Dili , East Timor ( CNN ) Stacey Addison , who says she was detained for months in East Timor because she unwittingly shared a taxi with a stranger carrying methamphetamine , is headed home . Addison boarded a plane Tuesday on the first leg of her journey back to Oregon . `` I am thrilled to report that Dr. Stacey Addison has gotten her passport back , and is now on a plane returning home here to Oregon , '' Sen. Jeff Merkley ( D-Oregon ) said . `` This is terrific news for Stacey , for her family , and for all the Oregonians who have followed Stacey 's story and helped support her from afar , '' Merkley said in a statement . Addison , 41 , was detained in September in the small Southeast Asian nation in a drug case in which she says she 's innocent . She was released in December but she still could n't leave because her passport -- seized during the investigation -- had not been returned . Former East Timorese President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta , hosted her temporarily at his home . Addison 's arrest in September was an unexpected bump in what had been a multi-year trip around the world . She said she had been traveling solo since January 2013 , having quit her job as a veterinarian to explore the globe . On September 5 , she was sharing a cab from near the Indonesian border to the East Timor capital of Dili . On the way , a fellow passenger asked to stop to pick up a package at a DHL office , her mother , Bernadette Kero of Oregon , has told CNN . After the man picked up the package , police surrounded the car and arrested the occupants , according to Kero . The package was found to contain methamphetamine , Addison has said . She initially was held for four nights , and a judge released her -- but prevented her from leaving the country while the case was still being investigated -- after the man testified that he did n't know her , Kero said . In late October , during a court appearance where she thought she 'd retrieve her passport , a judge ordered her arrest again and sent her to Gleno prison outside Dili . Paul Remedios , a lawyer representing Addison , said at the time that the court detained her again because there was a warrant for her arrest , and that the reason for the warrant was unclear . Kero told CNN in November that the case was a `` nightmare . '' Journalist Wayne Lovell in Dili and CNN 's Greg Morrison from Atlanta . CNN 's Kristina Sgueglia in New York and Jason Hanna in Atlanta also contributed .
bra Addison was detained by police in 2007 during a taxi journey . She and another passenger in the taxi picked up a package containing drugs . Addison was on a nearly five - year trip around the world .