Crime reporter loses everything to meth addiction

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/he-lost-it-all-to-meth-the-marriage-the-money/article_5c48ff6a-894d-5cec-a852-42c7bb1113a0.html

Scott Moyers was a crime reporter in Cape Girardeau, Mo., his hometown. Although he didn't make a ton of money, his wife was a doctor, and they and their kids lived a very good life. At some point around age 30 he tried cocaine, then went through all the other drugs and eventually settled on meth.

He is now 41, completely broke, unable to see his kids, and the $250,000 he got in the divorce settlement last year is all gone. (The ex-wife still pays for him to have a place to live and other bare essentials.) Just pleaded to a suspended five-year prison sentence, but he still isn't sure if he wants to do the rehab he had promised the judge.

Timely story given the Philip Seymour Hoffman death.

He says in the video, "At some point, I tried drugs. And it turned out that I loved them. I loved them so much that I just gave away everything that, if there is a supreme being, he had blessed me with."

There's a strong family history, with one brother in prison and another who is a recovering addict (the one Scott helped get clean many years ago).

Clearly, though, the "why" questions don't make a lot of sense, because there is no "why" other than "it makes me feel good and I can't stop."

 

Where is Nancy Reagan?

Just Say No.

 

He didn't start with pot?

 

Great story.

I do dislike the headline, but I understand the writer probably didn't come up with that. To blame a thing -- meth -- for all his struggles seems sort of counter to the point of the story, which was his own demons and battles and struggles with addiction. The headline makes this seem like a reefer-madness, drug-scare-of-the-week story, when really I thought it was a much more human tale.

 

To be fair, had he said no he wouldn't have a meth addiction

 

I know this wasn't supposed to be the takeaway but the message I got was:

So, if you play your cards right, alimony is awesome.

 

Had a cops reporter at a previous stop who could very well be this guy.

And yeah!

 

"He fought the pull."

The pull is the worst.

 

This was an excellently done story. I, too, liked that it wasn't all neatly wrapped up.

What I didn't like was the complete lack of any suggestion, explanation or timeline of events/circumstances for when he started with his drug habit.

I'm mean, the guy was 30 when he started. Was it really just out of the blue? Just for the hell of it, or what? Because that's how it looks, and if so, then that should be stated, or otherwise raised in the story.

As it is, it just reads like a very glaring omission from a reporting standpoint.

 

Sometimes (dare I say most times) it really is "for the hell of it."

Len Bias scared me straight when I was 14.

But at 30, with colleagues who dabbled, I was like, what the hell -- I'll try it to see what the hubbub's about. What's the worst that could happen?

And that was the end of me. I spent 10 years chasing that first euphoric blastoff to outer space. It became the love of my life, sadly.

That's how it starts a lot of the time, curiosity.

 

What?