Hi, my name is Heidi Marie. I am 27 years old, and I live a little North of Boston.

I am a bartender, in art school full time for 3D Animation (3.7 GPA;), I am about 50% fluent in American Sign Language. I am going to work for the Discovery or History Channel or NASA when I grow up doing 3D work for television (like comets destroying the Earth or Super Volcanos blowing up). I am a wicked space geek, and find nothing more fascinating than our Universe, and I use a lot of it in my artwork now. I found out I could draw really well only 4 years ago and it has changed my entire life.

I smile just because I love to enjoy life, the summer and the sun, to rollerblade and snowboard and workout at the gym. I am not afraid to do something different, and have done everything from whitewater rafting to roofing with Habitat for Humanity to being a 27 year old college student living in the dorms. I have a lot of great friends, from New Hampshire to Florida and a wicked awesome life that I am ever so grateful to have, because I am also a recovered crystal meth addict.

My life changed so drastically over the past two and a half years, since I quit smoking meth. I left San Diego, so battered and beaten by my drug abuse that I know I would have died if I stayed there. So I got on a plane one summer morning and took the longest flight of my life. I ran, and I never looked back. And now my life is so unbelievably great, and I use my awful experience in San Diego now to try to help other addicts, and families of addicts, and educate people on the dangers of the world's worst drug. I had no idea what meth was when I first did it. I know more about it now than ever before, and I would like to be able to share that. I hope to be able to provide people with information about meth and links to other places I have found to be helpful. I just want to help in any way I can to stop this disaster.

I never understood what addiction really was until I smoked crystal meth, and I wish I never knew.

I never intended to be so open about my addiction, until I made a video for a class about meth, and the impact my video has had on people all around the country is so amazing to me. The impact that meth has had on America is devastating. But we can stop it, or at least just try, because someone has to. I am also going to incorporate an Anti-Meth Campaign into my art and animation over the next year, so stop back here if you want to check that out.