VISTA -- As a teenager in the 1980s, Terri Hagmann sometimes lied to friends to keep drugs out of her life.

"I made up audacious stories about how I had seen people get high," she said. "I thought if I made up stories, they wouldn't ask."

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But drugs were all around her Chula Vista neighborhood in 1984, and Hagmann's curiosity finally got the best of her.

"My best friend's mom was a bartender, and she used to do meth," Hagmann said. "Finally, I approached her and said, 'Do you have any of that?' "

Quickly enslaved

Soon, the girl who had once lied to avoid the drug was enslaved by it.

In following the years, her weight dropped to 87 pounds, she handed off her children to relatives and eventually she was sent to prison.

By the time she pulled herself out of the downward spiral, 12 years of her life had slipped away.

How could a young woman so quickly become addicted to a dangerous drug?

Looking back at her life, the 42-year-old Oceanside resident said she believes that she was particularly susceptible to the drug's seduction.

By the time she took her first hit of meth, Hagmann already had led a troubled young life, which included a suicide attempt as a teenager.

A little chunky

The mother of two daughters at age 19, Hagmann said she had a body-image problem -- not fat, but just a little chunky, she said -- and she said the father of her children exploited her frailty with cold, critical cruelty.

She and her daughters fled from their home in Vallejo, leaving behind the children's father, and Hagmann moved in with her best friend in Chula Vista.

She said the experience left her vulnerable to the lure of meth.

"I remember the first time I did it," she said. "It was like this overwhelming feeling, as if I was the one. I was finally OK. Nobody could hurt me anymore."

A year off

She stopped using drugs after meeting another man and becoming pregnant at age 22, but Hagmann said the new man in her life also was abusive, and the addition of a son did not improve their relationship.

Hagmann worked at a convenience store and a bakery as the household's primary breadwinner. Her day began at 4 a.m., which she said meant nothing to her son's father, who was more interested in partying with friends late into the night.

Her pleas to go home to get some sleep only made him resentful or violent.

"He'd either beat me up then, or we'd go home and he wouldn't let me go to sleep," she said.

Exhausted and desperate, Hagmann ended a year of sobriety by using meth just to get through her long workday.

"Instead of leaving him, I went and started using again, and that was it," she said.

On the hustle

Hagmann hustled to get the drug, which she said was plentiful. Sometimes friends would give her some, sometimes she would sell it for dealers to get her share.

"Wherever I went, people were pulling stuff out," she said.

The drug's effect diminished for Hagmann, who felt only a numb plateau where there once was a high.

"It's not so much that I felt a whole lot," she said. "It just kept me going and going and going. I was the type of person that didn't want to stop and have to feel anything. I got high until I couldn't get high anymore, then I would fall asleep from anywhere from two to seven days."

Hagmann made sure to have meth waiting for her she finally did wake up so she would not have to deal with the depression that comes when the drug wears off.

"Whenever I'd feel sad or depressed, I'd do another line," she said.

In South Dakota, too

At 24, Hagmann took her children -- 4-year-old Regina, 5-year-old Angelina and 1-year-old Armando -- to South Dakota, where her parents had moved after retirement. A city girl, Hagmann felt conspicuous and anxious in the small town where everybody knew one another.

"I was just not used to that type of environment," she said. "I felt like I couldn't function there, that I was very different."

Despite the town's small size, Hagmann managed to find drugs.

"My mom, bless her heart, she's pretty naive," Hagmann said. "She really had no clue. My dad, bless his heart, was not very emotionally involved with the family, so he had no idea."

The lost children

Then one afternoon, Hagmann's mother got a call from Angelina, who said her mother would not wake up.

"My mom came over and said, 'You know, honey, until you can get your act together, we're going to keep the girls,' " Hagmann said. "And that was my ticket out."

Hagmann left her daughters behind in South Dakota after six months in the town but took Armando with her back to Chula Vista.

"I felt bad that I left them behind, but I justified that by saying they were with my mom and dad," she said. "I had already decided my daughters would be better off without me."

Back in Chula Vista, Armando's father tracked down Hagmann, who was staying with her son's godparents.

He took his son with him, Hagmann said.

Dying within

She was able to see Armando occasionally, but those visits were heartbreaking and frustrating for the young mother because family members did not trust Hagmann to be alone with her son.

Eventually, she stopped going over to see him.

"That's when it was over for me," she said. "At 24, everything I had died from within."

Hagmann grew more depressed, which led her to take even more drugs. As her life spiraled out of control, she became irresponsible, rootless and apathetic about everything other than her next hit.

"I was living here and there," she said. "I started to sell methamphetamine so I would support myself. I'd have jobs here and there, and then I would lose them because no alarm could wake me up."

First arrest

Hagmann lost her apartment but wasn't too concerned because she rarely used her bed. She found another place to live but lost it after six months. The drug had consumed her life, and Hagmann began longing for a way out.

"I wanted to change more than anyone would ever believe, but I just didn't know how," she said.

After years of avoiding trouble with the law, Hagmann was arrested at age 29 for possession of stolen property, which had been given to her from someone wanting drugs.

She later was arrested for petty theft after shoplifting eyeliner and a dress. Out on bail, Hagmann heard that enrolling in a rehab program was a way of avoiding jail.

Planning to "work the system," Hagmann had no intention of following through with the program.

Peace and panic

Once inside the center, however, she was drawn to the peacefulness she found.

After years of turmoil, she wasn't sure if she could handle the center's tranquility, and when a center official said she never again would see the friend who had dropped her off, Hagmann panicked and left.

Having turned down rehab, Hagmann was sentenced to two years in prison. She was 31.

"I'm not someone who wants to spend the rest of life in prison," she said. "Very quickly, I made a conscious decision that this was it."

Hagmann said she could have used meth in prison, but turned it down.

God at last

Finding a strength she never had in herself, she turned to God for support and began taking responsibility for her actions.

"I blamed him for everything at that point," she said. "I had to step back and think, 'I did that.'"

In prison, Hagmann earned a high-school equivalency certificate and several diplomas for vocational training courses. By the time she was ready for release, Hagmann said, she had a personal relationship with God, learned new skills and had become assertive.

Her parole officer set her up at a motel for parolees when she was freed.

"It was filthy," she said. "It was one of the most humbling times, other than going to prison. I thought, 'I can't stay here.' But I had to remember who I am. I cleaned up the room and stayed there until I found my own place."

A great rebound

Hagmann landed a job she hated but kept at it, earning work experience and building a resume. Eight years ago, Hagmann was hired by county Mental Health Systems as a receptionist.

Having worked her way up, she now is program director for the Family Treatment Center and Options for Recovery in Vista, run by Mental Health Systems Inc.

As a former single mother in and out of abusive relationships, Hagmann has a special empathy with clients of the women-only Options for Recovery, which offers help with child-care, employment and breaking the cycle of domestic violence that many women who use drugs are trapped in.

On May 15, Hagmann celebrated her 11th year of sobriety.

Healthy, engaged to be married and planning to buy a house, Hagmann is regaining an enthusiasm for life that was robbed from her after a wrong turn so many years ago.

"If I would have known then what I know now, I would have never taken that first hit," she said.

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.