Khaki shirt and pants.

Box containing letters and cards.

And $75 cash.

But more importantly, Kevin Ball left the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility Jan. 10 a free man. His last taste of freedom was back in August 2001.

"You don't actually realize what you have until you lost it all," Ball said in an interview prior to his release.

The 37-year-old West Terre Haute native -- known to friends as "Whitey" -- spent nearly a year in the state prison near Carlisle, serving time for having some of the chemicals used to make methamphetamine.

It all started with a simple snort of the drug. It progressed into smoking "crank" and eventually, injecting it. On average, his habit was a gram a day-- $100 worth -- about as much as a single sugar packet.

He started pushing his stepkids away.

He quit going to church.

He neglected his job, showing up late to construction sites and leaving early. Some days, he went to lunch and never returned. And then, he was laid off from his $400 to $600 a week job just before Christmas 2000.

"Everything went to hell. That's pretty much what happens when you start using crank," Ball said.

He cooked meth "too many times" to count, he said. He made it in cornfields, in the river bottoms, but never at home.

"I always thought I was one step ahead of everybody," Ball said.

His luck ran out in February 2001 at his girlfriend's house in Marion Heights near West Terre Haute. Responding to a domestic dispute, officers found chemicals used to make meth. He was released from jail about a week later on $3,500 bail, court records show.

Within six months and with the first case still pending, Ball was back in custody on similar charges. He was a passenger in a car that contained pseudoephedrine tablets, lighter fluid, mason jars, gloves and hoses -- "everything to make meth," he recalls.

What did he get in return? "You get a DOC number is what you get."

For nearly a year, that Department of Correction number meant sleeping in a dorm next to dozens of other men, awaking to an intercom announcement and going to bed when told.

It meant earning 21 cents an hour making cabinets and mailboxes in the carpenter shop. It meant wearing the drab gray prison-issue sweatshirt and pants.

"Once you're locked up, everything changes," he said. "You have all kinds of friends when you're doing [meth]."

But once in prison, "they don't accept your call. They don't write. If they can't get nothing from you, they're done with you," he said.

During his prison term, two friends, his ex-wife and her children have been his main support.

As he completed the prison drug-treatment program and prepared for his release, Ball said he came to the realization that he must change the people, places and things with which he once associated. It's the only way to stay off meth.

Still, there's no guarantee of staying clean, he admits. "You just have to want it. I've got along without it before. The consequences are just not worth it.

"The way I look at it, I have one more chance. That's it."