The following narratives, taken from interviews, have been edited for clarity and brevity. The names of the recovering addicts have been changed.

Harvey

Harvey, 26, lives in Greece. He started using marijuana when he was 12 or 13, and eventually became a daily heroin user. He says he spent $700 to $800 weekly on the drug. His low point came after he and his best friend were stabbed following an altercation outside a Rochester club. He was in a coma for a couple of weeks. His friend died. At the time of the stabbing, Harvey had stopped using harder drugs, but was still drinking and smoking marijuana. Harvey went back to using heroin after the court case in his friend's killing ended.

I was out of the scene for a little while, so I wasn't hanging out in the city. I mean, it didn't take long. I was back in the city for a couple of days, and I knew exactly where to go and where to get [heroin]. And it was, like, 15, 16-year-old kids selling it. Those are the dangerous people. The young kids will pull out a gun and shoot you in the freaking face because you looked at them wrong. It was just crazy to me. I was just like, "Damn, I got nephews older than that."

It just kind of stayed at that low point for, like, another three years. I ended up losing my job. I got arrested two more times for drinking and driving. Basically, my mom threw me out because she knew I was on the drugs and I was stealing and manipulating. It was a mess, and I don't know... I don't know.

It's cost me a lot. I'm 26 years old, and I live with my mom. It's cost me countless places to live. I've had my own places many times and lost it because I can't pay the bills. I've had a number of cars, and [now] I don't have any car. I don't even have a license.

That's all, like, material stuff that you could get back, but emotionally, I've started to gain back all the trust and the respect and the stuff like that from my family. Still, in the back of their minds, I'm sure they think this isn't a guarantee. Sobriety isn't a guarantee.

Shawn

Shawn, 49, lives in the city. He began drinking and smoking marijuana daily at age 8, the same year his biological father left the family. As an adult, he had a two-apartment house on Remington Street. He used the upstairs as a drug lab and the downstairs as a "playpen" for sexual activities and drug use for himself and others. The arrangement worked out well, he says, until he got into a turf war with rival dealers.

They knew I was connected. I had all the clientele they ever needed, but I wouldn't play with them. Plus I owed them 5 G's. It wasn't sitting well with them, so one day they decided I looked better gone.

These guys decided that they wanted to bum-rush the house. My buddies are all pulling out their weapons like, "Yo, you want us to handle this?" I'm like, "No, man. You go ahead, do your thing. I got this." I told my buddies to take off. I had to handle this myself, because if I let them handle it, they're going to kill a couple of people, and I don't want the cops coming here, because they're going to close down shop.

The people that I owe were trying to come in from the driveway window and they're trying to come in from the bedroom window. So I slipped through the front door and, like dummies, they all converged through the side door in the bedroom. I scaled the tree. I had a .45. Most people don't look up. So I'm sitting right there in the tree, looking at them. If I really wanted to, I could've just clipped each one of them right there. They left and I scaled back down the tree, and I barricaded the house.

That was on a Friday. Saturday morning, unbeknown to me, mom had made an emergency call; she called in the family troops. They were going to do an intervention. And I thought that it was the people that I owed kicking in the door. So I was in the back bedroom, and I had a shotgun and a .45. Did you ever see that movie, "Big Trouble in Little China"? Well, there's a scene where he jumps out and says "HAAA!" like that when he's about to take on the bad guys. When they busted in, that's what I did.

I actually had a slight moment of clarity. I was like, "Do you realize you just almost killed your family? Think it's the dope?" I put the weapons down and they took me to Park Ridge. My brother told me that it was going to be the hardest thing I ever do in life.

One of the things I am grateful for is, even though I've been the most negative role model for my children as possible, God allowed it to stop. They've had a chance to see my life has changed: "So, what do you guys want to talk about? There's nothing under the sun I haven't experienced. We can go there."

If I had to pay the price so that my children can have a better life, cool. I'm OK with that. I had my chance. I blew it. Badly.

Page

Page, 54, has been through two rehabs. A boyfriend introduced her to crack when she was 52. She was immediately addicted and in a very short time, she lost her business, her son, and her home.

The rush was like nothing I'd ever experienced before, even shooting cocaine. It was just so instantaneous; a real brain-rush kind of thing, particularly when we first started. This quality of crack at this particular time, I would've sold my soul to the devil for that. It was an immense high.

Within a very short time - I'm talking within two or three weeks - I was already lying to my family and hiding. Within four months there was a partial sort of intervention, but I was already in a nosedive. All my credit cards, everything, was just going more, more, more to the crack. That's what this drug does to you. Your judgment, everything, is just completely fried.

I was at a point where I had no home anymore, no money. And I was like, "OK, now am I going to be tricking in the alley and prostituting myself? Is that the next one?" I didn't have anything else left.

There were some other individuals that we were hanging out with. I remember riding in my own van, and they ran in and stole things from a store, and then we went back to the same store and stole things again. And I was just like, "Oh, my God. Stop the insanity." And I was saying it out loud, "Stop the insanity." Then I was out on the porch at the crack house going, "Stop the insanity. I've got to be done with this." By then I was just so drained: physically, emotionally, financially, everything.

I knew I was going back to rehab. It took me a couple of months to finally get the courage to do it. And he [her boyfriend] was angry because I was going to go, and he got physically abusive. Then I knew I was doing the right thing.

So within a couple of days I left, went to [the] clinic, and I haven't looked back. That was April in 2008 - 15 months, but who's counting?

[After more than a year passed without contact with her ex-boyfriend, a letter arrived from prison.]

He's found the Lord now, in jail. I always think of Cheech and Chong: "I used to be all messed up on drugs; now I'm all messed up on the Lord." It's another addiction, in some ways. He asked forgiveness for all the terrible things that's he done. I'm sure, between introducing me to it and stealing from me and just sucking me dry... I allowed it. I can't blame him or anything. Of course, my family still does. I can only just pray for him and wish him well.

I've already chosen him and the drugs over my son, my friends, my life, everything. And I don't want to make that mistake again. Time to let go.