Quest to Fight Methamphetamine Addiction Began in Leader’s Backyard

In 1996, my husband and I bought what we thought was our ticket to the classic American dream. After returning to the United States following two years of missionary work in Africa, we purchased a new home in a nice neighborhood in Seattle’s suburbs.

Nestled on a quiet cul-de-sac bordering woodlands, the house seemed the perfect place to raise our young daughter. And for a time, the house and neighborhood were everything we’d hoped for.

SUSAN YORK Age: 49 First professional job: Director of sales and marketing, Silver Cloud Inn, Lynnwood, Wash. Current Job: Executive director, Lead On America, Lynnwood, Wash.

The neighbors were friendly. Everyone knew everyone else. We looked out for each other’s kids.

Then I started noticing one house quickly heading downhill. The couple that lived there had separated, and it wasn’t long before parties were raging all hours of the day and night. In the morning, our yards would be trashed, and we’d find used hypodermic needles scattered about. Soon, a steady stream of cars started cruising through the neighborhood, stopping at the house and then speeding off a few moments later.

We weren’t surprised when local police told us they suspected a meth lab was operating within the house. But over the months that followed, we were shocked to learn how difficult it was to shut down a suspected drug house. That realization — combined with the fact that drugs had taken a devastating toll on my own family — led me to launch Lead On America, short for Law Enforcement Against Drugs in Our Neighborhoods, a grass-roots nonprofit organization dedicated to battling America’s growing methamphetamine plague, one neighborhood at a time.

My awareness of the destructive power of drugs began in high school, when I suspected my mother was growing dependent on prescription drugs. A few years later, in 1986, she lost her battle to addiction by taking her own life at the age of 47. She died of an overdose.

So while I wasn’t versed in the intricacies of meth, I knew the potential of drugs to ruin lives. And I knew for the sake of my family something had to be done about the house that was turning our dream neighborhood into a nightmare.

We called the cops on an almost daily basis. While they could make individual arrests — more than 25 over a course of two years — they didn’t have the power to shut the problem house down. The cops were as frustrated as we were. Eventually it was officials from the mortgage company who had learned of the deteriorating condition of the home that forced the homeowner to leave.

The two-year ordeal pushed me to action. With Travis Talbot, another area resident who had faced a similar plight, I created Lead On America in 2001. We had a simple vision: to give average citizens the tools and information to help take back a neighborhood with a meth house.

And neighborhoods need all the tools they can get, because of the insidious nature of meth. Users get hooked fast and often become severely addicted, leaving them unable to work or uninterested in working. As a result, they often turn to crime, neglect their children and responsibilities, and have other troubled addicts flocking to their house. A recent survey of hospitals by the National Association of Counties showed a 70-percent increase over the past five years in emergency-room visits due to meth use.

The key to our organization is the close working relationship we’ve developed with law enforcement. Much of what we learned from local police — and now share with others — is relatively simple. We teach the proper way to report information to police. We also instruct neighbors on the other governmental agencies that can play a role in shutting down a meth house. For instance, residents can report trash or rodent problems to the health department, neglect of a child to child-protective services, or abandoned cars or dilapidated homes to code enforcement. Because meth often causes users to completely shirk all their responsibilities, it is sometimes these other agencies that find multiple violations that ultimately get a meth lab shut down.

So far we’ve played some role in shutting down 38 suspected meth houses. And while it took me 855 days to get the one shut down in my neighborhood, today these houses are often shut down within three to four weeks.

Recently we received some national publicity on the Good Morning America show. And the National Sheriffs’ Association voted unanimously to endorse Lead On America at their annual convention in January. Still, we remain a grass-roots organization, operating on a bare-bones budget of $20,000 annually. I left my job in a management position at a hotel to work on Lead On seven days a week. While we have secured some modest grants, funding remains a challenge as we aim to extend our work throughout the state and country.

As we’ve grown Lead On America, I’ve found myself drawing more on the skills I developed in previous careers. My marketing background has helped with getting publicity and connecting with other organizations to form partnerships or work together on specific projects. For several years, I was a model or taught courses on modeling. Those experiences made me comfortable talking in front of large audiences and connecting with people from all walks of life.

I also draw from my missionary work in Kenya, where every day we had to overcome adversity and try to help people with extremely limited resources. And while the problems the people in Kenya faced were far different than our own, the desire to keep your family safe and happy is universal.

While we’ve made progress one day at a time, the war against meth is a relentless battle. That was hammered home to me three years into my work with Lead On America. At a family gathering, I learned my niece and nephew had become addicted to meth. At one point I sat down with both of them. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Aunt Sue,” my niece said to me. “You get it. We need your help.”

Sadly, while both have tried to stay clean, they have slipped back into addiction. That demonstrates the grip the drug has on users. I’m not lost on the sad irony that while I am leading a war against meth, I have victims within my own family.

To persevere, I have to repeat my mantra daily: “Love the addict, hate the addiction.”

Keeping that in mind helps ward off the frustration and sense of hopelessness that always lurks in the shadows of my efforts.

No doubt, my own personal tragedy has revealed the limits of advocacy. Obviously, words and education alone cannot break an addiction. The lack of awareness that exists over the danger of this drug also disheartens me.

Early on in this crusade I found that unless meth was directly affecting a person’s family or neighborhood, they tended to deny or ignore the problem. Over time, as the meth epidemic has receive more publicity and affected more lives, I’ve found people growing more receptive to our message. When I become discouraged I remind myself that one life saved is why I do what I do. I think that is the approach anyone in social service has to take in order to stay motivated — and sane.