The problem is, Martin says, she stopped growing emotionally the minute she started using meth. "So I'm about 15 or 16 right now."

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Jennifer Crue is a young mother who nearly lost her little boy to DCFS because of meth; this from a young woman who graduated with a 3.95 grade point average from Hillcrest High School. She's working hard at a sober life now, staying away from friends who use and looking forward to college and a clean life.

She's a realist though. Sitting at a drug treatment facility with two other recovering female meth addicts, she talks about how strongly the drug beckons. "The three of us are sitting here right now. In one year if you come back one, maybe two of us will be back at it," she said. "No, make that six months. Maybe even three months. A couple of us will be using."

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Alisha Montano, 20, looks like the antithesis of a drug addict.

Her shiny black hair, soft features and pleasant voice seem out of place in the Volunteers of America detox center. But there is pain behind the dark brown eyes of a young woman whose daily meth habit a year ago reduced her to an 86-pound stick figure.

Meth made her jealous and possessive, so she and her boyfriend isolated themselves. "We wouldn't talk to anyone but the dope man."

The dope made her supermom, so she thought. She turned on movies to keep her three young children entertained. She occupied herself with word searches and house cleaning, going room to room picking up one thing at a time.

Eventually, she lost all focus. The only thing she was super at was getting high.

She's in a residential drug treatment now, trying to end a cycle of using, quitting and relapsing. The psychological pull to the drug is still powerful. "But when I think about meth now, I'm OK. I don't want to leave treatment," she said. "It ruined my whole entire life, but I love it. I hate it, but I love it."

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Sarah Hughes drank and smoked marijuana through her teenage years but stayed away from meth. That drug scared her. Still, she snorted a line once at age 24. Then she started smoking and eventually injecting it.

"You don't have any fear of it once it becomes your buddy. It's very liberating."

Then her world fell apart.

Hughes, 28, now resides at the Cottonwood Family Treatment Center with her 2-year-old daughter. She is up at 6 a.m. doing chores, preparing meals and attending parenting and job skills classes. Chaos has given way to order in her life. She and others in the home deal with the guilt of not caring for their children in the past.