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)

Bridges' parents were lenient with Shawn, convinced their "wishy-washy" disciplining would ease the grieving, his father says. It backfired.

"We didn't realize we were making a little monster of him," Jack Bridges says.

By 16, Shawn was a high school dropout, a partier with little regard for authority. He struggled accepting his parents' divorce in 1996 and drifted in and out of his own relationships. Between two failed marriages and a girlfriend, he fathered three daughters.

Jack Bridges insists he didn't suspect his son was doing drugs; if the boy was using, he artfully hid it. But Jonathan Bridges says in the documentary that he witnessed his brother's addiction and how it tormented him.

Twice, Jonathan Bridges says, his brother tried to kill himself. When Shawn tried to hang himself from a tree, the rope snapped. When he purposely veered into an oncoming vehicle's path after a night of heavy partying, Jonathan was there to grab the wheel and avoid the wreck.

At 26, Shawn had a heart attack his father blames on meth, a concoction that can include such toxic chemicals as battery acid, drain cleaner and fertilizer. When pressed by his dad, Shawn admitted using the drug.

Several years ago, Shawn sought redemption from Buddy Walls, the former southern Illinois pastor to Shawn's grandparents. He told Walls of his struggles with drugs, talked of wanting to get clean from a drug he said made him feel bulletproof.

"He was really struggling," recalls Walls, now living in Springfield, Mo. "I told him, 'Get your heart right with the Lord.' I just wanted him to feel comfort from that, if nothing else. He was truly sorry for what he'd done."

Soon after that, what Shawn thought was pneumonia was diagnosed as congestive heart failure, his heart enlarged two or three times its normal size, his father says. The back of that vital muscle was stretched so thin doctors feared it would burst, Jack Bridges adds.

Shawn insisted to relatives he had quit using meth, famous for fatally damaging a chronic user's heart and other internal organs because it puts the body in overdrive for prolonged periods.

A little more than a year ago, Shawn was spitting up blood. When his heart quit, doctors brought him back. His weight continued diving because he couldn't keep food down.

His epiphany came months later, when he told Walls he'd like to find someone to videotape him going through his "nightmare, so the kids can see the pain I'm feeling."