Drug Addict Saved by Inmate Mid-Suicide, Now Uses Dark Past To Inspire Moms Everywhere

By Kayla Kunkel September 8, 2018 at 1:10pm

You’ve probably seen some of Tiffany Jenkins’ viral videos on the Juggling the Jenkins Blog, but the story of how she became the encouraging, hilarious person we’ve all come to love is truly inspiring.

In a recent Little Things video, Jenkins shared how she overcame addiction and a suicide attempt in prison to build a life where she could inspire millions.

Her life started as normal as possible. As a child, she made the right choices and was what she called a “dream kid.” She wrote in a blog post that her dream was to become a teacher.

Her life changed after a high school football game when a peer offered her a sip of alcohol. That’s when she began to feel something she had never felt before.

“It was like something that was dark inside of me had been awakened,” she told Little Things. “From that moment on, I was chasing the feeling.”

Two months after that first sip of alcohol, she dropped out of school and soon began experimenting with other substances.

A couple of years later she was lying in bed when she felt like her “bones were growing out of her body.” Confused and in pain, she called one of her friends who said, “Oh, it’s probably because you didn’t do a pill today. Just do another one and you’ll be fine.”

She took a pill and the pain melted away. Jenkins pinpoints that night as the night she stopped taking the pills for fun, but instead because she needed to.

For two years, addiction was a normal part of her life. She eventually signed into rehab, but admitted that sobriety wasn’t something she wanted yet.

She started dating a police officer shortly after leaving the rehab center, thinking the relationship would help motivate her to stay clean. That was not the case.

“I was living a double life,” she said. “Every single day I woke up and I put on this mask: I’m an upstanding citizen, I’ve got my stuff together, life is good. But inside I was dying.”

She began pawning anything she could get her hands on in order to get money for more drugs, including her boyfriend’s guns. She was arrested two days later.

While in prison and going through withdrawals, she was reminded just how far she had deviated from a normal life. It was unbearable.

Suicide didn’t just become an option, it was the only option. In the middle of the night, she attempted to hang herself, but a fellow inmate alerted the guards in enough time that they were able to save her.

As she was lying in her cell on suicide watch, she finally detoxed. She said, “It wasn’t until I was in jail with no choice that I had to feel everything, and in hindsight, part of that is why I’m still clean today. That feeling.”

A visit from her father gave her the hope she needed to keep living. He told her that he loved her, had faith in her and that nothing she could ever do would change that.

She went to rehab after fulfilling her sentence in jail. After that, the judge gave her the choice to either walk free or to go to a halfway house. She chose the latter because she wanted the extra accountability.

Two months after checking into the halfway house, she found out she was pregnant with the child of her now-husband, Tim.

“My life just stopped. Because I’m just learning how to be a productive member of society myself now there’s a little human person inside of my stomach that I’m in charge of,” she said. “It was really overwhelming and slowly and surely the blessings started coming.”

She became pregnant again when her son was only 6 months old and soon her step-daughter also moved in with them full time. Within two years, she changed from a single woman living in a halfway house to a married mother of three.

Even though her life has seen some crazy changes, she is was extremely thankful. “Every time my kids would giggle or laugh or do something cute,” she said. “I think back to that time in jail. I’m like, ‘I would’ve missed this. I would’ve missed all of this.'”

She has been sober since November 26, 2012.

Jenkins wanted to share her story in order to help other moms, other people struggling with addiction, and show other people battling with their mental health that they are not alone.

That is what started the Juggling the Jenkins Blog that now has over 2 million followers on Facebook.

Those who follow her have been able to relate to and find encouragement in Jenkins’ words and videos.

“I’m so blessed to have been given a second chance and I plan on putting as much good out into the world as I can,” she said.

And that’s exactly what she’s doing.

“I will never be able to be a school teacher,” she wrote. “But when I got clean I made a promise to God that I would take every opportunity I was given to teach others about how recovery and the program worked for me, and that it can for them too.

“My life isn’t where I expected it to be, but I believe in my heart of hearts, that it’s exactly where it was always meant to be.”

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