HILO, Hawai'i — A year ago, Madalyn Tavares was "a ball of anger."

She was struggling with an addiction to methamphetamine, she had lost four children to the state's Child Welfare Services, and she was seething at a system she believes wrongly put her children up for adoption.

When she gave birth earlier this year, a Child Welfare case worker was there with a police officer again, ready to take her fifth child. Tavares held her baby daughter and told the case worker, "I can't let you take her unless you're taking me, too."

This time, things turned out differently. Tavares had been in drug treatment and stayed off drugs during her pregnancy, and a group of Hilo social service providers including Faith Against Drugs and Under His Wings Street Ministry vouched for her. They described profound changes they had seen in her over the past year.

The agencies connected her with support ranging from Bible study classes to a snug one-bedroom apartment in downtown Hilo, and with their backing, Child Welfare Services agreed Tavares should be allowed to keep her youngest child.

This year, she is spending Thanksgiving in a transitional housing complex in Hilo, where she has reorganized her life to make a new start with her 3-month-old daughter, Shaiana.

Tavares is clean and sober, and starts community college classes in January. It is a fresh start for her, and a promising beginning for her tiny new family.

"All of my spiritual guides have been the best that I could have, and of course I thank God, because without him I would not be here," Tavares said. "Without him, I wouldn't have anything."

It was Tavares who sought out Faith Against Drugs, a four-year-old supportive living program run from a converted hotel in downtown Hilo. The program pulls in 20 people at a time from around the Big Island, usually people who are mentally ill, have a drug problem or are medically fragile but have nowhere else to go.

Vern Faxon, executive director of Faith Against Drugs, said the program does not promote any particular religion, but encourages residents to go to a church of their choosing. The name of the program is an acknowledgement that "the spiritual component is important in people's recovery," he said.

The program provides safe shelter, helps residents to rebuild their personal support groups, and helps them develop routines where they do something meaningful with their time. That may involve a job, volunteer work or drug treatment or mental health programs, he said. The average length of stay for a resident is about six months.

"We help to stabilize them, on their medications or into treatment, get them working again ... help them to start taking advantage of the resources that they need," Faxon said.

Tavares was one of Faxon's more challenging cases. "She was totally irritated, she wouldn't listen to anybody. I don't know why I took her in," Faxon said. "I used to kick her out of my meetings because she would be so argumentative."

She also relapsed shortly after she joined Faith Against Drugs. Tavares' boyfriend was released from jail, she quit the program, rejoined the boyfriend and returned to drug use. In less than a month, she was back at Faith Against Drugs to try again, and then discovered she was pregnant.

After that, "I was determined to stay sober," she said. "That's when I knew what I wanted, because I couldn't lose another child, there was no way." With her daughter squirming on her lap, Tavares said simply: "She saved me."

Tavares enrolled in a drug treatment program based on Hawaiian cultural values, did volunteer work at Under His Wings, and has made steady progress ever since.

Now Tavares has a long-range goal of perhaps becoming a probation officer or a paralegal. "I see me making it, I don't know in what yet," she said. "I want to succeed, I don't want to be just another drug-head who lost everything, and go down with it."

It is a marked turnaround for someone who began using drugs in elementary school in Waimea. As Faxon put it, "She has come through a transformation; she does operate from a different place."

"Now I want to give my thanks to people in the community," Tavares said. "To people who went through the things that I've gone through, know that you can still yet make it."

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.