Addicted teen finds salvation

Krista Denning of Kalispell was 13 years old when she started using methamphetamine.

There were no "gateway drugs." No marijuana. No alcohol. No nicotine. And no stopping herself once she started.

"I never quite fit in at school," Denning said. Her friends were older. Her parents were divorced. When a friend offered her methamphetamine, she tried it and kept at it, with a few fits and starts.

"I got arrested that summer for shoplifting," Denning said. She started robbing houses to pay for the drug and "getting into a lot of trouble."

When a girl she used meth with moved, Denning stopped using for about six months and took up "weed and drinking."

Then, a man who had previously gotten the drug for Denning and her friends returned from prison and Denning's flirtation with methamphetamine "started getting pretty bad.

"I was staying out all night, lying to my mom."

Denning's mother sent her to Washington state to remove her from her friends. She spent 2 1/2 months living with her sister, but stayed in communication with her old friends. She saved up money so she could buy methamphetamine when she got home.

When she returned to the Flathead, Denning immediately met a drug dealer. They started dating; he was 24 and she was 15.

"I guess that's where I started hitting bottom the worst," Denning said.

"I was using meth daily. I started dealing it," she said. A sophomore, she "was missing so many classes, school was going terribly for me."

It didn't look like Denning would graduate from high school, but she graduated from snorting and smoking meth to injecting it.

Denning's mother wasn't oblivious, said Gerri Gardner, a founder of Teens in Crisis, which eventually became involved.

"Krista's mom had been everywhere asking for help," Gardner said. "She went to the police when her daughter was missing and they told her it sounds like a parenting problem."

Denning had turned herself into a virtual orphan.

"Basically, I was just living house-to-house, coming home every few days."

She didn't talk to her family.

"I felt so guilty," she said.

"Finally, my mom put down her foot and said she was calling the cops on me," Denning said. Already on probation, she didn't want more contact with the police. So she kicked out a window and moved out.

"I was on the run for over two weeks. I just disappeared."

Her family hired a detective, who found her. Denning went to juvenile detention, where she started sobering up. Her mother went to Teens In Crisis, where she started wising up about a drug many parents aren't prepared to understand.

With the help of Teens In Crisis, she sent her daughter to treatment in Mexico. It is an expensive facility that takes at least 14 months.

Denning had almost no faith that she would beat her addiction, she said. But instead of running wild, she had no choice but to live in a highly structured world with seminars and responsibility. It took root.

"You have to work to get out," Denning said. She started working. She started understanding some fundamental things that would save her.

Her father died while she was in treatment. In a sense, her mother came to life for her.

"I never saw my mom as a person until I was in rehab," she said. "Me and my mom became a lot closer." Denning said she began to realize, "Your family's most important."

After 21 months, Denning graduated from the program with a high school diploma.

While Denning was in treatment, her mother was learning from other parents and other teens at Teens In Crisis. She was braced for Denning's return and a whole new kind of parenting.

A life contract or home contract spells out the rules that both Denning and her mother agree to. There are things like curfews, and no phone calls after 10 p.m., and serious discussion about whether Denning has earned enough trust to spend the night with a friend.

Friends were the hardest adjustment for Denning to come home to.

One of her friends died while Denning was gone. Another became severely schizophrenic. Denning had to completely disconnect from old friends, which left her lonely and depressed.

"It worked itself out," she said. One of her friends also went through treatment and they support each other now.

Denning is going to college and working, dealing with her new life and coping with the ghosts from her past life.

"When you're young, you don't realize you can't go back and fix things," she said. She feels guilty for missed opportunities with her father and for what she put her mother through, knowing that during the weeks that she didn't go home or sleep, neither did her mother.

"You're never going to fully forgive yourself for the choices you did."

She likes to participate in Teens In Crisis and thinks she has something to offer others who are in her position.

It's still not easy, Denning admits.

"I struggle all the time," she said. She still rebels with her mother over little things like picking up her room, she said.

It's been five months since Denning came home. She reminds herself, "I am a powerful, worthy, and unique young woman." She's believing it, too.

"She's come a long ways," Gardner said. Stories like Denning's are why Gardner devotes herself to Teens In Crisis.

Gardner gives credit to Denning's mother for not accepting "It's just a teenager thing" when Denning went out of control.

"Today, she knows she saved Krista's life," Gardner said.

"Nothing is as grand in my life than seeing kids like Krista and where they've been and knowing they get a second change - a real second change.

"They're our kids when they come back. It's like getting your newborns back."

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com

Fund-raiser planned for Teens In Crisis

"Making a difference one life at a time" is the theme of a fund-raiser for Teens In Crisis on Feb. 5.

A spaghetti dinner begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Elks Club. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for children.

Raffle prizes include a donated 1986 Mercedes Benz with 42,000 miles. Tickets for that drawing are $25 each.

For more information, call Chris Noel at 261-7008 or Ron Clem at 752-3703.

Donations are tax deductible.