The pujari, Sadhaka Tyaganatha, in the midst of doing the japam of 108 “Om Hum Haum Sivaya, Svaha!” which is also chanted in unison by everyone in the temple. On each repetition offerings of grains are tossed into the fire.

John on the left is a pilot with his wife Crystal and on the right is Keoni, the manager of the company: Will Squyres

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Date: November_13_1998
Title: A Prison Mom’s Perspective
Category:
Duration: 5 min., 54 seconds
Date Given: November 13, 1998

Today at Kauai Aadheenam. It is November 13th, Sun 2 by our vedic calendar.

Now we are going to hear from Christine Nirpio. Like Sherise, she is a mother who has found herself in prison, in an unhappy condition, but she has pulled herself together. We are going to hear what she has to say.

Arumugaswami: Christine, why are you an inmate here at KCCC?

Christine: I’m in jail for promoting crystal-meth, ‘ice’. My husband and I were using it and selling it.

Arumugaswami: Why did you use drugs?

Christine: For me it was to get away from the reality of the problems we had in our marriage. I come from an abusive relationship. When we were high, I was everything to him – no abuse. He treated me very nice. When he came down, that is when the abuse would kick in.

Arumugaswami: What did the drugs do to you?

Christine: Your mind … wooooo! What it does to you – you don’t sleep, you go into a daze like, you start thinking things that are not really there.

Arumugaswami: What is your advice to kids taking methamphetamine, ‘ice’?

Christine: If they are using it, all that they are getting from it is this feeling that you can conquer the world. You are tall, you are strong, you can stay up all night, you can party, you can keep on going, keep on going. But once the high wears off, and you don’t have any more of the ‘ice’, then where do you go from there? So, either you are not going to have the money and you keep going or if you want the money, that’s when the violence comes in. That is when you start doing whatever you can to get them. So, that area right there is what leads you to beating up your wife or your spouse, stealing, crime – big time! That is when you are not going to come off and forget them. It is your addiction. You do whatever to support your addiction. Sell it.

Arumugaswami: How often did you use it?

Christine: It was more of a weekend drug for my husband and I, than it was throughout the week. It was sometime on the weekend we would use it.

Arumugaswami: What is the effect of ‘ice’?

Christine: Have you ever heard of it being like a sex kind of a drug? The minute you take it , it sets you into a state of mind like, “bam, you want sex.” That is what it did for me and my husband. It gets you out of reality and gets you into this fantasy world. One of the problems that a lot of us here have is, we all want love, we all want to be something to somebody. That is what can lead you to that drug because when you are on that drug, smoking ‘paco lolo’ or coke, you feel differently about yourself, your insecurities. Maybe you don’t feel as weak. But when you come off, oh my goodness! that’s when.

Arumugaswami: How can you tell if your children are on drugs?

Christine: You can tell from the signs. The first sign would be, they would pull away from you. They wouldn’t want to sit down and talk story with you. They don’t want to eat dinner. Not eating, that’s a good one. Money, they start asking you for money. You got to really be on top of your children when it comes to money. “Mom, we are going to go to the movies or we are going to go out.” You are giving them twenty bucks. For all you know, they are going to be hanging out someplace where they didn’t really need that money but, they are going to spend that money to buy drugs. They will come home and all they are going to do is sleep. The no-care attitude, and their going to be out nighttime.

Arumugaswami: Sherise, how did the drugs affect you?

Sherise: Besides having sex, it used to give me that extra energy to do something, get a job done. Normally without the drugs, I would be real lazy and ‘oh! forget-it’, procrastinate. But this drug would just make me get my things done, to be able to attend to my children, as well as, get the clothes done, the house organized.

Arumugaswami: Christine, how did you use methamphetamine?

Christine: You’ll put some in a pipe and you’ll smoke a couple hits. You’ll put the pipe down and you’ll go about your business, do your thing. Then when you start feeling tired again; then you take again.

Arumugaswami: Sherise, do you think ‘ice’, methamphetamine is manufactured here on Kauai?

Sherise: People are making it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already being made here on Kauai.

Arumugaswami: Who do you think takes drugs on Kauai?

Sherise: You would be surprised what kind of people takes drugs, parents too. When my husband and I started to get into it, a lot of his friends did it so they could work three jobs. When the plantation went down, they lost a lot of jobs and they needed something to kick in, because a lot of them bought homes. They depended on that income and when that was cut off, they had to do what they had to do. They started to take that drug to keep them up to work ‘graveyard-shift’ jobs.

Arumugaswami: How can kids resist peer pressure?

Sherise: It is hard when you are in peer pressure, because you can stay strong only for so long, and eventually you know, your going to be, like – “I am just gonna try it to see. All I am doing is try and see what it will do”. That is all that it takes. It is just that one time.

Arumugaswami: What should kids do instead of drugs?

Sherise: It seems like nowadays, at this time, in this era, we don’t appreciate the beach. We don’t appreciate the mountains. Simple kinds of stuff; we don’t appreciate that.

Gurudeva: Thank you, Christine. Thank you, Sherice. You’ve been very, very kind to share your heart and mind with those listening to our talks on cyberspace, worldwide. I know it’s going to reach somebody out there, and all the good fortune will come back to you, if you help somebody remain on the right track.
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