On January 9, 33-year-old Betty Asher became a mother. The birth of her baby boy, Jeremiah, gave her a second chance at a future she didn’t think was possible.
“All I’ve ever known is drugs and alcohol,” Betty said.
Betty was born and raised in Cynthiana, Kentucky. Her father struggled with addiction, so from an early age, she was introduced to substance use. And as a teenager, she started to experiment with drugs.
“I started with weed, then pills and drinking and then I got into heroin, and I just lost everything,” Betty said.
Betty’s drug use escalated, and in 2023, she faced incarceration, but because she was pregnant, Harrison County Chief Circuit Court Judge Jay Delaney gave her another option, Freedom House.
Freedom House is Volunteers of America Mid-States’ (VOA) nationally recognized recovery program for pregnant and parenting women. The program uses an evidence-based clinical services model of recovery that helps women find the root cause of their substance use disorder and build long-lasting foundations for sustained recovery. For more than 30 years, Freedom House has helped mothers overcome addiction without leaving their children behind.
Betty entered Freedom House in Louisville, Kentucky, just a few days before Christmas, and started working with a team of clinical therapists to help her process past traumas that led to her substance use. Today, she is learning how to be a successful parent while maintaining her sobriety. With support from Freedom House, she is working to break the cycle of addiction in her family and create a substance-free, healthy life for Jeremiah and herself.
“It felt amazing to bring Jeremiah home with me,” Betty said. “I’m going to fight really hard and continue to fight every day to stay clean and sober and do what I have to do for myself and him.”
Jeremiah was the first baby born in the program in 2024, but he is just one of more than 300 healthy babies born to Freedom House mothers.
Freedom House has helped mothers like Betty since 1993. Because of its proven results, VOA expanded the program in 2020 and opened another location in Manchester, Kentucky.
As substance use continues to affect families across the Commonwealth, VOA is working to make Freedom House regionally accessible so Kentuckians can receive the support they need.
In the spring of 2023, VOA launched a Capital Campaign to raise $24 million to aid their expansion efforts. So far, the organization has raised $12 million from committed individual donors, community partners and elected officials. With this support, on January 26, VOA was able to break ground on a new location for the program in Owensboro, Kentucky. And they’ve started plans to expand the program to Lincoln and Daviess Counties, Northern Kentucky and double the capacity of their location in Manchester, Kentucky.
If you would like to learn more about the program and how you can support families affected by addiction reach out to VOA Mid-States Senior Director of Fund Development Dave Bell at DaveB@voamid.org.