In the northern corner of Fresno amid $200,000 homes in newly constructed subdivisions with names such as "New Century" is a small dirt-and-gravel road that leads down a short hill. The road takes visitors along the edge of an orange grove and stops at a single-wide trailer. Once the car engine stops, the only sound is the croaking of frogs from a nearby pond. It's a clear day in May.

A brown-haired woman steps out of the trailer, a tow-headed baby on her hip.

"Hi. I'm Nicki," she says, smiling, and for a brief, fragile moment, she looks happy.

Nicki Lujano is a recovering meth addict. She is 37 years old and the mother of four children by four different fathers. She hasn't worked in more than six years. She hasn't paid her bills in close to nine.

Once inside, sitting with her boyfriend, Dane DowDell, Lujano starts to explain how she came to this place. She reels off her situation with efficiency, as if she were reading a grocery list.

"You've screwed your credit up. You've lost your kids. You've lost your car. You don't have a place to live. You let someone give you a screwed-up haircut. You're losing your teeth."

Screwing up was the easy part. Now with more than a year of clean time, the hard work is under way.

"This is a slow process," Lujano says, "this undoing of what you did."

Nicki Lujano has been in drug treatment since April 1998. Her patchwork of substance abuse started when she was 15, with alcohol and marijuana. She has kicked around from place to place -- Southern California, Oregon, Virginia and back to Fresno. In each place, a new drug found her. Lujano will tell you she used "responsibly" until 1991, holding down a job and keeping up appearances. In 1993, she did her first line of meth.

"I can't remember the very first time," she says. "I had a friend who kept trying to get me to use, but I said 'No. No. No. No. No.' I guess I stopped."

Crank slid easily into her life. First on the weekends. Then two days a week. Then whenever she wanted to party, which was always. The next five years were spent in a fog of meth and parties. But even before that, all she really liked to do was get loaded.

Since her teen-age experimentations, Lujano's only real clean time was in the late 1980s in Virginia. Two driving-under-the-influence convictions take most of the credit for those three years of sobriety.

Her current round of sobriety also is courtesy of the courts. But she says it's different. This time she knows the score. She knows what she'll lose.

"I know now if I use I'll pay the consequences. Unfortunately, my kids will, too."

Her children -- Kristina, 1; Chelsey, 3; Aymee, 4; and Catelyn, 11 -- are her goal. The only children who live with them regularly are Kristina, DowDell and Lujano's daughter together, and Dalton, DowDell's 9-year-old son with another woman.

Baby Kristina crawls across the brown carpet of the small, dark living room. The view keeps it from being a cave: Golden hills roll gently toward the still pond; a treehouse stands ready for after-school occupants; past the pond, though out of sight, is the San Joaquin River.

They get little company.

"That's why I like this place. If you don't know where it is, you'll never find it," DowDell says. "People would never know from the looks of this neighborhood to find this."

A friend, one of their few clean and sober acquaintances, helped them find the trailer in November. It used to be the home of the orchard groundskeeper. When he left, it was creaking and leaking. The place came to them as a cheap fixer-upper. Today, it's neat and friendly.

Lujano picks up Kristina and kisses her gently on the head.

"I can't remember any of my  girls crawling," she says. "They were just bringing themselves up."

Nicki Brenda Lujano was born May 9, 1963, at what was then called Valley Medical Center, the same hospital her father worked in for 35 years. Her parents -- dad a supplies manager, mom a bartender -- never were married.

After earning her high school diploma, Lujano had a string of jobs, including stints as a cashier, paper laminator and data entry worker at a dashboard instruments company. But when the meth started working on her, she stopped working.

In 1998, she entered the welfare-to-work program GAIN, Greater Avenues to Independence. It offered to help her clean up her drug problem before she started job training. She agreed. But she still used, on and off. She would stop long enough to pass her drug test, then start again.

It caught up to her in May 1999 when she was arrested and charged with felony possession. She was placed into Drug Court, Fresno's program to defer prison for first-time drug offenders.

Then in September, two of her girls' fathers took her to family court. She took a hair follicle test and failed. It came back chronic. The results shocked her because she had stopped using a few months before -- but years of drug use don't fade in a few months.

She lost Aymee and Chelsey.

It was what she needed to change.

"Everything has been so drastic," she says. "But believe it or not, it was a blessing."

Lujano attends the King of Kings Women's Program twice a week -- Tuesdays and Thursdays. The groups meet for an hour and a half each session. There she gets drug and alcohol education and parenting classes and talks about how she feels.

She'll graduate this month. If all goes as planned, Lujano will go before a judge with all her certificates, paperwork and recommendations to get her two younger daughters back.

Until then, she goes through the daily heartache of living without them.

Amazing things can happen in the most nondescript rooms. A rectangular table and several plastic chairs dominate the space. They are framed by a TV in one corner and an infant-rocking swing in the other. It is a quiet Friday in June at the King of Kings Women's Program.

"How are you feeling today?" Juanita Myers asks.

"Fine," Lujano replies.

They talk briefly about Lujano's mouth. She recently has had three teeth filled and three teeth pulled. (Doctors speculate that chronic meth users lose their teeth because of poor hygiene or that something in meth weakens their gums). Because Lujano is an addict, the only pain pills they give her are Motrin. In all, the doctor wants to pull nine teeth. The chitchat ends.

"Lately, we've been talking about how you don't have that glow you had before you started the program. Can you tell me what happened in between the time you completed the program the first time and now?" Myers asks.

"All of it?" Lujano asks back, hoping for a no.

Lujano graduated March 1 from the King of Kings Women's Program. The next day, she came back in. DowDell had relapsed. He lost his job and had too much free time.

"That brought back old feelings," Lujano says. "He's been through so many programs, and this is my first program."

"But we are talking about your recovery," Myers counters. "He still has things to lose, but you have none."

Lujano dutifully lists the things she has to lose: "My kids. My home. My friends."

"But the most important thing you can lose?"

"My sobriety."

"And what happens when we give up on ourselves?"

"We get caught up again."

"So everything we worked for is nothing."

"That's what sucks," Lujano says, dropping her head to the tabletop.

And so it goes. Throughout, Myers holds a black pen at ready above a yellow legal pad.

She writes nothing down.

Myers has been talking to women like Nicki for three years. She is the only counselor at the program, which provides outpatient care for women who are pregnant or have young children. Three people work in the compact office in Fresno -- Myers, an assessment counselor and a day care assistant. She sees 10 women per group, up to two groups a day.

Like so many of her counterparts, Myers is herself a recovering addict. While her drug was crack, her road back was just like everyone else's. Myers has five years in recovery. She didn't use any formalized treatment programs, instead relying on Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and her family.

Each addict who comes into treatment has her own reason. Sometimes it's thanks to a judge. Sometimes it's the loss of children. Sometimes it's because she just can't do it anymore.

But once inside, the treatment is remarkably similar. Meth addicts don't have the option of drug therapy like heroin users. If they come in on a high, the first few days to weeks are spent in detoxification. Anti-depressants or sleeping pills can be prescribed to combat the initial emptiness of stopping. But most of the time is just spent sleeping.

Once the program starts, a lot of time is spent in chairs. Most county-run treatment programs are based on the 12-step philosophy and the idea of addicts helping addicts. A counselor guides a group through the process. Education on drugs, nutrition, parenting and sexually transmitted diseases is part of the agenda. But it's really about sharing. It helps just to know someone else hurts like you do.

In the conference room, Lujano and Myers continue their exchange. Most of her talks with Myers are done in group, but strangers are not welcome.

Everything is complicated. Even getting a car to come to the session is a struggle. Though DowDell has a car, she hates to ask for it. Instead, she borrows a friend's beige Toyota hatchback. Duct tape is supporting the driver-side door.

Lujano hopes to start classes at Fresno City College in the fall. Her goal is to finish a two-year program and become an X-ray technician. She was going to start this summer.

The forms got sent in, but she never got around to picking classes.

It has all become frustrating. "I feel like I've got the short end of the stick," she says.

"This program teaches us to be selfish," Myers reminds her. "Sometimes you have to put yourself first. You are forgetting about Nicki. What Nicki wants to do. What Nicki has to do."

But living with DowDell makes every problem a shared experience. They have been together almost two years. They met each other high. They are getting to know each other sober. Some things haven't changed.

"One thing about being an addict is that you know how to manipulate," Myers explains.

"It's all about him. You have to quit focusing on him and trying to make everything perfect for him."

"The manipulation carries on out of addiction?" Lujano asks.

"The character defects don't go away because we aren't using."

Crank consumed Dane DowDell's life for 15 years. He has been in prison five times -- the first for a 1993 petty theft conviction; the subsequent four were for parole violations. Born in the Los Angeles area, he moved to Fresno when he was 7; he's been using drugs since age 11. He has been in and out of treatment programs; Fresno's Tower Recovery program is his latest shot at sobriety.

He met Lujano as her supplier. She would come over and buy drugs. He remembers her as talkative. Things progressed from there. DowDell has been out of prison for more than a year. Now 39, he says it's time to give up his old life. He wants to -- for his kids, for Nicki. He says he is trying.

But quitting the drug doesn't clean up what it did. Lujano's criminal history means the driving job she wanted is out of the question. Bounced checks and unpaid bills have left her credit a mess. Her teeth are falling out. Being sober hasn't proved to be that rewarding yet.

"I did start thinking, 'What is the difference?' I could be getting high and feel like this," Lujano confesses. "I mean, you go through everything in recovery, and now you're toothless."

To combat the cravings, addicts are taught tools -- critical thinking and everyday coping skills that were lost in addiction. Without them, even small problems turn into major dramas.

Myers and Lujano brainstorm answers for Lujano's current funk. She has been feeling trapped at home with the children. But she doesn't feel right asking DowDell to watch them so she can have some free time. A baby-sitter never crossed her mind.

Changing the surroundings is key for users. It also is one of the hardest steps to take. Lujano and DowDell have tried to stay away from old friends. When they were in their whirl of meth, people -- friends -- were constantly popping in and out. Now life is quieter. It's been a welcome change, mostly.

"I'm kind of bored a little bit now and again," Lujano admits.

The boredom isn't just from the quiet. For meth addicts, finding new ways to have fun is a challenge. Meth floods the brain with dopamine; dopamine triggers pleasure. These tidal waves of fun can, over time, damage brain cells. They also can deplete the brain's overall levels of dopamine. The result is exactly the opposite of a user's intent: less pleasure.

The normal things most people enjoy just aren't fun to recovering meth addicts. In essence, they must go through pleasure rehabilitation. The first step is to understand how crank affects their bodies. Once addicts understand the mechanics of their addiction, it's easier to understand why they feel the way they do. This also makes it easier to deal with its fallout. For instance, knowing that the average meth craving lasts only 60 to 90 seconds helps them get through the attack.

But understanding is one thing. Changing is another.

"This process, it's like being born again," Myers tells Lujano.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not saying turn your life upside down, but try something different," Myers suggests.

"Say there is a play. Maybe you go and find out, 'Hey, I like plays.' "

Lujano listens closely, her chin resting in her right hand.

"Do things that are out of character for you. Do something different," Myers says, and then pauses. "You know where we end up if we don't," she says looking at Lujano with a grin. "Hungry, homeless, dirty and tired."

They both laugh. Lujano leans back and then places both hands on the table with a soft thud.

"Well, I've got all my issues taken care of," she says, smiling.

For the moment.

It's a week into July, and the timing seems right to sell off odds and ends. But it is harder to get rid of the past than it seems. A Saturday and Sunday slip by. Perhaps next week.

In the meantime, Lujano is trying "something different." She sees plants popping up all over their property, chrysanthemums and wild flowers. She starts thinking. Gardening is definitely something she has not done before. It turns out fussing over the yard and having dirt under your fingernails can help pass the time.

A neat row of stones lines a newly planted garden surrounding the trailer's front steps. Lujano also plants three trees -- a plum, a hibiscus and one with large green leaves (she doesn't know its name). The tallest stands more than 5 feet; the smallest comes barely to the waist. Much care is taken planting, transplanting, fertilizing and watering.

Despite her best efforts, the leaves on all three arewilting softly. Nicki Lujano watches over them quietly.

"I hope they make it."