It was a tough reality to come to terms with: now I had an opioid addiction ​and ​a global pandemic on top of that to worry about. I was

She named me Bradley Currie Jenkins, giving me her last name because her boyfriend, my dad, wasn’t interested with me...

My parents married really young and had a total of 12 kids. Sadly, eight died in infancy, leaving them only four to raise...

More to get him to shut up than anything else, I walked to the sliding glass doors. I’ll be damned. Two dudes were climbing the fence...

People used to look at me and see nothing more than an addict who couldn’t keep a needle out of her arm long enough to...

My mom gave birth to me in...Lagos State, Nigeria...but I should say, I come from a polygamous background. My dad had two wives...

Teaching, preaching, writing, and interacting with students of all ages gave me a sense of satisfaction, and I was happy...

Those early years were rough on my mother as she was battling demons in the early stages of her alcoholism and drug addiction...

Good, no one had robbed me of my pain pills. I pulled out my trusty relievers and tossed a handful back. I could be without a home...

We had many adventures and shenanigans together. Unfortunately, both Stephen and I were influenced easily by peers...

Coming from a conservative town, no one cared to learn why I didn’t have a dad. They just judged my siblings and me for it...

But then…it was all over, and they divorced when I was just three years old. My dad moved on to yet another young gorgeous woman...

My father owned an ice cream shop a couple blocks from our house. His dream was a colorful candy store but with the blistering heat...

My father left my hometown of Harrison, Arkansas when I was still a baby and never came back to us, and my mother’s on-again-off-again...

Quirky and awkward. That’s how most people saw me in middle school and high school. I was the big kid with clumsiness in his DNA...

Most living things remain what they were at birth, however, a butterfly was once a caterpillar, and at the risk of waxing poetic, I...

While many women in their 20s were enjoying college life, my mom was trying to keep up with her classes and work two jobs all while she...

I couldn’t remember the last time dad wasn’t sick. Mom had never been consistently in my life due to her mental illness. Dad did a great...

When I hear someone say that there’s no hope for an addict, I can’t help but shake my head. If someone like me can come back from all...

There are times in life when we must choose whether we hold on to hate, or forgive and forget. Holding on to hate is the more common...