At the end of the house meeting, Jean asks if anybody wants to do an appreciation circle. The women all nod. Jean starts, "I appreciate all of you. I appreciate that I get to work here, and I appreciate what an incredible place Sponsors is because of the women like you who live here."

"This place is so great." "Yeah, you got that right." "Definitely." The women speak on top of one another.

"I want to say, I really love this place. I love it here." Donna speaks up over the din in a gravelly voice. "I've been clean for 10 days now." The rest of the women break out in a hearty applause. "I really love it here. Thank you all for letting me stay. I really want to stay clean."

She says she wants to. But for Donna it doesn’t work out this time. She stays at the house for nine days, and then, one night, she just doesn’t come home. That happens. Every one of the women at Sponsors is there because she chooses to be there. Every one is on probation or parole, almost every one is addicted to drugs or alcohol. To stay at Sponsors, each must make a commitment to change her life, to give up drugs, to either work or attend school full-time, to submit to urinalysis twice a week, to complete house chores, and to put half of each paycheck into the Sponsors savings account. It is a major commitment, and simply more than many are ready or able to make.

But then there are women like Mari.

Mari is a large woman, probably six feet tall and heavyset. She has a beautiful, clear skinned face with a natural glow. Her smile is compelling, and she flashes it often. She wears stylish dresses and sandals. Her dad is the Chief of Police in the small town where she grew up. Her mom also works for the police department. Mari was an honors student in high school, then married young and had two children, a boy and a girl. Her husband smoked marijuana and she soon embraced his habit. Then he had a mental breakdown and had to be admitted to the state hospital. A short while later, her grandmother fell ill. So Mari became the caretaker, buying the groceries, cooking the meals, and generally caring for both of her grandparents as well as her two children. Because she saw herself as her grandmother's guardian, Mari didn't think there would be a problem when she began to sign the checks to pay the bills that her grandmother was too weak to sign. Unfortunately, the bank disagreed.

Mari was arrested for forgery, and although she claims that her grandfather didn't want her to be charged with a crime, she was indicted. As a part of a negotiated settlement, she pled guilty and was told that she would be allowed to be on house arrest with an electronic bracelet so that she could care for her two children, who were then 3 and 5 years old. But a week before the sentencing, she got a call from the Department of Family Services saying that her children were going to be taken away from her because she used methamphetamine.

But Mari didn't use methamphetamine. She freely admitted that her drug of choice was marijuana, but that was it. She offered to do any type of testing they wanted to prove she was not a meth user, but the case manager told the judge that there was documentation of her drug use. Her children were placed in the custody of their paternal grandmother, and Mari went to jail. She did her time, and when she got out and had the opportunity to go to Sponsors., she grabbed it. She decided she would have a better chance of getting back her children if she had the support she could get in the program. She enrolled in community college, attends full-time, sees her kids once a week, does her UAs, and attends her NA meetings. She is committed to doing whatever it takes to stay clean and to get custody of her children.

Mari is one of the ones you are sure is going to make it. She has the family support and background to help her fight through the depression that resulted from losing her grandmother, her children and her liberty all in a very short period of time. She is thriving in school and has single-handedly created a garden in the backyard at Sponsors. She is proud of the neat rows of peppers and beans and tomatoes and takes care to make sure that the sprinkler hits just right so that the plants get the water they need.