Co-Parenting Through Addiction and Recovery: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Beautiful Let’s get real: co-parenting is hard enough on its own. Throw in addiction, incarceration, mental health struggles, and a history of trauma, and you’ve got a tangled mess that sometimes feels impossible to navigate. I’ve spent years building a life of safety and stability for my kids—a life where they’re not just surviving but truly thriving. And just as that foundation felt solid, their dad got out of prison. He just finished a three-year stint, but honestly, it’s been nearly a decade of bouncing in and out of the system—locked up, released, locked up again. That’s a long, painful stretch when you’re trying to build consistency for your kids. Now he’s back, wanting to reconnect with the kids. I want that too. More than anything. But I’m terrified. Terrified of what could happen if things slide back into old patterns, terrified of the emotional roller coaster my kids have already ridden, terrifi...