BREAKING FREE FROM A 'VICIOUS CYCLE'

When Karen was 9 years old, she was diagnosed with depression. She
says it was around the time her grandfather molested her and she
learned the truth about her father - that he had hanged himself when
she was a toddler.

At the age of 12, after years of being bullied by other kids and
ridiculed for being overweight, Karen swallowed 60 Gravol pills. She
woke up in the hospital and has been in and out of psychiatric wards
since - for help with depression, bipolar disorder and thoughts of
suicide.

It was also at 12 that she discovered alcohol gave her "liquid
courage" and helped her fit in. The next year, she tried marijuana at
a party - the night ended with her being raped by two boys.

At 14, Karen smoked crack, which "grabbed me from the first
time."

She quit school in Grade 8 and began "running with the buzz, chasing
one toke after another, just to forget and not feel."

Now 27, the Kitchener woman says she's tired of running and wants to
be a mother to her two children - a 5-year-old girl and 10-month-old
boy, who are in their grandmother's custody.

That's why in January she checked herself into the 24-day program at
Hope Place Women's Treatment Centre in Milton.

It was Karen's fifth time in rehab. Often, depression led her back to
the pipe. If this time is to be different, she will have to manage her
addictions and mental health issues.

"I'm depressed so I use and then I get more depressed because I used -
it's like a vicious cycle," said Karen during a late March interview
at her home, a tidy but sparsely furnished subsidized townhouse.

"Most of the times I used drugs was because I could care less if I
lived or died, I was so depressed it didn't matter," added Karen,
which is not her real name.

She finished rehab two months ago and has not yet relapsed. But there
have been triggers, flashbacks, feelings of severe depression and heartache.

While in treatment, Karen declared that if her boyfriend Rick used
while she was in rehab, he could "hit the road, because I'm not gonna
jeopardize my recovery and lose my children again."

Then she received a phone call from her mom, notifying her that two
drug dealers had been found squatting in her apartment - they had
taken over her place after Rick ripped them off and
disappeared.

Her mom discovered the duo when she went over to Karen's house to feed
her cat. Police were eventually called and the locks changed.

True to her word, she broke up with Rick, saying: "He's only gonna
bring me down." She ended the relationship in a handwritten letter
stating, "I'm sick of the lies and the bulls---, I thought the lies
were over."

It was a big step for Karen - one that elicited cheers from the other
women in rehab and cautious optimism from counsellors.

While at Hope Place, she made other great strides, confronting her
past in a way she had never done.

She recalled how her grandfather would follow her around the house,
hoping to be alone with her.

She recounted having attempted suicide about 25 times, saying: "I've
drank enough booze and did enough drugs to kill 10 horses and nothing."

She spoke for the first time about being raped at a party, recalling
how after a night of drinking and smoking pot she went to lie down and
was followed into the room by two boys.

"I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, but I knew what was going
on."

She revealed how "my whole life I just felt alone" and believed the
birth of her children would be the impetus to get clean, saying: "I
never really had anything to lose before."

But the drug use continued, even while pregnant.

And after a lifetime of hating her father, she forgave him, saying she
could empathize with his battle and understand his demons.

"He was going through the same thing I was: the addiction and trying
to kill himself. The only difference between the two of us is he
succeeded and I didn't."

When she left Hope Place, she was determined to mark another
difference by staying clean.When she arrived home, she feared finding
drug paraphernalia left by Rick and the dealers, which could act as
triggers, and asked her superintendent to escort her inside. Hidden in
places such as her underwear drawer and her son's room, she found
spoons, scoops and a pipe - remnants of cooking crack.

"I lost it," she said a few days after returning home, adding she was
too angry to be triggered into using.

And the drug dealers were neighbours from across the street, so each
day she kept her curtains closely drawn, blocking out the steady
stream of addicts, flowing in and out, transfixed on getting their
next fix.

The weeks that followed were difficult. Her doctor increased the
dosage of her antidepressant, which began counteracting with the mood
stabilizer she was on. She plunged deeper into depression. In two
months she had packed on 24 pounds, reaching 225.

The toughest part is the loneliness, she says. She has no friends and
knows she shouldn't isolate herself, so she fills her days attending
support groups and medical appointments, and visiting her children.

Even when she is whiling away the time, she experiences regular
flashbacks and finds little respite at night, when visions of lifting
the crack pipe to her mouth find their way into her dreams.

When the memories are especially intense, she takes a bath, or calls
her mom or sponsor, who are on her list of key supporters.

It's possible that Rick's name could find its way onto that list. She
says she will be giving him a "second chance," in part because he also
went back into rehab.

"I did worse to a lot of other people. Everybody forgave me, and he
forgave me, too. So I should forgive him."