The Pilot News - Speaker reveals realities of meth

Parnell shared his story with Bremen High School students last Thursday, Oct. 22. As some commented later, he is not “just another drug speaker.” He speaks frankly, using images of meth users, injuries from meth lab explosions, even photos from his own suicide attempt, hoping he can help students who might be addicted, or who may someday become addicted, to meth and other drugs.
Parnell’s story
“None of us ever think (drugs are) going to control us like this,” he said, “but if you’re fooling around with this kind of drug, more than likely if you don’t stop you’re going to end up being an addict.”
This is exactly what happened to Parnell. While he could have gone to college on a basketball scholarship, by the time he was a senior he was instead hooked on cocaine and alcohol, and that was all he cared about. After his first marriage fell apart, he moved to Texas, where he lived in a drug house and first tried meth. As he watched his fellow addicts stay awake for weeks at a time, hallucinate and exhibit strange behaviors, he was determined not to let drugs get the best of him.
“In the beginning I would just do it on the weekends,” he said. “I thought, I’m never going to let this drug control me like these old guys let it control them.”
He later became a dope dealer, intending to make some “fast, easy money,” a scheme he said does not work because the dealer often pours the money into more drugs.
“The truth is there’s no fast, easy money selling drugs,” he said.
He moved to Oklahoma, where the police eventually raided his house and took him to prison for drugs. By that time, he had remarried and had small children.
And, he had become just like the “old guys” he had lived with in Texas.
“I started staying awake four or five days and I started hallucinating,” he said.
Time in prison did not curb his habit, and when he returned home he convinced his wife to start using drugs with him.
“I thought I was a pretty good dad,” he said. “I justified in my mind, I don’t do the drugs in front of my children. I have a dope room in the back of the house ... if my kids need me all they have to do is come back there and knock on that door and I’m there for them, but the truth is I never was there for the kids.”
Things went from bad to worse. He and his wife began fighting continually, and one day he came home, slapped her in the face and put a gun to her head, threatening to kill her. That was when she called the police, and that was when Parnell went to jail the second time.
“I’m very ashamed of the way I treated my wife,” he told the students. “It’s very embarrassing to get up in front of people and tell them, but if I don’t share that with you, then I feel like I can’t help you.”
Parnell’s first suicide attempt came not long after. He had been hearing voices saying his family would be better off without him. Voices, he said, are very common among heavy meth users. While he was not religious at the time, he heard one voice ask, “You think Jesus is going to forgive you for the things you’ve done, the people you’ve hurt?” He answered out loud “No, I don’t,” and hung himself.
His sister found him a few hours later on the barn floor, the rope having broken as his unconscious body convulsed.
His second suicide attempt came after he was released from the hospital. His wife had stopped using drugs. He was high on meth the morning of Feb. 21, 2003 when she told him she and the kids could no longer live with him. In response, he held a rifle to his chin and, before she could stop him, pulled the trigger.
“The bullet hit me right in my chin, came out between my eyes breaking every bone in my face except my left eye socket, blew nose off, knocked teeth off,” he said. “I remember hearing the gun blast, I felt my face blow apart, but because meth is such a strong stimulant it kept me awake.”
All he could do was hold his face together, writhing in agony while his children stood around screaming and his wife called 9-1-1. He almost died twice on his way to the hospital, and underwent more than 30 reconstructive surgeries. He now has more than 30 metal plates throughout his head, he said.
While he was in the hospital, he told his wife the wanted to “start telling people the truth about drugs.”
“She said, don’t wait until the fix you,” he said. “Go now. Let them see what it’s done to you, tell them what it’s done to our family in hopes that if they’re using, they’ll stop using and get some help before it kills them. If they haven’t started, maybe they won’t start.”
Lab injuries
Parnell opens his presentation with a brief introduction to the types of meth, which comes in any color and can be used in a variety of ways. He explained that meth labs can be anywhere — in basements, trailers, barns, motel rooms, car trunks, shacks in the woods; some have even been found in children’s bedrooms. One of the greatest dangers, he said, are the toxic fumes from the chemicals, which can kill instantaneously. He had a photo of a victim lying on the floor of a motel room where he had been manufacturing meth. Parnell pointed out the location where the victim had fallen.
“He’s not at the door trying to get out of the room,” Parnell said. “It isn’t like when those fumes became toxic he started choking and thought, ‘I need to get out of the room.’ No, he took his last deep breath and fell over right where he was standing.”
Parnell also described the burns that can come from chemical spills. Most graphic, however, were his images of meth manufacturers injured or killed when their labs exploded. Meth recipes are easy to come by, he said, but they are not always right.
“Even when they’ve got all the steps right,” he said, “all it takes is one mistake to cause that explosion. The mistake can be as simple as lighting a cigarette in a room that is not ventilated very well.”
All too often, Parnell said, parents will get their children to help make the meth, or teens will get their younger siblings to help, and many children have been burned or killed in meth lab explosions.
Abuse
Parnell’s presentation focuses heavily on abuse, which he says goes hand in hand with drug use. He told stories of children who had been beaten and killed by their own parents, who were so high on meth and other drugs that they could not control themselves. He told of one mother and stepfather who beat their teenage daughter to death because she threatened to tell the police about their meth use and their abusive behavior toward her.
“I don’t think that mother probably would have done that to her baby if she hadn’t been on meth,” Parnell said. “She probably wouldn’t have started on meth if she hadn't been on marijuana and alcohol.”
Physical changes
Parnell showed before and after shots and progressive time line photos of meth users who appeared to age decades after only a few years of meth use. He had images of “meth mouth,” a condition caused by the chemicals used to make the drug and by the fact that users often neglect oral hygiene, he said. He showed photos of “pickers,” or users who constantly scratch and pick at themselves because they imagine tiny bugs crawling around on their skin.
Parnell today
Many may ask why Parnell would subject his audiences to such graphic images. All of it, he said, is done in the hopes of preventing or ending drug addictions.
“I realize what I was doing (as a dealer) was selling death and destruction to a lot of human beings,” he said. “I can’t ever change the families that I hurt ... but what I can do is just try to build my life from this point on and do positive things, so I just want to tell people the truth.”
Parnell’s father, who introduced his son to drugs so many years ago, died last year in Oklahoma, Parnell said. Parnell does not blame his father for his own addictions.
“It wasn’t right for him to turn me on to drugs,” he said, “but God gave us all a free will. I could have chose not to use those drugs. I chose to use ‘em, I take full responsibility for my own actions.”
Today Parnell is deeply religious. While he does not integrate faith into his presentation, he feels he was meant to survive, and that the scars he has are a testimony to what he personally went through.
“I’m not embarrassed about the way I look,” he said. “I think if the way I look or something I say can help a young person like you either go in for some treatment or stop using or never try it, then my looks are a blessing from God.”
To learn more
Those interested in learning more about Parnell’s story and others can visit www.facingthedragon.org. The site contains links to sites for drug prevention, suicide prevention and more.