Drug Abuse

Josh Hamilton can recite the date the way most baseball players recite their batting average or earned-run average. "Oct. 6, 2005," he says without hesitation. That was Hamilton's first day of freedom. That was the day the former No. 1 draft pick got his life -- and his dream -- back. That was the day he stopped using drugs. And while that certainly marked the biggest step in Hamilton's comeback, it wasn't his last.

Methadone, a potent opiate once used almost exclusively to treat heroin addicts, is increasingly being prescribed by doctors as a pain medication and abused by drug users searching for a cheap, easy way to get high, physicians and federal drug officials say. The drug, which comes in pill or liquid form, recently has come under scrutiny in the death of former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith. A doctor in Studio City prescribed methadone to Smith for pain treatment before she was found dead Feb.

IT was the final day of Marine Sgt. Travis Woody's second tour in Iraq when the sergeant major pulled him aside. "Do you know your wife has a drug problem?" Travis sat back, stunned, as the sergeant major showed him an e-mail sent from Twentynine Palms, his home base. Travis' wife, Nicole, was in jail, accused of helping a drug dealer rob, torture and imprison a man over several days in late August in her home on the base.

Iraq war veteran Justin Bailey checked himself in to the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center just after Thanksgiving. Among the first wave of Marines sent into battle, the young rifleman had been diagnosed since his return with posttraumatic stress disorder and a groin injury. Now, Bailey acknowledged to his family and a friend, he needed immediate treatment for his addiction to prescription and street drugs. "We were so happy," said his stepmother, Mary Kaye Bailey, 41.

Mary McNamara writes ["A Window Into 'House,' " March 8] that the reason "many people hang out with drunks and addicts: Because, on top of their game, they are more fun than anyone you know." Drunks and addicts are fun? Was this written by an adult? Has McNamara never witnessed a family member, friend or acquaintance spiral out of control and hurt themselves and others, lose their family and friends, become unable to hold a job (or even a conversation) and wind up a virtual vegetable, all due to alcohol and/or drug abuse?

You might think reaching for that cup of coffee or that cigarette is a simple decision. But scientists think the way we act to satisfy cravings involves a little-understood automated response -- one we have no control over -- and researchers are using brain scans to unlock its secrets. "If there's an automated component to craving, we really want to understand how it works," said Elliot Stein, director of the neuro-imaging lab at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Brian Watkins initially thought that Hurricane Katrina had done him a favor. It forced him to flee to southwestern Louisiana, where he planned to make a fresh start and kick his heroin and methadone habit. But then Hurricane Rita tore through that corner of the state, and Watkins was chased back to New Orleans. "At first I thought I could just go out and socialize," said Watkins, 23, who had been on probation for a narcotics offense before the storms. "But everybody was drugging.

REASON No. 495 to flush the uppers: Cocaine and amphetamines may increase the risk of stroke. Crunching numbers from a database of more than 3 million hospital patients, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found that amphetamine abuse was associated with a nearly five-fold increase in hemorrhagic stroke -- bleeding within the brain.

Crystal meth use among gay men has spiked since 2005, according to preliminary data collected by a Los Angeles nonprofit agency, with those using the drug in the last year five times more likely to test positive for HIV. Of the 6,360 gay men the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center tested for HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases last year, one in four reported using the drug at least once.

A 15-year-old girl died of a possible drug overdose and three other youths were hospitalized Wednesday morning after apparently consuming alcohol and prescription drugs, Ventura police said. Alexis Byrd, 15, another girl, 12, and two boys -- ages 14 and 17 -- received medical attention at a home in the 10000 block of Rose Circle and were transported to hospitals, police said. Byrd, who did not regain consciousness, was pronounced dead at Ventura County Medical Center shortly before 10 a.m.