Click here for updates on this story SALEM, Oregon (KPTV) -- From the couch of his addiction treatment center, 49-year-old Michael Padrta is hopeful to finally be on a new path after almost 40 years of drug use and two stints in prison. “I started using at 11,” Padrta told FOX 12 in a recent interview. “I started using meth at about 15 and was drinking all through that.” In recent decades, heroin was the Salem man’s drug of choice, until more recently.