Relapse. Overdose. Saving lives: How a Detroit addict and mom of 3 is finding her purpose

Editor's note: This is a content warning. The following package contains extremely graphic descriptions, images and video of drug use and addiction, as well as discussion of sexual assault and suicide.

Take it easy, Amanda tells the visitor.

But the visitor, a middle-age woman from the suburbs with expensive-looking highlights brushed through her hair, doesn't listen.

Sitting at the kitchen table in the brick bungalow on Detroit's east side where Amanda stays, the visitor fills her syringe fuller than Amanda thinks is wise. She eases it deftly into the top of her right hand, pulls back the plunger until blood seeps into the barrel indicating she has hit a vein and then pushes in the heroin. The drug works quickly. In less than a minute's time, the visitor's words are thick and slurred. Slowly, she collapses, her head melting onto the heavy black table, just missing the hunting knife and mirror she'd laid there earlier, next to her buffet of vodka, juice and drugs. She begins to snore, the loud rumble a sign of overdose ― which is exactly what Amanda was trying to prevent. The woman looks pale, maybe even a little gray.