Crystal Thompson knew she was in trouble.

Detectives were at her home, asking about the car they'd found. It was stolen. And someone told police she was responsible.

However, the trip to jail -- her second ar-rest in three weeks -- wasn't the only cost of her methamphetamine use. She was paying a much higher price for the drug she'd snorted at 13 and injected at 14: Her daughter.

At 9 months old, Shawna was sent to foster care, where she would learn to call someone else "mum mum."

"I missed her first steps. I was in jail for her first birthday party," says Thompson, who has since married and now goes by the last name of Helderman.

But her daughter being taken away wasn't enough of an incentive for Helderman to stay clean.

At 18, drugs had become a way of life.

From age 11, she began skipping school to get drunk and smoke pot with friends.

At 12, she was in and out of group homes.

By 13, she was introduced to meth. Within a year, she shot up for the first time.

"I did not have much of a childhood," Helderman says, adding she doesn't blame her mom -- just herself.

In and out of trouble -- which ranged from shoplifting to running away -- at 14, she was placed in the Indiana Girls School, an Indianapolis correctional facility for juvenile females. "My probation officer had had enough," Helderman recalls.

Soon after her release, she ran away from home. Before long, she began using meth and marijuana again.

She quit school at ninth grade.

At 15, she stole a pickup truck -- her first of many vehicle thefts. The act landed her in the juvenile center -- a place she'd come to know all too well.

Little by little, her drug use worsened. She had to use more and more to get a comparable high.

"It just got to the point it was non-stop," she said, recalling that her body ached and eyes burned. "After a while, there is no high that you want."

She used drugs throughout her first pregnancy, once in a while turning to prescription drugs to come down from the high.

And she was willing to do whatever necessary to get more meth -- from stealing cars and anhydrous ammonia to making the drug herself.

She remembers sitting before Vigo County Judge Michael H. Eldred in January 2001.

"Crystal, you've got problems," the Superior Court 1 judge said. "You look like you're 30 years old, not 18. Have you looked in the mirror recently?"

The comments "woke me up," Helderman said. "I just looked sick. To think the guys liked me. It was for my drugs. It certainly wasn't for my looks."

Still, she continued to use meth. Her most recent arrest came during a traffic stop in June 2001, when police found about a gram of meth in a car she was driving.

"I knew I was just screwed," she said.

Already on probation for an earlier theft case, she had two other pending cases.

But Helderman got another chance.

After three months of in-patient treatment at Richmond State Hospital, a state-run behavioral health facility, she was allowed to enroll in the Vigo County Drug Court program.

Helderman had to undergo regular drug testing, attend counseling sessions and enroll in a self-help group as well as pay for a portion of the program's costs.

Periodically, she reported to Judge Barbara L. Brugnaux's court for a progress update during one of the weekly drug court sessions, conducted for 1 and 1/2 hours every Wednesday.

Over time, Helderman's focus changed. Drugs no longer rule her life. She has surrounded herself with people in recovery, including her husband of a year, who she met while at Richmond.

"It's still not to the point where it never crosses my mind," she says. "It's like a healing process."

Shawna, now 2, was back in her mother's custody and was joined by 4-month-old sister Shelby and 12-year-old stepbrother Kirsten.

During the interview, Shawna spun around the living room singing at the top of her lungs.

Helderman, now 20, smiled and watched the toddler perform "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

It was a simple moment in life -- but a monumental one for a woman whose life until recently was in shambles.

"It's been a long, hard path," she said.