Eleven men sit in a half-circle. One by one, they give an accounting to the others and to a counselor who draws them out, admonishes them, encourages them.

Several report they're working to avoid negative people - not always an easy task in prison.

Counselor Ralph Besteder reminds them to avoid being negative people. "If you're a negativeperson," he asks, "how can you avoid yourself?"

The inmates are part of a pioneering group, the first Alabama inmates to go through a treatment program specifically aimed at those addicted to methamphetamine.

The first class began in January at Staton Correctional Facility in Elmore County. It graduates a week from today.

State prison officials are hopeful this program, which was adapted from a well-regarded outpatient treatment, will have lasting effects on these inmates - most of whom had graduated high school, worked and even owned businesses before encountering meth.

Nothing would be more pleasing to the families and communities that have been devastated by meth. And few things would be better for the people who cycle through the state prison system - which is, by default, the No. 1 provider of substance abuse services in Alabama.

More meth:

Close to 80 percent of inmates who come through the prison system have a drug or alcohol problem. About 80 percent of them go through some type of treatment behind bars.

These days, for a sizable number of them, the problem is meth. Of the 800 new male inmates screened each month at Kilby Correctional Facility, 20 percent or more are identified as having a meth problem. For incoming women inmates, the ratio is even higher, topping 30 percent, prison officials say.

Until now, there was just general drug treatment for them. And because meth is so addictive, and so damaging to the brain, some believed recovery almost beyond hope, said Prison Commissioner Richard Allen.

But Don Dietz, who supervises prison drug treatment programs, likes what he sees in the meth-targeted treatment developed at the Matrix Institute of Addictions in California. Sixty-five percent of those who have gone through the program aren't using after six months - a success by drug-treatment standards.

While the program encompasses some of the familiar 12 steps, it is geared to those with short attention spans and other thought disorders that can come from using meth. Participants in small groups are taught how to keep busy in constructive ways, control their thoughts and avoid situations where they'll be tempted to use meth.

In the outside world, those temptations are as pervasive, literally, as Wal-Mart. "Everything you need to make methamphetamine can be found in a Wal-Mart," one of the inmates explains.

But temptations don't disappear behind prison walls. Sometimes, the cravings come after swapping war stories with other inmates about past drug use. An inmate named Ken admits that even drug counseling sessions stir up his memories of meth.

"When we talk about it," he said, "I get chills."

Hope for success:

The hope is that the inmates are learning the tools not only to control those thoughts in prison, but when they return to the free world.

It's a second chance for inmates like Jason, who once had an athletic scholarship to a major university and is now in prison specifically for drug treatment.

"This is the best thing that happened," he said on Valentine's Day. "I got here in January, and this is the longest I've been sober since 2000."

For some of the other inmates, it's another in a series of chances. Ken, for one, is no first-timer to prison or its drug-treatment programs. Yet he believes the meth program is superior to treatment he's received before. "I think we get a lot more out of this because it's a small group," he said. "You feel a little more comfortable opening up."

But the ultimate test won't come until they leave prison - whether that's this year or two decades from now. Another class at Staton begins next month, and prison officials hope to expand it soon to other facilities, particularly the women's prison.

Meanwhile, they'll be tracking the results to see if the program works. For everyone's sake, say a prayer the answer is yes.

E-mail: rdemonia@bhamnews.com.