As downward spirals go, Mark’s was early and precipitous. He first tried alcohol at 13, began binge drinking shortly afterward, and graduated to pot, Percocet, then heroin. When he was 22, snorting drugs alone in a cheap motel room, he passed out on the floor, where he lay for hours in a position that cut off circulation to his right leg. It had to be amputated above the knee. While recovering in the hospital Mark had unfettered access to opiates, in severe pain but almost enjoying the little button on the morphine pump, he said. He went home with fistfuls of pills — Percocet, klonopin, morphine — and continued using until his mother finally called the police to report he was stealing from her.For years MARK1 has been in and out of rehab and jail, each time returning home to the sick, panicky self-loathing it seemed only drugs could calm. Now, for the first time, he says, he’s receiving effective treatment for his addiction — in jail. Serving 12 months for the theft, he’s participating in the Rhode Island Department of Corrections’ medication-assisted treatment program, the newest and most far-reaching of a handful of such programs around the country.

[For more of this story, written by Beth Schwartzapfel, go to https://www.themarshallproject...=hp-1-111#.mzZnJE1IH]