Itha endured a lot of hardships from an early age on. She was raised by her father and grandparents who were abusive and moved to a foster home when she was 14 years old. After graduating from high school, she started using alcohol and meth and then her husband introduced her to pills. When she and her husband got into a bad car accident, they decided to move to Idaho for a fresh start. At first things were going well. They got their own place, she started working in a restaurant, and within a few years, they had two children.
When Itha was 23, she wanted to reconnect with her mother and moved back to Arizona to be closer to her. According to Itha, the move turned out to be a big mistake. She relapsed, started using heroin, and divorced her husband.
The following years were a chaotic time in her life. Itha was in jail a few times, had a child with an abusive boyfriend, and was on and off in treatment. Then she had a child with her current husband. The boy, Odin, was born with a genetic condition and the doctors told her the baby would be lucky if he makes it to 5. Itha and her husband grieved the heartbreaking news, but despite the diagnosis everything was going well for a while after Odin was born. The family had stable housing, she went to group regularly, and even got her peer support certificate. Things got worse again when they moved into a new apartment and were surrounded by people who were using fentanyl. Itha relapsed, and they ended up losing the apartment and living in the streets.
Both Itha and her husband knew that something had to change and went to treatment together. Their original goal was to stay together and go into a co-ed place, but Itha ended up coming to The Haven. At first, she wasn’t sure what to think about an all women place because she’d had a bad experience with them in the past. She decided to give it a go and The Haven turned out to be a really good experience for her. She went through the residential program and then the Intensive Outpatient Program, and now she has been sober for 9 months.
Itha together with her husband
Itha’s four children
“You can’t be in recovery just because of your kids, or your mom, or some other person. You can’t do it for anybody else but yourself. You need to find a reason and some higher power to believe in.”
Itha married her husband in October, and they are living together in Tucson. She says there’s still temptation with other people using around them, but her kids keep her strong. Her youngest child, Odin, passed away last year at age 4. Itha was grief-stricken and sad that she missed spending time with him. But despite going through every parent’s worst nightmare, she has remained courageous and sober.
Itha knows that she’s been through a lot in her life but is grateful that she’s still alive. She has learned that she must take care of herself to take care of her children. She knows that the children will need their mother whether she has custody or not and she wants to be there for them when they need her.
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