"I feel like I'm two years old, really," the speaker says nervously, running her hands through her hair. Her name is Rosalie and she is a 34-year-old woman from Holyoke, not a two-year-old.
   Her words come out in a rush.
   "In a lot of ways I'm just a child," she says. But in a lot of other ways, Rosalie has lived beyond her 34 years. The slight streaks of gray running through her hair and the old look in her eyes are hints of the life she has lived.

   She's fiddles with a pencil that's lying on the table, turning it over and over. When she speaks about being two years old, Rosalie is actually referring to the two-year anniversary of being drug free and sober, following a lifetime of living on the streets and in correctional facilities while she struggled with her addictions.

   Drugs and alcohol as a primary focus began when she was a teenager, moving from foster home to foster home.
   "I had nothing when I was growing up," she says, eyes down.
   Although Rosalie made several attempts to kick her drug habit over the years, nothing seemed to produce long-term results until about a year ago when she came to interview at Weston Rehab Center, a program located on the grounds of Mont Marie in Holyoke.

   ...For the employees of Weston, their experience there may be filled with "firsts." This may be the first time they held a job for a month straight, or the first time they were reliant on only themselves.
   "For me, this is the first time in a long time I've lived alone, because my paycheck from here has allowed me to get my own place," says Rosalie. "I've always lived in foster homes with a bunch of other kids, or in prison with thousands of other women, or on the streets with other addicts."

   According to Rosalie, independence takes a lot of getting used to. "There's been times when I'd think 'Who am I fooling? I can't do this.' I'll never be anything more than I've been."
   ...The ultimate goal of the program is to prepare the women for "life on its own terms," as Rosalie would call it. That means holding down a job, being a responsible parent if you have children, paying attention to your health and well-being and building healthy relationships and other relationships.

   ...Overall, Weston Rehab is a stepping stone and a support system for those women who need to get all the components of their lives together before venturing out into the world clean and sober.
   "If I didn't get an interview here I'd be back out there," says Rosalie. "For some people it's just a breeze to live life on life's terms. But for some of us it's not."     

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