Danielle Schaefer is more than three years sober, but still considers herself an a heroin addict. Back then, getting a heroin fix was her highest priority, and she says she would do nearly anything to have that high.
"I would call my family for money for food, and they'd give me money for food and I would spend it on drugs," Schaefer said. "You know, I'd rather starve and be out there cold and freezing and have that high."
Trading sex for drugs is what Schaefer describes as her low point, but she says it's common among heroin addicts. Schaefer says she didn't even realize she was pregnant with her son Desmond, now 3 years old, for five months; she thought the morning sickness was another side effect of her daily heroin injections.
Once she found out about her pregnancy, she went to the Center For Drug Problems in Anchorage to seek treatment through the methadone clinic. Pregnant women receive priority.
"They'd show up at our doors and we can't turn them away; they get treatment on demand, they get treatment right away," said CDP clinical director Ron Greene. "We don't place them on a wait list, we don't mess around, we get them into treatment as soon as we can."
According to Greene, 75 to 80 percent of the clinic's patients are women, numbers opposite to similar clinics' trend in the Lower 48. The program has 100 slots but is always running over capacity. Drug addicts can sometimes spend up to two years on the wait list.
Methadone has a long half-life, according to Debra Laflen, a nurse at the methadone clinic. She says its longer-lasting affects can help curb heroin cravings, but it can take years to do so. Some addicts will take methadone for the rest of their lives.
"Some of these people who have been on this program for years, I am just astonished at where they are today," Greene said. "The jobs that they hold, the family that they reunited with...It's amazing to see the transformation from then to where they are now."
Schaefer says she was determined to make that transformation. Now, three years sober, she says it is amazing to see how much her life has changed. She is a mother, rents an apartment and has been able to hold down a job for a couple of years. She credits the treatment she continues to receives through the methadone clinic.
"It's so easy: you just got to want it, and you can have what I have," Schaefer said. "It doesn't seem easy, but it is."
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