Over the Influence, the first memoir from JoJo, has pages full of the crucial lessons that the musician had to learn and, in some cases, unlearn in life. Among them was one particularly critical realization: breaking generational cycles is easier said than done. Both of JoJo‘s parents battled with addiction, something she was adamant about avoiding at all costs in her own life. But as she learned, alcohol and drug abuse tends to be far more complicated than a simple opt-in or opt-out.
“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, 33, recently told People. “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 experience with addiction to alcohol and other substances, particularly Adderall and Xanax, took root as she approached adulthood. She signed her first recording contract when she was 12 years old and within a year had become the youngest solo artist to top the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart. Behind the scenes, as JoJo became more familiar with the music industry she was growing up in, things were falling apart.
Her mother and manager, Diana, started drinking again and faced a number of mental health-related struggles. And JoJo’s record label, Blackground Records, trapped her in a restrictive seven-year limbo when it lost its distribution deal but retained rights to her existing recordings. Meanwhile, JoJo’s father Joel — whom her mother met while attending AA meetings and divorced early in her childhood — came in and out of her life. “I think my dad was trapped in his body. He had so many struggles in his mind,” she said.
Joel died in November 2015, but “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,” JoJo added. When she was preparing to write Over the Influence, the singer spoke with her mother about the details she would be sharing with her audience in its pages. She described some of the instances she wrote about as “some of the hardest moments in my life,” but reassured her mother that she would capture her personhood as “a full human being.”
JoJo shared another crucial lesson that she had to internalize: “I could not be responsible for the life or happiness of either of my parents — because I did feel responsible for a long time.” Her relationship with her mother has strengthened in recent years. “I admire her for many things — her sobriety, her commitment to health, and her ability to take accountability,” JoJo said. “I love that about her so much. She’s such a beautiful person.”
The singer found a similar sense of inspiration when she started attending AA meetings last year. “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,” she said. “People who are love addicts or sex addicts or food addicts, or whatever, they’re going to get what they need. 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.”
JoJo noted that she isn’t currently sober, but she has developed a healthier relationship with the substances she once struggled with to the point of operating a vehicle while blackout drunk. “I just hope that people are encouraged to release any shame that they felt about different things in their life,” she added about the goal of sharing her experience in the book.
