Little Falls, Minnesota, didn't do anything revolutionary. They just made a real effort — and spent real money — treating addiction as a disease, not a crime.

LITTLE FALLS, Minnesota — The stomp of boots echoed above her head. Her father had found the empty cashbox. Monica Rudolph, a 25-year-old living in her parents' basement after her second eviction, had robbed the box to pay for heroin.

She was working two jobs in this small town, waitressing by day and bartending at night, to pay for drugs, but still never had enough. Like a mouse nibbling cheese, she'd steal $30 at a time from her dad's stash to buy bags of brown powder, until all of the money — $2,000 — was gone.

Now it was a Saturday morning, her father had discovered the theft, and she was shaking from heroin withdrawal. She knew days of knee-buckling vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain lay ahead.

"I had nothing. My life was broken down into four- to five-hour increments to get high, to put off feeling sick," Monica told BuzzFeed News. After realizing the money was gone, her father railed against her boyfriend. Her mother, Louise Rudolph, asked her if she was on drugs. And after years of pretending otherwise on that day in 2017, Monica said yes.

"I just didn't want my daughter to die," Louise told BuzzFeed News. "Oh my God, I was so scared she would die. I just wanted to get her help."

She opened the Yellow Pages and started calling treatment centers in cities all over Minnesota. Again and again, Monica and Louise heard recorded out-for-the-weekend messages saying to call back on Monday.

Monica was scared too. She knew from past attempts to get clean that it would be at least two weeks before a treatment center could take her, because they needed a diagnosis and referral from a doctor first. And she knew she'd never last. "Mom, I cannot be sick that long," she told her.

"Why not call the local hospital?" her mother finally asked, the last place Monica would have thought of. Somebody picked up the phone at St. Gabriel's Hospital in Little Falls. Monica was immediately transferred to a substance abuse counselor, who did her referral over the phone and then asked if she could come the next morning to start treatment.

"My hometown of 8,000 people was the one place in the state that picked up the phone," Monica said. "Think of all the people like me who don't have that hometown."

This small town has managed, in just five years, to curb its drug epidemic — a rare feat in a country where overdose deaths continue to rise, with more than 70,000 last year alone. Nationwide, fewer than one-third of people addicted to opioids can find the treatment that Monica found.