Exclusive: JoJo Shares Her Struggles with Addiction and Relationship with Parents | Addiction

• Joanna “JoJo” Levesque's memoir, Over the Influence, is out now
• In the e book, she writes about rising up with dad and mom who skilled habit and how she finally additionally struggled with alcohol and substance use
• JoJo opens as much as PEOPLE about realizing she was going by way of addictive patterns in her personal life

Joanna “JoJo” Levesque realized firsthand that nobody is exempt from falling into habit.

In her new memoir Over the Influence, out now, the musician and creator, 33, remembers spending a lot of her younger childhood in church basements whereas her dad and mom, mother Diana and late father Joel, attended Alcoholics Anonymous conferences. Witnessing their struggles, she thought, would stop her from experiencing comparable patterns — however she later abused alcohol and substances as a younger grownup.

“For a while, I was super self-righteous and thought I'd never be like my parents. I was like, ‘No, because I'm the strongest. I'm wicked strong,'” JoJo tells PEOPLE completely. “But then I was like, ‘Oh, what I'm doing is no better or worse. I'm my parents' child, and I need to be awake to what's happening within myself.'”

JoJo's dad and mom' relationship started in AA conferences; Diana was an alcoholic, and Joel used substances, together with drugs. They divorced when she was 5 years previous, and she moved in with her mother, who quickly obliged her daughter's begging and began bringing her to native auditions for TV packages showcasing gifted youngsters.

Over the subsequent few years, JoJo confirmed off her younger powerhouse vocals on Destination Stardom, The Rosie O'Donnell Show and America's Most Talented Kids, amongst others. Her mother rapidly grew skeptical of the leisure trade, however JoJo was insistent on turning into a star — and satisfied herself she'd be capable to save them from poverty.

“I think I really somehow felt the sense that things weren't going to be okay, and things weren't okay,” says JoJo, who moved round with her mother fairly a bit and usually stayed with associates or household. “I was just like, ‘That's fine because I am going to be famous.'”

After turning down a number of presents, Diana allowed JoJo to signal with Blackground Records at age 12 — however required she handle her personal daughter. About a yr later, JoJo earned a chart-topping single with 2004's “Leave (Get Out),” turned a celeb and began touring the world. “I was like, ‘Oh, well, it's taken my whole life, so it's about time,'” she remembers.

The new life-style, nonetheless, proved troublesome for her mom. “She was a single mom, she was a singer, she did what she needed to do to make money by cleaning houses, and then she became the manager of this young phenom,” says JoJo. “That's so weird and scary.”

As her daughter's fame degree continued to rise, Diana began listening to murmurs about shady enterprise within the music trade and grew paranoid. She began ingesting once more, skilled psychological well being struggles and finally contemplated suicide, with a teenage JoJo serving to to speak her out of it. “I'm just so grateful that she's here,” she says.

Including such darkish moments in Over the Influence wasn't simple for both of them. Before beginning the e book, JoJo informed Diana she'd be writing about “some of the hardest moments in my life” and promised to color her as “a full human being” inside its pages. Once her mom learn a sophisticated draft, JoJo says, “She was proud of me, and that meant a lot to me.”

The mother-daughter duo stays near at the present time. They lived collectively all through the COVID pandemic, JoJo featured her on the tune “Proud” from her 2020 album, Good to Know, and Diana attended her daughter's opening evening as Satine in Moulin Rouge! The Musical on Broadway final yr.

“I admire her for many things — her sobriety, her commitment to health and her ability to take accountability. I love that about her so much,” says JoJo. “She's such a beautiful person.”

JoJo's father had an on-again, off-again presence in her life. She beloved spending time with him as a toddler and connecting over music, however his habit received worse all through her teenage and younger grownup years, as did his well being, so she did not see him as a lot. When she did, he was clearly struggling and usually did not have secure housing.

She says she repeatedly tried to assist him and even set him up with a spot to dwell and entry to professionals who'd assist him get again on his ft, however he wasn't in a position to commit. “I think my dad was trapped in his body. He had so many struggles in his mind,” she says of Joel, who died in November 2015. “In his passing, I had to learn that some people, as much as we want them around, sometimes that's the completion of their journey.”

Through years of remedy, she realized, “I could not be responsible for the life or happiness of either of my parents — because I did feel responsible for a long time.”

Since Joel's demise, and particularly as she started acting on Broadway, JoJo's constantly considered what it would be wish to have her father round right now. “Sometimes I'll walk around my apartment and be like, ‘F— you, man,' with a smile, ‘You know you're supposed to be here. You know you're supposed to be in that audience,'” she says. “He would love it, and he always did love it.”

As for JoJo, her first expertise with alcohol was a drunken teenage evening on tour, however she was later caught by Diana and stayed away from ingesting for years. As she neared maturity, Blackground misplaced its distribution deal and might not correctly launch music, however the label nonetheless had the rights to her industrial recordings below her contract.

Frustrated with numerous components of her life, she began ingesting extra repeatedly and utilizing medicine like Adderall and Xanax in each private and skilled settings. On a number of events, she even drove a automotive whereas blackout drunk.

Getting out of report label limbo in 2014, plus subsequently going to remedy and specializing in her bodily well being, helped JoJo discover a more healthy relationship with alcohol and substances.

Still, she felt unresolved. Toward the tip of her book-writing course of in 2023, she got here to phrases with numerous repeated patterns of habit in her life and determined to attend an AA assembly with a pal.

“You can feel less alone at an AA meeting when people are sharing, and AA does stand for Alcoholics Anonymous, but people go for a multitude of things. People who are love addicts or sex addicts or food addicts, or whatever, they're going to get what they need,” says JoJo, who provides she is just not sober right now. “I was just feeling like I needed a sense of community and home. I felt far away from myself, and that has been a touchstone for me since I was young.”

Opening up about her personal struggles in Over the Influence wasn't simple for JoJo, but when she's in a position to assist any readers course of their very own trauma, it is price it. “I just hope that people are encouraged to release any shame that they felt about different things in their life,” she says, “and to live unapologetically and freely and clear-eyed, no longer under the influence of things that really aren't true to them.”

If you or somebody is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.