Despite facing the prospect of being sent back to jail again following a probation violation, troubled actress [artist id="1737245"]Lindsay Lohan[/artist] was given a break Friday (October 22) by a Los Angeles judge. Lohan, who voluntarily checked herself into the Betty Ford Center last month after [article id="1648267"]failing court-mandated drug tests[/article], was ordered by Judge Elden Fox to remain in rehab until January 3, 2011, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"I'm serious about that [date]. You're staying there past the new year, and there's a reason for that," Fox told a tearful Lohan. "I'm not going to be manipulated."

The district attorney in the case had recommended that Lohan serve 180 days in county jail for her violation, but the judge preferred that she receive treatment until the end of the year and then be subject to drug testing between her release and her next court date on February 25.

"You are an addict," Fox said to Lohan during the brief hearing. "I hope you understand that," to which Lohan reportedly nodded her head. "I don't want another train wreck."

If, however, Lohan violates the terms of her probation from a pair of 2007 DUIs again, Fox said he would follow the prosecutor's recommendations and lock the "Mean Girls" star up for six months.

The paper reported that Lohan's time at the Ford clinic appeared to have made an impression on Fox, as did reports from rehab and probation officials and a letter from the actress. Fox praised the 24-year-old for her efforts to get clean and said that another jail term -- which would have been her fourth -- could set back her recovery.