Haley Jarvis holds her 1-year-old daughter, Kadence, while getting a hug from a friend Friday afternoon after graduating from the Roane-Calhoun Adult Drug Court at the Roane County Courthouse, in Spencer. Jarvis said she was pregnant with Kadence when she was arrested, the catalyst for her wanting to overcome her addictions.(Photo by F. Brian Ferguson for the Gazette-Mail)
Roane-Calhoun drug court program celebrates first graduates
Spencer - Sixteen months ago, Haley Jarvis woke up.
She was nine months pregnant and sitting in jail. For years, she had been addicted to drugs like methamphetamine. In that moment when her cell door closed, she said, she woke up to her situation.
Jarvis was one of two women honored Friday afternoon for graduating from the Roane-Calhoun Adult Drug Court program. She and Dreama Saunders were the first two graduates of the county's drug court program.
"In this program, I've learned to live again," Jarvis, 24, told a crowded Roane County Courthouse. "I've learned to cope without the use of drugs."
As Jarvis spoke to the audience at the graduation ceremony, her 3-year-old son ran up to her at the podium and grabbed her dress, wanting to be held. She hoisted him up into her arms without skipping a beat, a sign of the balancing act she's managed for the past year.
"Drug court was the best thing that has ever happened in my life â for me, my kids and my family," she said.
When Jarvis went into the drug court program in April of last year, she had two kids and no job. Now, she's a shift leader at Taco Bell and raising the two children in stride as she continues to attend weekly recovery meetings.
She was addicted to drugs for five years, but that's not how she found herself behind bars. She said she was staying with her ex-husband in his mother's house. Police had a warrant for his arrest but arrested her, too, for burglary.
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Roane-Calhoun drug court program celebrates first graduates  By Jake Jarvis for the Charleston Gazette-Mail
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