SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Toni-Lynn Buggins-Godin squeezes her mother's hand and her face lights up as she talks about plans for the future.

Toni-Lynn Buggins-Godin with her husband Robert Godin, left, and her mother Debra Buggins, right. The family reunited in Yellowknife last week and Toni-Lynn has been reconnecting after losing almost a decade to drug addiction. - Elizabeth McMillan/NNSL photo

It's a happy time for Toni-Lynn. She's expecting a baby in October and last week she returned to her hometown to introduce her husband to her family.

It was the first time her mother had seen her clean and sober in almost a decade. Toni-Lynn, now 27, is well known in Yellowknife, but for all the wrong reasons.

At 18, she tried crack cocaine and got hooked immediately. A vicious cycle of arrests, rehabilitation, stints in psych wards and escapes from the people who wanted to help followed. Toni-Lynn put all her energy towards getting out of jail and getting her next fix.

"I was into crack cocaine, into prostitution, trying to survive for 10 years," she said.

She took the drug intravenously until her veins collapsed. She ended up on life support more than once. Still she kept using.

Along the way she racked up dozens of criminal charges including theft, driving under the influence, and drug possession - and spent almost five years total in custody.

In the fall of 2008, Toni-Lynn gained notoriety by escaping from the jail in Fort Smith where she was serving a sentence for property-related offences.

Sheila Jewell, the woman she escaped with, was arrested six days later but Toni-Lynn remained at large. For months, even her family didn't know where she was.

Toni-Lynn's mother, Debra Buggins, a social worker, said it was heartbreaking seeing her daughter's struggle with addiction.

"You see people on the street, in bad, bad shape. That was Toni-Lynn," she says. "We never gave up but we always thought our baby girl was coming home in a wooden box."

For years, Debra couldn't sleep through the night out of worry. Sometimes the best she could do was turn Toni-Lynn into the police because then she knew she would be safe in jail.

The addiction affected the whole family.

"We were all so hurt. Even though she was around physically, we didn't have her at all. She was always missing at family dinners, family pictures," Debra says.

But they never gave up hope.

Neither did someone else. Robert Godin met Toni-Lynn two years ago when she was panhandling in downtown Yellowknife.

"I could see she had lots of hurt inside her. I also saw something good in her," he says.

They became friends and eventually got engaged but even Robert's patience ran out. Last winter he told Toni-Lynn that unless she cleaned up, he couldn't have her in his life. Offering one last chance, he sent $600 for her to join him in New Brunswick.

"I made a choice and jumped on that bus," she says. "At the time, I didn't know how ready I was. Maybe you can never be ready; you just have to do it."

The small francophone community of Tracadie-Shelia, N.B., offered Toni-Lynn the fresh start she needed. The Baptist Church welcomed her and the language barrier prevented her from buying drugs. But the biggest difference, she said, was the way people viewed her. They didn't see a drug addict. They saw her as the compassionate, confident, and loving woman she realized she could be.

"You're not automatically judged ... you get to know yourself, the real you," she says.

She sought counselling and began reconnecting with her family. Robert and Toni-Lynn married last June. Not wanting to run from her past any longer, she had her outstanding NWT charges transferred to New Brunswick and pleaded guilty to all of them. She spent the next six months in jail and the following four months under house arrest.

The couple moved to Alberta earlier this month. They are both born-again Christians and Toni-Lynn attributes her recovery to God and the support she's received, but also to her own resolve.

She'd tried to get clean before for other people. This time it was for herself.

"It's been a journey and it'll continue to be one," she says.

Now pregnant with the couple's first child, Toni-Lynn wants to put her past behind her but she doesn't want to forget what she's been through. She plans to write an autobiography about her experiences and wants to show people it's possible to break the cycle of destruction and addiction.

"My heart now is so huge for people in that lifestyle. My heart goes out to them. I know what it's like. I know how hard it is to come out of it, but I know how much it's worth and it's possible, because I've done it."

Initially she was worried about coming back to Yellowknife, the place that held so many temptations in the past, temptations she never turned down.

Instead of picking up the phone to call former connections, Toni-Lynn went straight to a healing workshop with her mother and other family members.

Debra says that for the first time they've been able to do things many families take for granted, like go shopping or talk over a coffee.

"It's like a dream to see her clean and sober," she says.

Even though it was years before she reached the point where she wanted to change, Toni-Lynn says she'll always be grateful for the second chances she received - from the judges who sentenced her, from Robert, and from her family.

She wants to pass on her hope to others.

"Don't give up. Life is worth it," she says.