Heroin.  It's a drug with an addiction so powerful that one Youngstown woman begged a Judge to send her to jail just so she could get clean.

"There's no help out there anymore.  There's a three-month waiting list for any rehab around here because of the heroin epidemic.  It was faster to go to jail."

Determined to get her life back, as well as her three-year-old son, 25-year-old Kayla Dempsey made a desperate and somewhat unusual decision.  The admitted heroin addict pleaded guilty to possession of a drug instrument and requested that Youngstown Judge Elizabeth Kobly throw her in jail for 30 days so she could get clean.

"There's people somewhere, there has to be people somewhere that are willing to help.  Judge Kobly is not known for her kindness.  I was not expecting her to agree to 30 days, and when she did I felt so blessed.  And I knew right then and there somebody cares," Dempsey said.

The Austintown woman says she first became addicted at 18, and was able to clean herself up for 5 years. But it's when she was prescribed pain killers and ran out that the need for heroin surfaced.

"You don't feel anything.  You don't feel no physical pain, you don't feel no emotional pain.  Nothing but a super euphoric just happy feeling," Dempsey said.

Dempsey says she's watched friends die waiting for detox beds to open, and knew this time for her this could be a matter of life or death.

"Jail's maybe not the best place to detox but it was my fastest option.  With the Warren and Trumbull County scare and all the bad drugs going around, I didn't want to risk it no more," Dempsey said.
 
Now, the Austintown woman says even though she's behind bars she's finally feeling clean and hopeful.  But she realizes her biggest challenge lies ahead.

Dempsey says, "It's not going to be the time in here that makes the difference.  It's going to be what I do when I get out."