For nearly a year, Rosie worked toward one goal: getting her daughters back.
For Rosie, every decision comes back to one thing: her daughters. Some people say they would do anything for their children. Rosie spent nearly a year proving it.
Rosie’s journey began with one of the lowest moments of her life. After a night of heavy drinking in 2025, she found herself facing serious legal consequences, separated from her children, and struggling to understand how her life had unraveled so quickly. Much of what happened that night remains a blur to her, but the impact on her family was impossible to ignore.
For nearly a year, Rosie woke up every morning with the same goal: Get her daughters back. She didn’t know exactly how she was going to do it. She didn’t know how long it would take. She only knew she couldn’t quit.
Day after day, she made choices that moved her closer to that goal. Each choice added up to one extraordinary milestone: one full year of sobriety, built through hundreds of difficult decisions, countless moments of perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to her children.
Even during the periods when her children were not in her care, Rosie remained determined to support them however she could. She worked, saved money, and made sure resources reached the people caring for her daughters.
But the emotional toll was enormous. The loneliness. The regret. The uncertainty. The fear of losing the people she loved most. In some of those moments, Rosie says she seriously considered returning to alcohol. The very thing that had contributed to her losing everything was also the thing that seemed to offer temporary relief from the pain.
Instead, she made a different choice. She reached out for help. Knowing how vulnerable she was, Rosie requested additional accountability and support to help maintain her sobriety. She threw herself into work, counseling, parenting classes, therapy, and every opportunity available to prove she was serious about rebuilding her life.
One day turned into a week. A week turned into a month. A month turned into a year.
Today, Rosie is celebrating one year sober, proving to herself and everyone around her that lasting change is possible.
Her focus never changed. Everything she did was for her daughters.
What makes Rosie’s story especially powerful is the number of people and organizations that came together to help her succeed.
The journey involved DSS, West River Mental Health (WRMH), ICWA advocates, and therapists all working toward the same goal: helping a mother heal, recover, and reunite with her children. This is exactly what coordinated care is supposed to look like.
And it worked.
Choosing to Ask for Help
After three months of her advocate at WRMH, Kim, working to convince her OneHeart would be a good thing for her, she finally took a leap of faith. On June 1st, Rosie moved into OneHeart. On that same day, she got her daughters back. After nearly a year apart, the family was finally reunited.
The reunification didn’t happen because of a single class, meeting, or court appearance. It happened because Rosie spent nearly a year doing the difficult work required to rebuild trust, maintain sobriety, and demonstrate that she was ready to provide a safe and stable home for her children.
But Rosie will tell you that getting her daughters back wasn’t the finish line. The girls had spent a year growing, learning, and adapting to life without their mother. Rosie suddenly found herself rebuilding relationships, re-establishing routines, and rediscovering what it meant to parent children she had missed deeply but barely recognized in some ways.
It hasn’t been easy—but then healing rarely is. But Rosie shows up every day for herself, her daughters, and for their future.
Before arriving at OneHeart, she admits she was skeptical. Very skeptical. When Kim first suggested OneHeart, Rosie spent months resisting the idea.
“What was the catch?” she recalls asking. She had a hard time asking for help and carried a tremendous amount of shame about needing support in the first place, but eventually she agreed to learn more.
Since arriving at OneHeart, Rosie has continued building stability in every area of her life. She made a career move that created opportunities for advancement, completed management training, and now serves in a leadership role at work.
At the same time, she’s balancing recovery, parenting, work responsibilities, and preparing for a significant upcoming court decision that could impact her future.
The stakes are high, but anyone who spends time with Rosie realizes she is no longer fighting only for herself—she is fighting for her family.
Her vision for the future is remarkably simple. A modest home for her and her girls where her daughters can grow up feeling safe and loved. Maybe even a dog someday. And perhaps most importantly, the opportunity to keep moving forward together.
When asked what she’s most grateful for today, Rosie’s answer was profound: “I am grateful to be alive.” She shared with me that recently she has attended three funerals for people she once spent time with, individuals who also struggled with alcoholism and ultimately lost their lives because of it. Looking at those losses forced her to confront a difficult truth. That could have been her.
Instead, she’s here. One year sober. Working. Parenting. Healing. As our conversation came to an end, Rosie shared a lesson she hopes others can learn from her story. “Having too much pride, not asking for help, is a drug.”
For Rosie, recovery began the moment she became willing to accept help.
Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing Rosie’s journey as she continues navigating motherhood, employment, recovery, and the legal challenges that remain ahead. As she enters her second year of sobriety, she’ll continue proving that transformation isn’t defined by a person’s worst mistake, but by what they choose to do afterward.
Right now, she needs encouragement. She needs people rooting for her and to know that her journey matters.
We hope you’ll join us in cheering Rosie on!
Follow along as we chronicle Rosie’s path from separation to reunification, from despair to hope, and from addiction to one year of sobriety and counting.
