Your halfway house has probably already told you all the things you need to do, get money, stable job, ect. Those are true, but here is some additional advice: do not concoct some grand plan to change yourself it never works, don't reinvent the wheel, from what I see from your son the wheel was spinning just fine once. Go back to that model, that Nancy Botwin. You got caught up with the wrong people. Move on from that crowd, return to the ones that helped you succeed on both a personal and maternal level, your friends, your family. Now you're probably never gonna grace the cover of Parenting magazine... I'm not looking for that. Keep it simple. Be the Nancy who raised Silas. You do that we'll see what's possible.