I am a 28 year old single mom living in Tarrant county, TX and I have a 2 year old daughter. I'm a recovering alcoholic, and after having 2 years of sobriety I briefly relapsed last spring and immediately sought treatment. During that time my daughter stayed with my parents during the week and with her father Thursday-Sunday. After completing in patient treatment in august, I made a personal commitment to living at a sober living home for the first 6 months of my sobriety. Additionally I completed a voluntary 3 month outpatient program, and I am now house manager at the sober home. I made plans to move into my own place with my daughter at the end of January, and my mom filed for custody of my child (she is very possessive and controlling). We had a hearing last week, and my mother requested possession until the scheduled court date and was denied. It was granted to my daughters father since he is a great, responsible parent; but since my mother claimed I'm unstable, I was only granted supervised visitation until my drug test results come back (I took a hair/nail/urine drug test immediately after hearing). To get to the point of my question.. Her dad and I get aIf great, he has retained attorneys who support me 100% but obviously the legally they can not represent me. Since I cannot afford an attorney, I am representing myself and I would appreciate any advice or guidance. My counselor that I've worked with for 4 years is the director of treatment at the rehab I recently attended, and she has agreed to come testify on my behalf, which I think will be very useful. The final court hearing is in 2 weeks and I'm terrified of losing my rights to my mother since my daughter resided at her house part-time for 6 months. I have made many attempts at online legal research, but I have yet to find a helpful guideline that pertains to my situation. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my inquiry.
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