Her Story Didn't End in Prison: Jodi Jenkins' Story (Part 1)Her Story Didn't End in Prison: Jodi Jenkins' Story (Part 1)
Crossroads with Jenny Bushkell
Jodi Jenkins shares how childhood pain, addiction and prison shaped her life, and how small moments of surrender and faith began to turn things around. Her story highlights the hidden roots of addiction and the hope available through community and spiritual change.
24:50•27 Aug 2026
Her Story Didn’t End in Prison: Jodi Jenkins on Addiction, Faith and Second Chances
Episode Overview
- Addiction often has deep roots in childhood trauma, rejection and abandonment.
- Family secrets and denial can fuel addiction and keep everyone trapped in unhealthy patterns.
- Substances can feel like a temporary bandage, but they don’t address the real inner pain.
- Without real change and support, people leaving prison are likely to return to the same destructive cycles.
- Even a tiny moment of genuine surrender to God can start a gradual, life-changing recovery journey.
“He whispers those lies all day long. And when you're trapped in addiction, for the people that love you, there's a lot of anger and a lot of hurt.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This conversation on *Crossroads with Jenny Bushkell* follows Jodi Jenkins as she looks back on 27 years of addiction, prison time, and the slow, grace-filled road towards surrender and faith. Jodi grew up in a home that looked "pretty normal from the outside"—nice neighbourhood, professional parents, plenty of material comforts. But behind closed doors, her father’s trauma-filled job as a homicide detective led to alcoholism, rage and eventually violence.
She shares how a childhood shaped by "rejection" and "abandonment" laid the groundwork for addiction, saying she’s never met anyone with a drug or alcohol problem whose pain didn’t start in childhood. You’ll hear her first experiences of alcohol and drugs at just 12, sneaking Crown Royal in the school locker room and selling joints for extra money.
From there, the story moves through juvenile detention, rehab, state custody, and a string of relationships with drug dealers—along with her first adult felony and a short stint in prison after she "took the charge" for someone else.
Jodi explains addiction as a desperate attempt to escape inner pain: "It got me outside of what I was feeling inside." She and Jenny talk about secrets in families, the lie that "I’m not hurting anybody but myself," and the harsh reality that prison alone rarely changes anything when people return to the same environment. The turning point comes through Celebrate Recovery, where a former using friend invites Jodi along.
She describes a "moment of surrender" and a gentle, step-by-step work of God: "It went from surrender to surrender." Now, as Behind the Walls Programme Manager at FOCUS Ministries, she uses that history to reach women in incarceration. If you or someone you love feels stuck in that "cage of addiction," Jodi’s honesty might be the nudge to ask: what tiny moment of surrender could your story start with today?
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