything."
But sobering up is a tough road, especially for someone like Shaun, with an addictive personality.
Dousing Hell's Fire
Gayle Seely, an independent counselor who owns her own private practice in Hillsdale, said it is extremely hard for an addict to recognize their problem and that it usually takes a life crisis to break their denial.
Only about 20 percent of Seely's clientele are self-referrals. Most are court-ordered, but Seely's job is to get her clients to understand what sobriety is and develop coping strategies other than substances.
"About 70 percent of my clients are able to look at what's going wrong and try and fix it," Seely said.
She said the greatest compliment is when a client voluntarily continues to visit her past their court order.
Heather Helman, Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator for the Hillsdale County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition said her organization attempts to prevent children, like 13-year-old Kyle Cole, from getting started with substances in the first place.
"We try and make sure all the needed players are contributing to make an effective program," Helman said. "And we also make sure there are measurable outcomes to the programs and that the community will be able to sustain them, even if we were to leave."
Capt. Braxmaier said he understands the challenge facing prevention, law enforcement and counseling agencies is never-ending, but his men are becoming better equipped and more informed on how to combat drug issues with each year.
"We're doing what we can to curb the drug problem in our community," Braxmaier said. "These problems upset us and we feel it's our responsibility to protect this city."
"Hillsdale County still has a serious drug problem, and meth-cookers have only gotten smarter on where and how they cook their drugs," the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department Detective Division Commander, Captain David Braxmaier, said. "In the last few months there have been about 28 arrests made - that's pretty high - and those aren't just minor possession charges, we're talking ounces of cocaine, marijuana, opium and vicodin."
Although there is a growing problem of prescription drug use, especially among high school students, Braxmaier said he fears methamphetamine more than any other drug he battles in Hillsdale, even cocaine, because nine times out of 10, first-time users are hooked.
Hillsdale County Prosecutor Neal Brady said methamphetamine peaked during 2002-2004, but thanks to some legislation making it harder to acquire the raw materials, police efforts and the spectacle of meth-chefs blowing themselves up, the threat in Hillsdale has decreased.
Brady said despite the decrease, he still considers methamphetamine the third most prevalent drug, according to arrests in Hillsdale, behind marijuana and cocaine. Braxmaier said last year, the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department busted two labs with six cases of components, or sets of cooking materials.
Braxmaier fears for the safety of the entire community, especially given the direct correlation between the drug industry and other crimes.
"Lots of people are going to smoke a joint for their own use," Braxmaier said. "But there are dopers breaking and entering, stealing other people's property and selling it all for drugs."
Braxmaier said the worst part about these situations is that even if the perpetrators are caught, the victims rarely obtain restitution for lost or damaged items because the user has already pawned everything away for his fix.
To Hell and Back Again
Few know the evils of the drug world better than 34-year-old Kyle Cole, a Coldwater resident.
Cole, a Michigan native who spent her early years travelling from city to city in Oklahoma, first smoked marijuana at 13. She soon found she was allergic to the plant and began drinking instead. She said it all started as an escape to the nomadic and abusive upbringing she had as a child.
Cole remembers "Wahoo" beer runs, where she and her friends would steal Little Kings Cream Ale from the back of beer trucks when they stopped to make a delivery and run away screaming, "Wahoo!"
A little while later Cole's boyfriend first introduced her to hard drugs, with "green window pane" acid strips.
"I remember my friend Lisa and I used to look at each other and watch each other's faces melt," Cole said. "I met Lisa at a drug house - she was a runaway."
Cole said her first taste of cocaine was too intense, and after moving back to Michigan, in 1989, and having her first child, Richard, in '92, she quit using.
"I quit because I had seen a lot of people in hospitals, and watched a lot of people over-dose and I didn't want to end up like that," Cole said.
However, Cole's husband at the time, Lance, reintroduced her to cocaine.
"This time [the cocaine] tasted like cotton candy," Cole said.
Lance is now in a coma and has a 17 percent chance of survival, Cole said. While cooking meth in his basement, recently, a container blew up in Lance's arms as he attempted to open a locked door in his haste upstairs - where his two children, now in foster care, were - to dispose of his experiment gone wrong.
Braxmaier refers to meth-cook "scientists" like Lance as "the Beavis and Buttheads of the industry" because they all think they're chemists, but so many of them end up the same way.
After Cole left Lance, she asked her new boyfriend, Shaun, what a meth buzz felt like. He would frequently sneak away to shoot-up but was too embarrassed to face her while on the drug.
In 1998, Cole and Shaun took a road trip to California; she still remembers the complete control meth had over her life.
"I could stop the other drugs when I wanted to," Cole said. "But with meth, it was like I needed it for everything. I'd wake up and shoot to think, brainstorm and problem solve. I once stayed up for seven days just brainstorming."
During the next three months the two of them headed west with a trunk full of drugs: marijuana, meth and cocaine…but mostly, they had meth, Cole said.
"I could taste it and smell it coming through my pores," Cole said.
Things got so out of control in California Cole's mother bought her a ticket home, she said.
"When I finally got to the airport, after nearly missing my flight - due to meth withdrawals - my mom literally scooped me up from the airport, and I don't remember anything for the next week," Cole said. "When I woke up I found out I was three months pregnant."
During her week-long blackout, Cole's mother fed her crumbs of bread and drops of water while her body rid itself of the dependency on meth.
After this experience, Cole never again touched another drug. She would soon have two children to look after, and one who knew his grandmother better than his real mom.
But the grasp of meth would not let Cole go so easily. Her boyfriend Shaun returned from California after doing some drug-related jail time there, and Cole's forgiving nature and loving attitude brought him back into her life.
"He cooked it all over," Cole said. "I stayed away from it as much as possible. The smell of denatured alcohol [used to separate the red Sudafed from the ephedrine - the hardest and most dangerous part of the process] gave me bad headaches."
Cole said Shaun wanted to quit, but because of his addictive personality, he couldn't do it on his own. He would have to go to drug meetings to break the habit, but that meant facing his former clients, and he didn't want to hear what his product had done to their lives.
Although she didn't want him to use anymore, Shaun still cooked and dealt meth - and he owed his buddy, Jerry, a favor.
"He asked me to drive him to Jerry's for the deal," Cole said. Shaun was giving Jerry some meth to sell so he could make some money and pay off a few debts. "After the transaction Jerry got into his car and tapped two towels together - I looked at Shaun and said, 'Honey, it's a set-up.'"
Sure enough, moments later cops swarmed them and threw Shaun to the ground. Cole said she yelled that she was pregnant, so they were gentle, but the cops "really roughed up Shaun" because he dragged her into it.
Shaun and Cole both received prison sentences.
This is frequently how dealers are caught in Hillsdale, Braxmaier said.
"After a bust one doper will rat out another doper, there is really no loyalty with them," Braxmaier said.
They shipped Cole off to a minimum security prison in Alderson, W. Va. (the same one in which Martha Stewart served her sentence).
One CNN description of the detention center reported no perimeter fence, and inmates spending time playing volleyball, tennis and even aerobics.
"It was like summer camp," said Cole of her 11 months spent behind bars.
Cole went through an intensive drug treatment program in Alderson, and afterward served six months at a work release in Indiana.
Shaun was away for much longer, and it certainly was no camp for him, Cole said.
Now, Cole has a steady job and is back with her newly-released boyfriend Shaun. The two of them plan to move to Florida next month with Richard and Jayden, her second child, to start new lives.
Shaun will restore old cars and Cole will work part-time and go back to school for massage therapy. She said she hopes to eventually be a physical therapist with her own massage therapy center where people can go to get back into shape and good health.
Reflecting on her experiences; time in prison, two cocaine overdoses, and many other "crazy times," Cole said she is glad she went through it all and is out the other side physically unscathed. She refers to it as a roller coaster, in that it seemed like forever when she was going down, but now that it's over it seems so short.
"Everything happens for a reason," Cole said. "It made me a better mom, and I sure wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for everything I've been through. My kids and I have great relationships and they tell me everything."
But sobering up is a tough road, especially for someone like Shaun, with an addictive personality.
Dousing Hell's Fire
Gayle Seely, an independent counselor who owns her own private practice in Hillsdale, said it is extremely hard for an addict to recognize their problem and that it usually takes a life crisis to break their denial.
Only about 20 percent of Seely's clientele are self-referrals. Most are court-ordered, but Seely's job is to get her clients to understand what sobriety is and develop coping strategies other than substances.
"About 70 percent of my clients are able to look at what's going wrong and try and fix it," Seely said.
She said the greatest compliment is when a client voluntarily continues to visit her past their court order.
Heather Helman, Substance Abuse Prevention Coordinator for the Hillsdale County Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition said her organization attempts to prevent children, like 13-year-old Kyle Cole, from getting started with substances in the first place.
"We try and make sure all the needed players are contributing to make an effective program," Helman said. "And we also make sure there are measurable outcomes to the programs and that the community will be able to sustain them, even if we were to leave."
Capt. Braxmaier said he understands the challenge facing prevention, law enforcement and counseling agencies is never-ending, but his men are becoming better equipped and more informed on how to combat drug issues with each year.
"We're doing what we can to curb the drug problem in our community," Braxmaier said. "These problems upset us and we feel it's our responsibility to protect this city."
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