TULSA, Okla. (AP) - About six months ago, Lindsey Arias packed all her belongings into a bag to camp out at the 12&12 Inc. front office until she got help.
She had no job or health insurance and all her relationships were on burned bridges.
But the 34-year-old mother of three was turned away. Counselors said to try back in a week and maybe a government-funded bed would be available.
"I wanted to die," Arias said. "I had nowhere else to go. I felt like this was my last chance."
While waiting, Arias kept using prescription drugs. She did return in seven days and lucked into an open spot.
"I thought I had a week left to party, but I knew I was going in," she said. "It got to the point where every day I would wake up, see the light coming through the window, and panic would set in. I would drink or use drugs to deal with it. I knew I wasn't that person, but I couldn't do it by myself."
Since that act of desperation, she went through detox and has abided by all the rules, fulfilled her assigned jobs and made all her support and therapy groups. She has graduated into the last phase of residential treatment.
"I was happy to be here," she said. "I knew if I was here, I wasn't going to use that day. I thought maybe it would give me a fighting chance."
In February, Arias moved into the nonprofit's Sober Living Program on its campus near 41st Street and Sheridan Road. The program was created to make up for six-figure cuts in state funding to 12&12's transitional living program.
Now she gains a bit more freedom as she prepares for her full integration back into the community, which includes picking up the cost for her lodging.
"My mind is more clear; I'm stronger," she says. "I like the safety of being here. I'm halfway but not there yet. This will be a daily thing for the rest of my life. I will need to live and breathe it and know that energy will need to go somewhere else. Treatment gives you the time and space to get choices back. I will still need support groups, outpatient and positive friends."
Arias' slide into painkiller addiction started when a doctor prescribed the opiate Lortab for persistent migraines when she was 21. The same doctor provided a narcotic inhaler for sinus problems.
She was married, had two children, attended college classes and held a part-time job.
"I knew something wasn't right," she said. "Every time I would run out of the drug, I would go into withdrawal and had to go back for more."
At the time, she had health insurance that provided for a week of treatment.
Her third pregnancy and delivery were difficult, and a doctor prescribed similar narcotics during her recovery, triggering the addiction.
"Honestly, I could've managed the pain with ibuprofen and Tylenol, but the cycle of physical and emotional addiction had begun," Arias said.
She tried a methadone detox program, which she says just kept her addiction alive. Eventually, her marriage disintegrated into divorce and loss of primary custody of her children.
"When that happened, it took me from bad to worse," she said. "I felt betrayed."
She then upped her problems by adding alcohol to the mix, despite witnessing alcoholism among several family members growing up.
"After work one day, I got a six-pack. The next day, I got another six-pack," Arias said. "It grew from there."
After losing her job, she found 12&12 by looking through the phone book's yellow pages.
"I was alone, depressed and felt hopeless," she said.
After getting into a 45-day treatment program, Arias left early with a fellow addict, and the two got drunk their first day out.
"I didn't take treatment seriously," she said. "I didn't see that I was putting my energy into another person and not into myself. I found my addiction in a person. It was a relationship fueled by drugs and alcohol."
That volatile relationship ended with her being assaulted by a vehicle and her ex-boyfriend criminally charged. Injuries from the car accident led to more prescription painkillers.
With nowhere to go, Arias went back to 12&12 with her backpack to beg for a second chance.
"I struggle with that question - is it a disease or a choice?" she said. "How can some people have a drink and be fine? I know I can't do that, and that is where the choice lies. But I was at a point where I wanted to die. I didn't feel I had the ability to make choices. I needed help to give me that ability - to gain control."
Arias has gone through a complete continuum of treatment, from detox to transitional living. Not all patients can get that access or have the ability to take that much time away from responsibilities, said 12&12 Executive Director Bryan Day.
"The stage where Lindsay is at, when we can treat someone for this long, the success rate is 90.3 percent that person will be clean and sober six months from now," Day said. "If Lindsay left after detox, that success drops to about 30 percent chance of staying clean and sober in six months. That is a vast difference."
Through treatment, Arias is regaining the relationships she once took for granted and severed.
"There is not a lot of trust because there has not been a lot of reliability," she said. "They are going to have to see that in me to know I'm going to be there."
She also recognizes the role her former husband had in keeping their children safe. She has kept visitation rights through her recovery.
"It is not going to ever be what it used to be," she said. "I used to blame my ex-husband for what happened, but he's been a good ex. I thank him now for being a great dad. My kids have been spared a lot, and he can take credit for that."
Prayer and meditation have been her roads through recovery.
"No one chooses to be this way or get to this place," she said. "I wanted to have a future. I needed treatment to come here, to concentrate on myself and to deal with what was going on."
Information from: Tulsa World, http://www.tulsaworld.com