Donna Jacobsen didn't believe her daughter was addicted to drugs.

Now her daughter is a recovering addict who is five years sober."I tell you this because I like to start my presentations off with hope," Jacobsen said at a Step-Up Tamaqua meeting this week."Recovery works. Recovery is possible," said Jacobsen, a member of the HOPE drug education program of the Center of the Humanistic Change in the Lehigh Valley. HOPE stands for Heroin/Opioid Prevention Education.Her daughter Lindsay started to drink alcohol at 15 when there was a glass left on a table at a party that her parents had."She liked the way that that felt," Jacobsen said.Lindsay was 17 and went to her doctor because she was having anxiety as a high achiever in school. She was going into her senior year and was feeling a lot of pressure. Her doctor prescribed her Xanax without asking about family history of addiction. She was responsible with the medication for a while.She got pregnant a few months before graduating high school and quit taking the Xanax because of the baby.A year and a half after the birth of her baby, Lindsay was left by the father, who went back to New York. She was left alone to take care of the baby. She found that taking the Xanax calmed her down and helped her.The prescription was on automatic renewal. Because she did not take the pills when she was pregnant and for a while after, she had bottles of Xanax piling up in the medicine cabinet.Her parents did not recognize the symptoms of addiction. They chalked it up to stress of having a baby and being in her first year of college."A friend of mine said, 'Your daughter obviously has a drug problem, and I think she is doing heroin or opioids of some kind,' " Jacobsen said."That's impossible," Jacobsen responded. "Not my family."Six months later Jacobsen found out that Lindsay was using heroin intravenously.She was put in a detox program for five days. After Lindsay left, her family thought, "She is all better."She went to intensive outpatient for about two weeks before relapsing. She was asked to leave for noncompliance of the program.A couple of months later Lindsay came to her parents for help again. She was in an inpatient facility for a little over a week and left. She lasted about six months in intensive outpatient before relapsing again.Jacobsen and her family joined a family support group. They learned from other parents that she needed to live in recovery housing after being in an inpatient facility.She lived in the recovery housing for a year and was successful in staying sober.Lindsay now works as an addiction counselor and has moved out of her parents' house. She does not have her daughter full time as she is still working on herself.Her daughter is staying with Jacobsen and her husband for another year before they decide if Lindsay can balance being a mother and working.