PORTLAND, Ore. -- Before drug addiction got the best of her, 26-year-old Lindsey Hood, was a Blazer Dancer, a college student and was holding down a job. She was also struggling with a four-year dependence on pain pills.
“I got to the point where I wasn't able to hide it anymore,” said Hood. “I needed them so bad that I had to do more in order to get them.”
After a brief stint in rehab, Hood began using heroin and meth. She also started committing crimes, including identity theft, to support her habits. Eventually, she ended up in the Clackamas County Jail.
“When I made my phone calls to my family, no one really wanted to talk to me anymore,” she said of the moment she described as hitting rock bottom.
A judge and Hood’s parole officer ordered her into Clackamas County's Corrections Substance Abuse Program or C-SAP. For the next year, she lived with nine other women who were also on their way to recovery.
“At first I was a little bit resentful just because I felt like the last couple months I'd been doing OK,” said Hood about entering the program. “After about a week, I was thankful.”
Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts helped reinstate C-SAP for women in 2009. Since then he's watched about 100 women graduate from the program, which has at least a 70-percent success rate.
“It's very heartfelt when you hear folks say, ‘This program really did save my life,’” said Roberts.
Tax dollars fund two-thirds of C-SAP, which is the only program of its kind in Oregon. It’s an investment Roberts said is returned when those who’ve made it through the program stop committing crimes in the community. He said many who’ve completed C-SAP had been some of the most prolific criminal offenders.
”A lot of times folks think, ‘Hey, just lock them up and throw away the key,’” said Roberts, “But the reality of the situation is, that's somebody's daughter, that's somebody's mother.”
Hood has been sober for nearly two years now.
“Just the fact that my parents can go to bed at night not wondering if we're dead or alive is a huge bonus,” she said.
She said sobriety has its own challenges, but she’s free of addiction, free of guilt and free to share her story with others like her.
“I've found that I've given a lot of hope to people and it's also given me hope."