Jenelle Evans from “Teen Mom” has a new book that tackles addiction, and it’s so worth talking about
It’s normal to want to keep your personal life private. But sometimes it can be dangerous. Like not talking about addiction or mental health issues can sometimes just make those things worse to deal with, feeling isolated can also exacerbate the problem. Which is exactly why Teen Mom 2‘s Jenelle Evans’ memoir about addiction is probably something to add to your summer reading list. Even if you don’t know what it’s like to deal with substance abuse, the book will likely resonate with you. Her story is all too common.
According to E! News, which got an advance copy of Read Between the Lines: From the Diary of a Teenage Mom, Evans writes, “My first trip was amazing. I won’t glamorize the drug by going into the long details of why people love it so damned much. Before I knew it, I was shooting up four or five times a day. I was hooked.”
It’s hard to talk about substance abuse, since it often comes with scolding and judgement from others, which is exactly why it’s brave AF for the Teen Mom 2 star to put it all in writing. While you were watching her on MTV, the reality TV star was allegedly shooting heroin a handful of times a day. Eventually, as fans might know, her addiction led to her estrangement from her family.
Evans writes in her new book:
“It hurt my heart, made me sick to my soul that I couldn’t see my son. I filled that hateful void with more drugs. The drugs always made the pain go away. They didn’t turn on me or betray me. I guess heroin was my first steady, dependable lover. It gave me what I needed to live and I gave it my life. By this entry, heroin was the only thing I had in my life that loved me.
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Heroin, or any substance abuse, doesn’t discriminate. Any person is just as likely as the next to fall into it. It’s not some moral failing. People find themselves caught up in a cycle of addiction that often they don’t pick up on it until way too late, which is the message that Evans appears to want to get across to readers in her new book.
Heroin and opioid abuse is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, drug overdoses accounted for 52,404 U.S. deaths in 2015 and 33,091 of those deaths involved some sort of opioid. So people abusing pills in place of, or instead of, heroin are facing the same sort of risk.
As Evans points out, addiction can wreak havoc on your body and personal relationships. Hopefully her new book will reach readers who need to hear her story in time to take care of themselves or people they love.
