Zorana was a senior at Torrance's North High School the first time she tried methamphetamine.

A frequent churchgoer, she had managed to stay away from alcohol and marijuana since experimenting with them in middle school. But the winter of 2003, after returning from a holiday vacation with her family, the 17-year-old, who asked that her last name be withheld for this story, noticed there was something different about her friends at school.

"They would be hiding stuff -- I could tell they were doing something, and it made me feel left out," she said. "I was like, well, let me see what this is all about. And I think I immediately started smoking every day right after."

At first it was a curiosity. Then it was a clich, she says, "all about fitting in." But quickly she embraced a totally different lifestyle.

Just a little bit of methamphetamine -- a crystalline, white powder also known as speed -- would provide a rush of energy and boost of confidence that would last for hours, allowing her to stay out all night and still make it to class in the morning. And for Zorana, like many teen girls, there was an added allure.

"I was always unhappy with my weight," she said. "I had lost so much weight by prom, I was so happy with how I looked and with the attention I was getting. ... I didn't feel like there was anything wrong with what I was doing, because when I started it was all positive things."

It didn't last. Within months, Zorana's grades had dropped, her mother had kicked her out of the house and she had disconnected from her school friends in favor of older kids and a boyfriend who were more heavily into the drug.

Her mother tried to intervene, but even a pricey wilderness boot camp and a 14-month stint in a residential rehabilitation center didn't curb her addiction. After just three weeks back at home, surrounded by the same social pressures and temptations, Zorana relapsed.

"I thought I was going to stay clean, but I still hadn't really accepted myself," she said. "So, it was more appealing for me to go back to that lifestyle and lose the weight again."

An inviting cocktail

For teenage girls, methamphetamine presents a tempting cocktail of immediate gratifications. As a party drug, it's cheaper than cocaine, it lasts longer and, in Southern California, it's as easy to get as pot. And the drug's short-term effects -- loss of appetite leading to weight loss, and deceptive boosts in concentration and confidence -- can attract high-achieving, body-conscious girls and make it extremely difficult to quit.

"Some people call it 'The PV Diet,' " said Greg Allen, program director at the Thelma McMillen Teen Outpatient Program at Torrance Memorial Medical Center. "A lot of girls will just do a little bit, every day ... to keep their weight down, keep their energy up."

Of course, alcohol and marijuana use among teens continues to eclipse meth use by sheer numbers. Just 7.3 percent of secondary school students in Los Angeles County have tried meth, and just 3.7 percent are regular users, according to the 2003-04 California Healthy Kids Survey.

But methamphetamine is a seductive drug that can quickly become a powerful addiction -- as reflected by the high representation of meth users currently in drug treatment.

Among the teens treated at Thelma McMillen, an elective program that serves the entire South Bay, methamphetamine is the drug of choice for about 70 percent of girls, Allen said. Among boys in the program, about 70 percent are abusing marijuana.

At other local treatment centers, therapists report similar popularity of meth among girls.

"Our referrals come from the most affluent neighborhoods to the poorest," said Susan Michael, clinical director at the outpatient South Bay Center for Counseling, where about 60 percent of teen clients -- boys and girls -- are using meth. "It really doesn't discriminate."

Michael said that's likely because many teens don't hear about the ugly, often devastating effects of methamphetamine until it's too late.

"There are relatively few recreational meth users," she said. "You may start out that way, but it doesn't stay there."

Brain chemistry altered

Medical research shows that even short-term use of the drug -- a potent stimulant that triggers the release of high levels of the pleasure-producing neurotransmitter dopamine -- can significantly alter the brain's chemistry, leading to long-term depression, chronic fatigue, paranoid or delusional thinking and brain damage.

The euphoria that initially seduces users is almost always followed by a crash -- usually long periods of sleep followed by feelings of depression -- which often stimulates the desire to get high again.

In time, the visible side effects aren't pretty, either. The toxic, corrosive household chemicals used to make meth can quickly rot a user's teeth and cause hair loss or breakage. "Tweakers," as meth users are sometimes called, often report seeing bugs under their skin, which causes them to pick, scratch and create ugly lesions and cysts, or "speed bumps."

"I think it's probably the most devastating drug I've ever seen," said Mark Johnson, who has watched drug trends come and go during his 22 years with the court-affiliated Torrance Juvenile Diversion Program. "We're really perplexed here, and we're really, really concerned. You get kids you wouldn't really suspect -- really good family life, really doing well, and then they get lost in it."

Unable to extract herself from the drug's grip, Zorana quickly spiraled away from party mode and deeper into isolation and paranoia. She began hearing voices, she thought her cell phone was bugged, she abandoned her car in a parking lot because she thought it had been planted with a bomb.

After losing her job and her apartment, she moved in with a drug dealer she barely knew. From her normal weight of 150 pounds, she dropped down to 120. Finally, after crashing one time too many, she bottomed out.

"I was in a motel in L.A., but for some reason I thought I was in Mexico," Zorana said. "I just started crying and called someone to come get me. I didn't even know where I was."

From January to June 2004, methamphetamine users accounted for 20.6 percent of the 5,840 admissions to Los Angeles County treatment and recovery programs -- the highest proportion ever, according to a National Institute on Drug Abuse-sponsored report.

That makes it "the one illicit drug that has continually increased among treatment admissions over the past four years," according to the report's author, UCLA epidemiologist Beth Rutkowski.

"In Southern California, it's been a problem for more than 20 years -- and it's not going away," Rutkowski said.

Growing problem

As the drug has gained popularity in the Midwest, the number of people seeking treatment for meth addiction nationwide quadrupled from 1993 to 2003, according to a recent report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

And no other drug claims such an equal proportion of female users as males, multiple studies show.

"Weight loss is ... probably the No. 1 reason teen girls start to experiment with it," Rutkowski said. "Unfortunately, there's no (funding aimed at collecting) data to substantiate that. Right now it's all anecdotal from parents and the girls themselves."

For Casey Kauffmann, a self-proclaimed "nerdy girl with big glasses and short hair" in middle school, methamphetamine seemed like the quickest way to bounce back after a self-confidence- crushing breakup and subsequent two-week absence from classes at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach.

Craved the feelings

A former boyfriend had introduced her to meth, and when the relationship ended she craved the feelings of power, control and accomplishment the drug had given her. "With me, it was a fully conscious decision. I knew what meth was, I had tried it before," Casey said. "I was like, 'I'm gonna get meth. I'm gonna do well in school.' "

Casey, who was 16 at the time, went on a two-week meth binge, snorting up to seven lines a day -- sometimes in the bathroom at school -- and not sleeping for a week straight.

"I felt like I was doing so well in school. I would spend hours on my homework, making up schedules," she said. "But if you look at it now, it's like in a different language. It's all color-coded, in little boxes."

Already a thin girl, Casey dropped down to 90 pounds. She stole from her mother and grandmother's purses to pay for the drug. She would sweep her bedroom floor and search the vacuum bag for meth rocks.

Her older sister Jessica -- a former Mira Costa cheerleader who was wrestling with her own drug addictions but managed to steer clear of meth -- saw Casey struggling and begged their parents to intervene.

"There's an extreme sense of guilt. I hung out with meth addicts - - I never wanted her to be like that," said Jessica, now more than 18 months sober at age 18. "I just wanted to protect my sister from that life."

After spending 64 days last summer in "wilderness therapy" -- hiking more than 100 miles with a 70-pound backpack -- Casey said she came back with a sense of self-reliance that has helped keep her sober. Jessica now shares their stories with students on panels at local middle and high schools.

Their mother, Merrell, said it's not always easy to hear all the details of the girls' addictions.

"It just isn't talked about here. When you do talk to other parents, you're ostracized," Merrell said. "People don't like to hear, 'If it's going on with my daughter, it might be going on with your daughter.' "

A blurry line

Kim Davidson, an attorney who lives in Palos Verdes Estates, said that with her 17-year-old daughter, Stephanie, the line between normal teenage angst and substance abuse was often blurry.

"I would call and she wouldn't answer her cell phone. She would come home at 2 a.m. and give me some cockamamie story," Davidson said. "It was a moving target, and there was so much denial."

After she saw Stephanie chatting with friends online about drugs and parties, Davidson and her former husband spent thousands of dollars on therapists and treatment.

But it wasn't until Stephanie stole her mom's car, totaled it, and ended up in the hospital that Davidson put her into a six-week residential rehabilitation program. During that time, Davidson learned a lot about her daughter's meth and cocaine abuse.

"She would tell me about parties she would go to in PV or Rolling Hills, behind the gates. Every drink, every drug would be available," Davidson said. "I feel like I've just seen the tip of the iceberg."

Teens will be exposed

That's a common fear among parents. Teens, especially those in recovery, are quick to point out there's not much parents can do to prevent exposure to drugs.

"We live in a very privileged area, and our kids want for very little," said Kim S., who started a Manhattan Beach branch of Families Anonymous last November. "But we as parents need to step back and set boundaries and limits, set expectations and have consequences for their behavior."

Allen, the Thelma McMillen teen program director, says it's important for parents to be aware of the warning signs of meth addiction -- weight loss, inability to sleep, nervousness, irritability, overconfidence -- and be willing to ask the hard questions early on. If intervention and recovery are needed, families of teenage meth abusers must also become actively involved.

"Parents have to learn how to deal with fear, worry, how much supervision should I give or not give," Allen said. "The teen maybe stops using, but then how do we live together? What does this person do with their time?"

Fitness key to recovery

Because of meth's association with body image and self- confidence, girls trying to kick the drug have varying success rates. To stay clean, it's important to find healthy ways to keep the body fit, which is why physical exercise, art therapy and self- affirmations are often part of the recovery process.

Creating and maintaining a new, drug-free social circle is also key, Allen said.

"It's a big deal, because friends are as important as anything at this age. Often those friends don't respect that person's decision to stop," he said. "Relapse is not uncommon."

For Stephanie Davidson, now a graduate of Rancho del Mar High in Rolling Hills, singing in a band with sober friends has helped.

"I still have my friends who are 'normies,' who still drink. I'll be online and see the pictures and say, 'Oh, I used to party at that house,' " she said. "But I've lived that. I'm over that. I still have days when I have hard times, but that's when I call someone."

But being back at her normal weight of 135 pounds is hard to swallow.

"Just yesterday I was totally PMSing, and I looked in the mirror and felt so fat," Stephanie said. "I thought, I could just do a line and I'd be skinny again. Just watching TV and the magazines definitely makes it harder to quit."

Zorana, now 20 years old and eight months sober in residential rehab, said it may still be awhile before she feels ready to return to the external temptations.

She said she and some of the other women in the program are on a diet right now to raise their confidence and feelings of self- control.

"I'm starting to accept myself now, to see that I like how I am right now, for the first time," she said. "I'm getting there. I'd rather be this way -- yeah, I'd rather be this way than when I was using. I'm still working on that statement."

In time, the visible side effects aren't pretty, either. The toxic, corrosive household chemicals used to make meth can quickly rot a user's teeth and cause hair loss or breakage. "Tweakers," as meth users are sometimes called, often report seeing bugs under their skin, which causes them to pick, scratch and create ugly lesions and cysts, or "speed bumps."

A former boyfriend had introduced her to meth, and when the relationship ended she craved the feelings of power, control and accomplishment the drug had given her. "With me, it was a fully conscious decision. I knew what meth was, I had tried it before," [Casey Kauffmann] said. "I was like, 'I'm gonna get meth. I'm gonna do well in school.' "

[Greg Allen], the Thelma McMillen teen program director, says it's important for parents to be aware of the warning signs of meth addiction -- weight loss, inability to sleep, nervousness, irritability, overconfidence -- and be willing to ask the hard questions early on. If intervention and recovery are needed, families of teenage meth abusers must also become actively involved.