Meth Addict Hopes His Pain Helps Others

Shawn Bridges' world is a hospital bed in the living room of his father's house in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Friday, April 14, 2006. The 34 year old former truck driver is the subject of a 29-minute documentary about his use of methamphetamine. "No More Sunsets" shot by southern Illinois television videographer, Chip Rossetti, about Bridges' agonizing decline is available for $20 from his web site. (AP Photo/James A. Finley) (James A. Finley - AP)

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. -- Wide-eyed and appearing catatonic, Shawn Bridges couldn't muster any talk from his hospital bed, his gaunt, tattooed body wracked by years of abusing the powerfully addictive witch's brew of chemicals that is methamphetamine. The footage from the documentary the 34-year-old trucker commissioned about his slow, agonizing decline does the talking for him. And he hopes the 29-minute film, shot by a southern Illinois television videographer, speaks volumes to children and others headed down a similar path to drug addiction.

By his family's account, Bridges already died twice, his heart so ravaged by meth over the years that it stopped and had to be shocked back into beating. "The bottom half of his heart is dead," his dad laments on camera.

As the documentary "No More Sunsets" shows, Bridges' life now isn't much. Largely bedridden, his constant companions are the catheter that funnels the urine out of his body and the feeding tube sticking from his stomach.

When he does speak, it's in guttural slurs. "Ahmmmmmmm collllllllllllllllllllllld," Shawn, dressed in boxer shorts and sweat socks, said recently from a hospital-style bed wedged into his father's living room. His dad hustled to blanket him.

"I'd say he's got a 34-year-old body on the outside with 70- to 80-year-old man on the inside," Jack Bridges says of his son. "You see what meth has done to my son and what my son has let it do to him.

"If the documentary helps just one person stay away from this terrible poison, it's worth it."

Bridges prays his son's story sways the young, including the 12 million people ages 12 and older the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says reported in a 2002 national survey that they had used meth at least once in their lifetime.

According to federal estimates, roughly 28,000 people sought treatment for meth addiction across the country in 1993, accounting for nearly 2 percent of admissions for drug-abuse care, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. But just a decade later, the meth-related admissions numbered nearly 136,000 _ more than 7 percent of the national total for drug-abuse treatment.

The man who shot and narrates the film calls it a cautionary tale.

"He's dying because of the decisions he's made," Chip Rossetti says in the film. "Long ago, he chose to give in to temptation. Long ago, he chose a life of drugs. But he wasn't always that way."

Bridges' story is one of tragedy and torment.

Family members say he forever was haunted by the dreary day in 1976 when younger brother Jason, barely a year old, died in a car wreck. Shawn was just 4 and nowhere near the wreck but inexplicably blamed himself, wanting to trade places with his dead sibling, his father says.