Recovering: Addicts fight to put their drug shattered families back together

Today it is hard to picture Lori McFalls three years ago when she held her baby boy in her arms and watched some of her meth-using buddies nearly beat the life out of a man at her West Valley house.

"It was over an ounce of dope," McFalls said recently, thinking back on a night that served to rechart a 10-year-year run of drug abuse, prison time, crime and child abuse.

Today, Lori McFalls is up at 6 a.m.

She gets herself ready, wakes her children. They get dressed, clean their room, then go downstairs to eat by 7 a.m.

The tall woman with deep, dark eyes is a long-timer and has earned coveted senior status at Odyssey House, arguably the state's toughest drug treatment program. As a senior, she doesn't have a morning chore, which grants her a few extra moments with her children before she heads out for the day.

At 7:50 a.m., her children climb in the van that is their ride to a day-care program with 15 other children of drug addicts.

Children's Services is a "therapeutic" program, McFalls explained during a walk through the space. ". . . And it's good they get so much extra, because most of these kids have been through hell."

She includes her own little ones in that statement: Roxzie, 2, and Kayden, 3.

Like thousands of Utah women who battle methamphetamine demons, McFalls, 30, is regaining years of lost ground where her four children are concerned.

She has ignored them, neglected them, and put them in dangerous places through years of drug addiction. She has exposed them to the toxic chemicals in environments where methamphetamine is smoked and cooked and to the violent, irrational people who hang out around these drugs.

The guilt associated with her behavior toward her children is sometimes suffocating, she says in a soft voice. "It is by far the toughest thing I've had to face."

Her two older children, 11-year-old Macie and 8-year-old Chance, live with family members now. But because of her efforts toward recovery, and her involvement in the Odyssey House Women and Children's Center, McFalls is learning how to live without drugs and how to be a good mom at the same time.

On one recent morning, McFalls passes through the cheery child-care area. Kayden, in his bright-orange Blues Clues sweatshirt, wants Mom to stay.

"You are so special," she whispers to the dark-haired boy. "I have to go to work now, and you are staying here for circle. I'll see you soon."

This simple exchange is so much more than it seems. Boundaries. Parenting skills. Structure. Respect.

It's one of those moments that makes every parent of a toddler hold his breath. But Kayden doesn't freak out like he might have a year ago. He returns to his friends. "Everyone, sit on your pockets," his teacher tells the group of toddlers.

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