GIVING UP DRUGS AND TAKING BACK MOTHERHOOD

PATERSON, N.J. - IN July, a state caseworker made a surprise visit to
Kim Rolon's apartment in Jersey City. Someone had reported that Ms.
Rolon, 40, was back on heroin and neglecting her 2-year-old daughter,
Amina. The caseworker removed the child, placed her with a relative
and sent Ms. Rolon, a single mother, to take a urine test and be
interviewed.

Ms. Rolon denies that she ever neglected Amina. "They claimed Amina
was running around outside with a dirty diaper," she says. "They were
just looking to catch me on something." Ms. Rolon also denied to the
caseworker that she was on drugs, which she now acknowledges was a
lie. At the time, she was spending up to $100 a day on heroin and crack.

She had started using heroin at 28, and by that summer day when the
caseworker knocked, Ms. Rolon says, "I'd lost about everything, most
of all myself." In 1997, she'd lost a $27,000 administrative job of 12
years at the Bayonne military base, since closed, when she left to go
to prison for a year for drug possession. She'd lost years with her
two teenage daughters, who were living with their grandmother. She'd
lost her resolve: Three times she had been in rehab, and three times
she had relapsed.

And Now Amina?

At the State Division of Youth and Family Services appointment in
July, Ms. Rolon's urine came back dirty. "I was messed up when I went
there," she says. "I tried to deny it, but it was obvious. I couldn't
keep my eyes open during the interview." It was 9 a.m.

A Family Court judge gave her a year to straighten out or lose Amina
permanently. "I'd let down my two older daughters," Ms. Rolon said,
"and now it was happening again." She was sent to a highly regimented
residential program run here by Straight & Narrow, an agency that
treats 2,000 addicts a year. Every hour, from breakfast at 6 a.m. to
lights out at 10 p.m., there is mandatory activity -- therapy,
parenting classes, chores. Family visits are limited to a few hours
every two weeks. "A caseworker supervises you the whole time," says
Ms. Rolon.

A decade ago, Ms. Rolon lived in the same Straight & Narrow dorm and
lasted a week before fleeing. This time she has been here nearly five
months and has stayed clean. The reason, she says, is a program,
started about five years ago, that allows children up to 5 years old
to live at the treatment center with their mothers.

Amina sleeps in the Straight & Narrow dorm, in a little bed -- with
her silk-bordered blanket and four stuffed bears -- right beside her
mother's grown-up bed. Two other mothers and their children share the
room. Ms. Rolon and Amina eat together in the dining hall, play and
read together, and from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., while the mothers go to
therapeutic programs, Amina goes to day care in the dorm.

At this point, the 2-year-old knows the dorm rules almost as well as
the mothers and counselors. When everyone is rushing to finish their
chores for general inspection, Amina yells, "G.I., ladies." And when
she hears the bell, she says, "Smoke break, ladies."

The idea behind the program is simple, says Dr. Judith Herschlag, a
psychologist with the nonprofit agency, a part of the Catholic
Charities of the Diocese of Paterson. It's good for a child to be with
her mother, and good for the mother to have such an obvious reason to
get better. Addicts seek immediate gratification, but this puts the
long-term goal right in their faces. Every day of rehab, Ms. Rolon is
reminded: heroin or Amina.

Dr. Herschlag believes that for several reasons Ms. Rolon has a better
chance than many addicts: She is a high school graduate where most are
dropouts; her addiction did not start in her early teens; and she held
a steady job for years.

There are 18 mothers in the program, and they are fearful of what lies
ahead. It comes pouring out at parenting class. Many lived on the
streets for years and are strangers to their older children and other
family members. During Ms. Rolon's first month in the program, her
sisters and teenage daughters didn't know where she was, so she missed
her own mother's funeral.

Maria Lugo, a counselor running the class, asked how they planned to
explain the program and their drug use to their children. Several said
they could not yet. "They already think so bad of me," said one woman.
"If I tell, they start talking to you worser." Another described her
7-year-old walking through a train station. "She said, 'Mommy, look at
the bums.' If I explain about me too much, she put me in that
category," said the woman.

As for Ms. Rolon, she dreams of long, full days on the outside with
Amina that would be just as nice as the days they have in rehab.

She rises at 5, takes a quick shower, then wakes Amina. "She'll follow
me around while I get dressed. If I take two steps, Amina takes two
steps. Then we go down and get our vitamins, get more awake. I pull
her hair back in a tight ponytail, get her dressed and we're out the
door at 5:50." They go to breakfast in the dining hall and are back by
10 to 7 to watch "The Wiggles" on Disney. "We watch together," says
Ms. Rolon. "The rule is, you have to be right with your child at all
times."

By 8, Ms. Rolon has Amina to day care; after six hours of therapy and
classes, she picks her up again at 2:30. "We go to bonding from 2:30
to 3:45, then get ready for dinner." By 5, they've eaten and finished
their chores, and the night is theirs. "It's just me and Amina playing
until 6:30 when I put her in the tub. She loves her tub.

"I bring her back to the room, put pajamas on and we go into the
kitchen and get her sippy cup. I put in juice and water and it's time
for bed.

"Of course, she's not ready for bed. They have to be in bed by 8, but
she doesn't like to lie down, so we start at 7. We have to sing the A
B C's. And I have to lie down like I'm going to sleep. Same thing
every night, same thing -- I'll say, 'I'm tired, I'm going
nighty-night.' She makes me take off my socks and shoes. 'Mommy
socks.' 'Mommy shoes.' Then we lie down and she says, 'My belly
hurts.' Same thing, every night. So we have to go through 'Twinkle,
Twinkle' and 'No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.' "

When Amina finally falls asleep, Ms. Rolon has maybe an hour to
herself before lights out. Typically, Amina wakes a few times in the
night. "She wants her sippy cup and comes into bed with me. The rule
is they're supposed to sleep in their own bed. I put her back, but she
climbs back in and we cuddle."

This is what Ms. Rolon wants for her and Amina, and maybe, if things
go right, for her older girls, too. Everyone in one place together.
Same thing every night. Same thing.