A man was arrested on suspicion of dealing narcotics, after they found methamphetamine hidden in a child's sippy cup. Detectives served a search warrant at the home of 29-year-old Israel Lara Gutierrez on the 4400 block of El Charro Lane. They found cocaine and meth in different locations throughout the home which were all accessible to Gutierrez's children.

 

A baggy of suspected methamphetamine was found inside a sippy cup on the floor. Investigators seized more than nine grams of cocaine and 16 grams of methamphetamine, more than $1,100 cash, scales and other items associated with the sales of narcotics.  Other items were found in a diaper bag inside of a crib in a bedroom.


The suspect's three children were left to the care of their mother at the home. Gutierrez was booked into county jail on charges of possession of cocaine for sales, possession of methamphetamine for sales and felony child endangerment. His bail is set at $100,000.


This seems so pathetically low...  Use your children and things meant for them to  stash your illegal drugs. 

I'm going through a lot of stress these days, with the way the world is going. I should probably put myself on a news blackout for a while. I get migraine headaches and bite my nails.

I think to myself that I could easily get some good relief from a hit of junk, but I wouldn't know where to start. It's been about 30 years since I bought any or had a fit (hypodermic set up). The consequences are way too severe anyway.

But honestly, from the few times I've had to go to the ER at the hospital for migraines where they gave me morphine, I really didn't enjoy it as much as I might have years ago. I guess I've grown and matured way beyond the insecurities and fears and hurts that haunted me in my teens and 20s. I hated the way I slept all day. But the worst thing was the way my mind wasn't sharp. I like my 'smartness' and my little exploratory thought-tangents. I don't like feeling 'not in control'.

One of the things I was concerned about before I started getting high was not being in control and acting like an idiot if I tried alcohol or drugs. I guess the pressure and curiosity was stronger than my wanting to look and feel 'normal'. It's strange that I gave up on that to such a huge extent for so many years.

I really, really love my life and this world and how 'interesting' other people are. I wish I could take back those 10 or 12 years that I squandered. And all that money!!! I have never even bothered to try to estimate how freaking much I spent on heroin. Why figure out another way to beat up on myself?

On the positive side, though, I learned a whole lot during those years. I saw some scary, forbidden places and I got an experiential degree in human behavior and addiction. I learned to be extremely resourceful and to read people and hunches very, very well. But it's so nice that I lived through it and can talk about it now, sort of. I don't think I'll ever stop having a certain degree of sensitivity about it. I'm surprised at what a private person I actually am (and was, why didn't I know it?).

When I think of 'domestic violence', I recall someone I knew when I was 17, then I recall someone I knew when I was 25, then I think of the news stories that have surfaced about women who have been murdered by their abusive partners, I think of children, then I have to stop. It's too painful to think of.





As addicts go, violence surely goes with that lifestyle. The psychological makeup
of batterers as well as the psychology of addiction dovetail, so to speak, and it's almost a certainty that someone who despises themself for being an addict will strike out and further deepen the hole that hides the psyche of a batterer. It was awful to walk into the methadone clinic to see one of the other 'clients' with a nasty black eye or swollen lip.

Since October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it seems a good time to reflect on something too painful to think of very often. Because I'm not in an abusive situation right now doesn't mean I can run from the responsibility of helping others who might be caught in one.

There will probably be a candlelight walk in town to remember the victims; killed by a drunk and enraged husband on one Halloween after several years of abuse in the short marriage, the cute redhead battered by her partner who suspected that she came home from work in a dentist's office with signs of someone else's semen in her hair (hallucination caused by too much cocaine) and I wonder about the 2 sons who had to witness the horrendous end to their mother's life. I wonder where they are now, what it was like to have a guy signal you to come into a bedroom to see your mother's bloody battered body then notice that she was still breathing, causing the man to finish off the job. How often do they think of their mother? Do they have nightmares with images of their mom fighting to stay alive? I can't even imagine the psychological trauma these 2 young men must now deal with.

The violence that is so difficult to comprehend is mothers who murder their children. When I see any child with a tear in the eye, I want to gently take hold of them and fold them up in my body and my arms to protect them with all my might. I want to kiss their forehead and whisper, "I'll be with you now. It'll be OK." When I think of women who kill their children for the chance of a relationship with another man, I feel slightly ashamed of belonging to the same gender that would consider it.

There are millions of victims out there and I hope that this October one of them, or 10 of them, or hundreds of them can know that the hearts and prayers of survivors are tugging at them to come along, to get help.