Hey, everyone. Good morning!
I’m on day 9 of sobriety. Yay 
I’m very grateful to not even have had a single craving in the last 9 days. That’s exciting. Of course, one thing that really sucks about being in active addiction is not being able to really have control over things and the chaos that surrounds that.
I’ve been dealing with custody issues for about a year now. I haven’t seen my daughter since March. 
And I do take a lot of responsibility for that. When I was making reckless decisions, my car was towed and has been in the impound for WAY too long. That’s one reason. Another reason is because my living situation hasn’t been stable this entire time. And originally, I had asked my daughter’s dad to take my daughter temporarily while I get back on my feet and into my own place. And that was following a court date we had that agreed to 50/50 where I promised the judge and my daughter’s father I’d accomplish x, y & z by whatever date. And I did. I had a good job, found a place of my own, was on all the correct medication, found a babysitter, had my car and everything. It was literally the weekend right before getting get my daughter back that her dad decided to make me do a hair follicle test. I knew I’d fail. And I did, for cocaine.
I had never done it around our daughter, but it still obviously shouldn’t have ever happened in the first place. I then owed her dad $300 for failing the test, to which I still haven’t paid back. And since then, I spiraled into a dark depression and into self destruct mode. That lasted a bit. Missed mother’s Day, missed my daughter’s second birthday… Missed Halloween… Everything keeps coming and going. And while I have tried to keep a consistent schedule of video chatting with my daughter, her dad makes it as difficult as possible to communicate.
He’s had my phone number blocked for 6 months and is refusing to speak to me any place other than email. His mom will text me back, but she and I have never gotten along and she’s biased about things, of course. She encourages and sometimes is the mastermind behind his poor behavior towards me.
Even though he only communicates via email, sometimes it will take him days to respond, or he won’t respond at all. Most of the times we’d video chat recently, he’d find a way to either pick a fight or wouldn’t sit with our daughter and hold the phone so she’d walk away and I’d be looking at nothing. Because he would put the phone down and walk away. It got to the point where even video chatting every day hurt me. Because even if I was a minute late to the video call, he’d tell me I was too late and missed my chance and we’d have to reschedule. But there were times I’d sit and wait for them to join the zoom, up to 20 min, and wouldn’t hear from him for 2 days after saying “sorry, I got busy.”
It’s abuse! Right? Or am I crazy? It’s this weird power trip thing and he has literally beaten my self confidence into the ground. For a long time, he would speak to me with such hate. On mother’s Day, he said “happy mother’s day you nasty, blah blah blah” whatever he said. Just very hateful and mean things. He holds my daughter against me, and tries to make me seem like this awful person and mother.
Any time I’ve tried to get help or make any kind of decision I feel will benefit me and my daughter moving forward, he berades me about it. I went to rehab last year, and instead of being supportive and encouraging, he made me feel like shit about it. He has a worse drinking problem than me! The only thing he has over me is a family with money. Who, by the way, he currently lives with for free.
Long story short, because there’s no way I’d be able to sit here and tell you everything start to finish, he filed for full custody the other day. And idk what to do.
I can’t afford a lawyer. He wants me to also pay his lawyer fees and court fees… Just to be spiteful. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s not fair!!! I feel like I have been stuck in this nightmare for so long. Like this never ending loop. And my baby is only getting older 
Just please, someone tell me everything will be okay. Even though I know I will stay sober, I just need encouragement right now. I’m feeling really hopeless and idk where else to go to vent. Has anyone else dealt with this? I’m sober. I just paid my car back in full. I do have a place to live that’s safe, and although it isn’t permanent, it is with people who I love and trust and consider family. I need to find legitimate work to show a judge, but I do have an income. I’m working on getting back into school. Working on staying focused and working on my art. I’m doing all the right things. I just hope it’s not too late.
My biggest concern is being able to face a judge and not look like a total idiot, or not just breakdown completely. I want to stand tall and confident and be able to say I can and will do this. But idk how if I can’t afford a lawyer. I can’t let them take my baby away
The thing we can do is control what we can control, that is staying sober and following any and all guidelines set forth by a judge. Sometimes it can take longer than we hope and want. If we keep doing the right things…staying sober, working toward our goals, following judges orders, we definitely build confidence and we all need some of that. You aren’t alone, lots of people here have been thru similar and lost custody. Maybe it might help if you wrote some letters to your daughter or a journal she could read when she was older. Idk, just a thought.