CLAYTON - As far as schedules go, Michelle Schireck's is packed. Every day on her September calendar had a note of somewhere she must go or a task she has to complete.

Just a month before, Schireck's schedule was far less busy. A glance at her past few months shows she hadn't been up to much. One month's calendar has one entry: "Parole officer. 1:30."

For more than 19 years, life had no structure for Schireck, 36, a self-described "dope fiend." After her first line of crank as a teenager, she spent her life in furious pursuit of the drug. Aligning herself with Martinez drug dealers, thieves and even killers. Now 50 days sober for the first time outside her two pregnancies, Schireck said she has found all kinds of things to do to occupy her time.

Schireck is one of the first women to undergo rehabilitation with Safe Havens for Little People, a Concord agency created by Karen Justice Guard of Clayton, a recovering drug addict and formerly abused woman.

Schireck lives in Guard's Clayton home along with Guard's two children. Schireck attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings and has a full-time job at a bakery. Instead of skipping town or hiding out, she attends her drug court hearings, where everyone from the judge to the bailiff to inmates knows her.

She was facing prison time when she came to Safe Havens. She has four drug possession convictions from Martinez and Concord, including one in which she was arrested as a drug SWAT team busted a methamphetamine house where she was living.

Schirect's fiancé, Kenneth Middleton, was killed in a Martinez fight over drugs in 1996, and his brother, Donald E. Ariasi is doing time at Pelican Bay for trying to mow down a sheriff's deputy with his car.

Middleton was killed on Dec. 13, 1996. He and Lonnie Ray Poppleton, 33, had argued that day about a missing bicycle someone sold for drugs. Before the day was over, Middleton lay on a bed bleeding from a gunshot to the neck. Evidence showed there was a struggle over the gun, and Poppleton was convicted of manslaughter. He is in San Quentin but scheduled to be released on parole this year.

Schireck said jail has always struck her as revolting. She was never in much longer than overnight before a family member or friend bailed her out. That's why she was so frightened of going to prison.

Her quick descent into the drug culture began with her first line of crank when she was 13. By 15, she was heavy into the meth world, doing drugs all day and working as a bartender at night.

"I was like a vampire," she said.

Through Safe Havens she is adjusting to a life without crank.

John Schireck, 70, Michelle's father, has seen his daughter go in and out of drug crises so many times he was nearly resigned to accept her early death, before he insisted she contact Safe Havens. He sounds hopeful now, and Michelle Schireck's eyes fill with tears when she explains that he will drop by the bakery for coffee and visit her several times a week.

"She's turned herself around," her father said. "I'm really pulling for her. I hope she's back, I really do. I don't like to get my hopes up too high, but I think she's back."

Celeste Ward covers police, crime and public safety issues.