AFTER SLAYING A DRAGON, IT'S BACK TO BEING 'MOMMY'

There is a magical, precious alone time that mothers have once their
children are asleep. After the frenzy of the day - juggling office
politics and soccer practice and nutritious meals - the moment to
simply stop and inhale is savored. It is a chance to indulge in a good
novel or catch up with work, knowing their children are safe in their
beds.

For Katie Rubin, that solitary time was used to smoke crack or snort
cocaine.

"I would go upstairs, kiss my kids good night, read them a story and
go downstairs and get high," said Ms. Rubin, 43, who started using
drugs at dance clubs in college.

To the casual observer, the friendly neighbor or an indifferent
co-worker, Ms. Rubin's life seemed scripted from a half-hour sitcom.
She was beautiful, with elegant features and a trim figure. She was
smart, with a nursing degree from New York University. She had two
adorable daughters and a handsome husband from an affluent family.

"I was a PTA mom," she said. "I would show up for open schools high as
a kite, but able to put on a straight face and have you not know."

But as Hollywood dramas often remind us, pathos simmers just below
cheerful "good mornings" and minivan trips. Addiction is embedded in
the rhythms of everyday life. At the hospital where Ms. Rubin worked
after graduating from college, fellow addicts ranged from the porters
to the doctors, she said.

"Any corner of the hospital you turned, you could get high," she
said.

Over time the facade buckled. She separated from her husband, who had
introduced her to crack. Ms. Rubin's mother stepped in two years
later, in 2000, to take custody of two granddaughters, Nicole and
Samantha. Ms. Rubin was happy to let her daughters go.

"It was less of a headache," she said, pausing. Tears welled up. "It
was less money I would have to spend taking care of my children and
more money to get high."

She had given up on being a mother. There would be no more bedtime
hugs, shopping trips or meals to cook in their Brooklyn home. "They
were upset, they were hurt," she remembered. "My kids loved me
unconditionally, but it wasn't enough to stop at that time."

Her only love at the time was the desire to experience the euphoria
from the first time she got high - a quest some addicts call "chasing
the dragon."

Three years ago, three of the people closest to her - her sister, her
husband and her father - died in rapid succession. The pain pushed her
to the numbing comfort of heroin and a life on the streets. But even
then, she called her daughters regularly to see how they were doing,
as though she were away on vacation.

Repeated brushes with the law landed her in Rikers Island and a
one-year alternative drug program called Serendipity II, which is run
by New York Therapeutic Communities, a member of the Federation of
Protestant Welfare Agencies. The federation is one of the seven
charities supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

Help from a counselor, Brenda J. Evans, guided her to finish the
program in May, free of drugs for the first time in more than two
decades. She was back at home with her daughters, ready to be a mother.

The Neediest Cases provided Ms. Rubin with $690 to buy Nicole, 18,
school supplies for her freshman year at Pennsylvania State University.

As for Samantha, now 13, she was proud to show off her mother at
summer camp. But Samantha is worried that her mother may disappear
again. "She'll call out: 'Mommy! Are you sleeping?' " Ms. Rubin said.
"I feel great. I missed hearing that word: 'Mommy.'