Kicking the drug habit

Twenty minutes out of CODA, a rehab clinic near Portland, Ore., Molly, whose name has been changed at her request, was back on the streets, buying small bags of heroin from a pair of dealers downtown.

This was the pattern she followed for most of her seven years of addiction: getting clean for a short period of time -- sometimes a few months -- then going back out to get high again.

But things have changed for this 28-year-old woman with short, sometimes spiked dark-brown hair, dark eyebrows and blue/gray/green eyes that seem to change color depending on what she's wearing and her mood.

Two and a half years ago, after a run-in with the law, Molly managed to get off drugs and stay off.

If there's one thing she's learned, it's that recovering from addiction is not a long-term process -- it's a minute-by-minute journey.

Even with the clean time she has behind her, she still doesn't know what could happen tomorrow.

"I never say never," said Molly as she took a drag off of her cigarette. "Would I go back? No, not now. Tomorrow? Maybe."

Molly, a Spokane resident, says that she still struggles with thoughts of using daily.

"There's always one point in my day when I'd like to get high. But I don't," said Molly.

It was early in the morning, on New Year's Day 2001, that she had a reality check that scared her away from heroin.

She was in San Francisco, driving home with a friend when she got pulled over. The officer found heroin on her, and she was sentenced to 39 days in prison.

Before that, she didn't know how to quit.

"It was always tomorrow," said Molly. It was "the reality of getting busted" that gave her the motivation to quit.

"I was ready," she said. "Nine times out of ten, [going to jail] doesn't work, but for me it did."

She says that going to jail hardens people, and they come out worse than they were before.

She's stayed clean this time, but she's not exactly sure how she's gotten through it.

"There's something that's driving me. I don't know what it is," said Molly. "It's not that I can't do it. It's not that I won't. It's that I don't."

She said she's helped herself stay clean by not getting herself into situations where heroin will be present.

Molly sometimes thinks about what would happen if she did use again. "It would be fun for a while," she said. At first there wouldn't be as much baggage involved -- just a feeling similar to prescription painkillers like codeine.

It's what comes later that scares her -- ending up on the streets, needing it just to function and the pain of withdrawal.

"When I first started, I'd think 'I'm too wasted to go to work,' and later it was 'I need it to go to work."

Withdrawal scares her as much as being a slave to it. It's something she avoided thinking about when she was using, but now that she's clean it's thoughts of it that help keep her from getting high again.

Heroin is a painkiller. When using regularly, the addict's body stops producing endorphins, a natural pain killer.

Because of this, withdrawal often feels nearly unbearable. Muscle cramps, joint pain, increased blood pressure, panic attacks, shaking, chills, sweating, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea -- all the symptoms of the flu and more, magnified and without the benefit of endorphins to kill the pain.

She never wants to have to go through that again, and doesn't even know if she could -- she doubts she would live that long if she did get back on heroin.

"If I started using again I'd be gone," said Molly.

Molly doesn't go to any Narcotic Anonymous meetings, a support group similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, but for recovering drug addicts. She says they just make her think about using more than she does when she doesn't go to them.

She also hates the idea of putting her recovery in the hands of others, and feels that NA replaces being controlled by drugs with being controlled by other people who have used drugs.

"It works for some people. It doesn't work for me," said Molly. "I'm not a follower, I'm a leader."

She says she's changed since she stopped using, matured a little.

Rather than blaming everything else for triggering her desire to use, she now believes that it's all inside her head.

"It's me. It's not anybody else's fault," Molly said. "Back in the day it was anything. A busted shoelace? Go get high. The dog farts? Go get high."

Now she's trying to deal with stress without using heroin as an escape, but she says it's still a long process to learn how.

When not at the photo lab she works at, she spends her time playing her drum set, taking pictures, going out with friends and in the summer spends as much time as she can by the river. She also hopes to get into a kickboxing program soon to relieve stress.

Molly wants to go back to school in hopes of attaining one of her many goals -- chef school and paramedics training are two that she's looking at. She's not sure which she'll choose, or if she'll go with something else.

"I can do anything I want to," said Molly. "Because I'm not a slave."

So she's pressing on, fighting daily, and not giving up the fight -- proud that she's no longer addicted.