In a town where pills are currency, opioid addicts have few options

“Have a blessed one,” a customer shouted from the drive-through, and Jessica, who was 33, hollered back in her raspy twang, “You do the same.”

She had learned in recovery to focus on the positive and not let the old voices get too loud, so on the drive to the courthouse later she thought of the calendar she kept at home on her nightstand. For every day she stayed clean, she marked another X.

“Eighteen months so far,” Jessica said, with both hands on the wheel. “Eighteen months and a week.”

But for every hopeful X, there was still the landscape beyond her windshield. Doctors in Alabama prescribe more opioid painkillers than physicians in any other state in the nation. The heavy prescribers are scattered across Walker County, and Jessica knew their offices. The pills are so enmeshed in the local economy that they’re traded for lawn mowers and school clothes.

Jessica passed the chicken plant where she had once deboned birds and pulled livers for $8.60 an hour, sometimes high on Roxicodone. For as long as she could remember, pills made the intolerable possible. Now, without them, she was a poor woman in a poor town with a swollen right foot from a 10-hour shift and a new key tag from Narcotics Anonymous that said “Clean and Serene for Eighteen months.”

“I’m terrified when I go in there,” Jessica said as she stood outside the courthouse in Jasper.

Anything could go wrong on a drug test. Lost paperwork, a lab error, someone’s bad mood, Jessica was at the mercy of a system that was overwhelmed with addiction. This time she was told that there was no female on duty to collect a urine sample. It would have to be a saliva test. She followed a man to a desk.

“They’re saying tornadoes,” he said, bringing out a saliva kit. Jessica stuck the swab in her mouth. They carried on their small talk, with Jessica garbling her words, until it was time to put the swab back in the see-through container.

The man leaned back in his chair. Jessica was at the edge of hers, staring at the container on the desk. A minute passed, then another. Jessica’s cheeks went red. “This one’s sure taking a while,” she said, forcing a smile. The man’s chair squeaked as he reached for the container. “Okay, we’re good,” he said, dropping it in the trash.

She went out to her truck, one step closer to 19 months.

Jeremy ran a hand through his short silver hair. “How did we end up at the point we did?” he asked.

Jessica gazed out at the yard. It started long before she met Jeremy, beginning with a childhood set on edge by a violent alcoholic father. The only time she felt safe was when she was playing sports. During a high school volleyball game in the 10th grade, she injured her spinal cord and was prescribed OxyContin. By 17, Jessica was crushing and snorting the pills. With a copy of her MRI, Jessica said she could leave a doctor’s office with prescriptions for 120 Roxicodone pills in 30-milligram strength, 90 additional Roxicodones in 15 mg strength, and 120 blue bars of Xanax — a total of 330 pills with fresh refills in a month.

There were periods of being clean followed by relapse. Jessica got pregnant at 26 and had a daughter. But after a second trip to jail for drugs, she lost custody to the girl’s father. Her marriage to Jeremy was supposed to be a fresh start. They had two sons. But neither could stay away from using. One night Jeremy was home giving the boys a bath when he forgot what Jessica told him about always having the pajamas near the tub before running the water. He went to get them, and when he came back to the bathroom, the 1-year-old was underwater.

Paramedics revived the boy, but at the hospital they noticed bruised bite marks. Jeremy explained the bite marks were from his brother, but no one was inclined to believe him after the tub. Jessica showed up at the hospital so high she was stealing packets of sugar and ketchup. Soon after, they lost custody of the boys to Jeremy’s aunt and then Jessica started using heroin. In less than a year, her 30-year-old brother died of an overdose and a storage facility disposed of her life’s possessions for non-payment.

And then 18 months ago, she made a decision. “I couldn’t take one more day of hating myself,” she said. She borrowed some clothes and caught a ride to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

Jeremy got clean, too, and they threw themselves into jobs and fixing up the rental house. They got a swing set for the yard. They put bunk beds in one bedroom and the other they painted girly mauve. Jessica’s daughter, now 7, began visiting, but seeing the boys was more difficult. Jeremy’s aunt limited visitation to four hours every other Sunday at her house, and they still hadn’t told the boys that their father was going to prison.

Jessica was still processing it herself. What would it mean for him to be gone and for everything to be entirely on her? In the morning, she read her daily meditations from NA, looking for illuminations, while Jeremy busied himself with home repairs. He brought in dropcloths and tools. Jessica figured it was good for him to stay busy. “We’re gonna need a shut-off valve for the toilet,” he called from the bathroom. “And a threshold for the door. And the tile.”

Jessica stood in the doorway, her mind spinning on money and how she would soon have even less. “What about a laminate floor?” she asked.

“I don’t want flooring, Jess,” he said, holding a measuring tape. “It’s just 29 extra dollars for a box of tile, with all the things we need?”

She leaned in the doorway of the small bathroom. “We’ll have to do that on down the line,” she said, carefully.

The real Miss Eleanor was sitting behind the desk of a crowded room one evening when Jessica arrived with her notebook. In a system strained by addiction, Eleanor Powers was a part-time contractor charged with leading all the counseling classes in the county’s drug court program. A 72-year-old African American woman, she looked out at the room full of white faces.

“Good evening,” she said. “How was everyone’s week? More than adequate, I hope?”

Jessica raised her hand. “I been on an emotional roller coaster,” she said. “Jeremy’s being taken into custody. I’m so afraid it’s going to change him. I’m fearing it.”

“I’m prayin’ for y’all,” someone said.

“I am, too,” said another.

Jessica explained how she was trying to stay busy, arranging a visit to the detox unit at the local hospital to help other addicts.

“Don’t allow yourself in service to be so focused on others, because your recovery is most important,” Miss Eleanor said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jessica said.

In the back of the room, a woman bounced a baby on her lap. Another volunteered that her husband had relapsed. “He did good until he got back to Walker County,” she said. “Screwed him right up.”

“You can’t blame Walker County,” said a skinny young man.

“People, places and things, you have to get away from them,” Miss Eleanor said, knowing that few in the room had the resources to do that.

A woman in her 40s who worked at Chick-fil-A raised her hand. “When we graduate, that’s gonna be tough,” she said. “This here is a safe haven. The world out there is real scary.”

“That’s why completing this course will only get you to graduate,” Miss Eleanor said. “You’ve got to make the changes within. That old adage, ‘Association can lead to assimilation.’ I believe you can lead a horse to water.”

“But it’s hard,” said a blond woman in her late 50s. “Some people don’t know no other way. I have to tell my own children not to come to my house because they are using. I can see it with my own eyes now.”

They were all in the final phase of the drug court program. Upon graduation, the felony charge that brought them into the program would be dropped. For Jessica, it was too late; she was already a felon. She needed to graduate to show a judge that she was a fit enough mother to get her kids back. The problem was she still owed the county $2,600 in old fines. Until they were paid, she would be ineligible to graduate, and without Jeremy’s income, coming up with $2,600 seemed more remote than ever.

“We’ll see you next week,” she told Miss Eleanor at the end of the class, and drove to Burger King for the overnight shift.

As the boys and their father charged into the blue room with the bunk beds to play a video game, Jessica followed but stayed in a corner, letting Jeremy have his time.

“We’re playing Spider-Man!” Kaleb said when a guest wandered by the door. “It’s what Daddy taught me!”

Jeremy, in work boots and a Crimson Tide ball cap, stood behind each son and helped with the remote control. “Share now, let brother try it,” he said, handing the controller to Kyson. Jessica’s daughter, Makena, was on the floor next to the boys dressing up a white kitten. Jessica leaned against the wall, watching the scene she had always imagined.

“All three of my babies, I tell ya,” she said, smiling. But the afternoon flew by and finally it was time to tell the boys. The five of them went out into the yard, Jessica willing herself to go through with delivering the hard news.

“Daddy’s gotta help someone for a couple years,” Jeremy explained, kneeling in the grass, his hand on each of his sons’ shoulders. “Daddy messed up, and now he’s gotta help some people. But Mommy will still be here.”

Kaleb, the 5-year-old, turned to Jessica. “Is it the classes that help you fix your broken parts?”

Jessica smiled, barely able to speak. “Mommy’s not going anywhere,” she said. “Mommy’s not leaving again.”

“Daddy, when can I come home?” Kaleb asked.

“Son, as soon as Daddy gets all his broken parts fixed,” Jeremy said, and Jessica had to squeeze her eyes shut. In three days, she would be alone, too.

In the courtroom, she held Jeremy’s hand. His plea agreement called for four years in prison, but they were hoping the judge would send him to a work-release program instead. “Do you think he knows how good we been doing?” Jeremy whispered to Jessica.

After nearly a decade of waiting, it was over in 15 minutes. Jessica watched him walk to the bench. Details of the two 2007 robberies were quickly summarized. Jeremy gave a plain apology. The judge peered over his glasses. “It’s my understanding that you’ve done well,” he said. “But one has to pay the consequences.” He had two hours to turn himself in at the county jail.

They got to the jail early, hoping it would show good faith and that someone might notice, but no one did. They stood outside the inmate entrance. They both knew what waited inside — a lot of dope and not a single recovery meeting of any kind. Tears ran down Jessica’s cheeks. Jeremy held her face. “If you got any problems with the house, call me,” he said.

Then a corrections officer appeared. He jangled his keys. “Ready when you are, boss,” he said.