In 1992 Auburn Sandstrom was 29, the mother of a three-year-old son, caught in an abusive marriage and an addict. One night she hit rock bottom. She was writhing in pain on the floor of her filthy apartment wrestling with withdrawal from a drug she had been addicted to for several years. In her hand, she gripped a ragged piece of paper with a phone number of a counselor her mother had mailed to her in a rare moment of connection. In total despair, Sandstrom called the number. It rang. A man answered.