High Achiever

Tiffany Jenkins's memoir recounts her years as an opioid addict secretly living with a county sheriff's deputy, her arrest and incarceration, and her eventual path to sobriety. The narrative alternates between Tiffany's experiences in jail and therapy sessions at a rehabilitation center, where she recounts the events that led to her arrest.

The book opened with Tiffany, 27 years old, being booked into county jail after her arrest at the home she shared with her boyfriend, Eliot Right, a deputy for the county sheriff's office. During intake, she listed eight substances she used regularly and was sent to the Medical unit for monitored detox. Tiffany encountered the jarring realities of incarceration: strip searches, hostile inmates who suspected she was an undercover cop, and a cellmate who retrieved methamphetamine hidden inside another inmate's body.

Overwhelmed by withdrawal and shame, Tiffany attempted suicide her first night in general population by tying a bedsheet around her neck. Officer Cache discovered and revived her. She was placed in a glass-walled observation cell and dressed in an anti-suicide garment. She tried a second time to end her life but was stopped by a guard. Hours later, Dr. LaChance, the jail therapist, entered and spoke to her with warmth. When Tiffany's glasses were returned, she recognized the therapist as Katie, a young woman she once coached in cheerleading. Katie talked with Tiffany for two hours and scheduled a follow-up in one week, giving Tiffany a reason to stay alive.

Back in general population, Tiffany befriended Brandy, a kind inmate who taught her the rhythms of jail life. Deputy Knox, a feared corrections officer who knew Eliot personally, publicly humiliated Tiffany by forcing her to remake her bed on her hands and knees while sobbing, then ordering every inmate in the pod, the jail's shared housing unit, to redo her bed until Tiffany got hers right. Knox whispered that she intended to make Tiffany pay for what she did to Eliot.

Tiffany's court appearance revealed her charges: eight counts of dealing in stolen property, eight counts of defrauding a pawnbroker, one count of grand theft, and three counts of grand theft of stolen firearms, with Eliot and his parents named as victims. Tiffany pleaded guilty. On Christmas Day, her father, Freddy, visited via video screen and revealed he had 45 days sober after a lifetime of alcoholism before disclosing he had cancer. Shortly after, Brandy returned to jail visibly deteriorated from meth use. She warned Tiffany that Lazarus, the drug dealer to whom Tiffany sold Eliot's guns, wanted revenge, and revealed that Daniels, an inmate who had taunted Tiffany for months, was Lazarus's wife. Brandy then collapsed from a seizure and died two days later at 29, the first person Tiffany had known to die from addiction.

Tiffany's public defender warned her the state initially wanted 15 years, but at the next hearing, two reduced options emerged: six months in jail plus probation, or four months in jail plus six months in residential treatment plus probation. Tiffany chose rehab, recognizing it as her only real chance at recovery. Her remaining weeks brought further turmoil. Jessie, a charismatic inmate with whom Tiffany developed a romantic relationship, grew possessive. Daniels sucker-punched Tiffany. A misunderstanding over a note, which guards saw Tiffany flush and suspected contained drugs, landed her in solitary confinement in a closet-sized cell with no windows or mattress. Denied showers and basic hygiene, Tiffany deteriorated until a guard discovered the neglect and released her early.

Placed in a Medical cell with Daniels, Tiffany confronted her directly. Through tears, Daniels explained that Tiffany's cooperation with police meant her two-year-old son would grow up without his father, and she was pregnant with a daughter Lazarus would never meet. Tiffany apologized sincerely, and Daniels accepted.

In her final weeks, Tiffany encountered Stephanie, a young woman recruiting inmates for Horizons, a faith-based rehab run by Stephanie's aunt, Felicity. Stephanie's story of losing her own mother resonated with Tiffany, whose mother died of cancer three years earlier. Tiffany's public defender insisted on a different facility, but Felicity found a loophole in the sentencing language. On release day, the assigned facility, New Life, failed to send transportation, and Horizons sent Stephanie instead. Tiffany ran outside, dropped to her knees on the grass, and wept.

At Horizons, Tiffany began therapy with Dr. Peters, recounting the backstory of her addiction. After her mother's death, a family friend paid for rehab, but Tiffany relapsed months later when she found pills in her roommate's dresser. She had already moved in with Eliot, who knew she was a recovered addict, when she confessed her relapse at a surprise party he threw for her. He prayed, forgave her, and asked her to promise she was done. She promised sincerely but could not keep it.

The addiction escalated. Tiffany blackmailed a pregnant coworker into giving her pills, was coerced by Mitch, a drug dealer, into accepting a briefcase of drugs to sell, and began injecting after a man named Javier taught her to use needles. She covered track marks with foundation and long sleeves, maintaining an elaborate double life. During a ride-along in Eliot's patrol car, she injected drugs in the police station bathroom. On the same shift, they responded to an overdose, and the dead man was Javier. In her most desperate moment, during severe withdrawal, Tiffany performed a sexual act for Lazarus in exchange for pills, a memory she had buried. When Mitch later threatened to release a sex tape, Tiffany pawned Eliot's and his parents' belongings, staged a burglary, and sold three of Eliot's firearms to Lazarus for $4,000. After Eliot discovered the missing guns and called in colleagues, a pawn search revealed Tiffany's name on numerous transactions. She was handcuffed on her front porch the next morning and, confronted during interrogation with transcripts of her text messages with Lazarus, confessed everything.

Tiffany's recovery at Horizons faced several tests. On her first night, she discovered residents injecting drugs in the bathroom. Staring at a loaded syringe, she thought of her father's face on the jail video screen and walked away, then alerted the counselors. Later, Dr. Peters told Tiffany she believed the story had been fabricated. Tiffany stormed out intending to leave, which would trigger a 15-year prison sentence, but Stephanie followed her and coaxed her to stay. Dr. Peters was eventually replaced by Kelly after being caught writing prescriptions for a resident in exchange for money.

A turning point came at a twelve-step meeting when Steve, a 71-year-old man with five years clean after 50 years of addiction, told the young women he would give anything to have entered recovery at their age. His words solidified Tiffany's commitment. She spent four more months at Horizons, acquired a sponsor, worked the twelve steps, and described telling her full truth as the act that freed her from years of shame.

In the final chapter, set five years later, Tiffany spoke at a treatment center for pregnant women in recovery, holding the pink worry stone her father gave her before his death from cancer. She and Freddy had celebrated their one-year sobriety medallions together before he passed. She told the women that after Horizons, she moved into a halfway house, met her future husband, and discovered she was pregnant. Her son was born on her own birthday. She married, had a daughter, and became stepmother to her husband's daughter, going from a single woman in a halfway house to a mother of three in two and a half years. With five years clean, Tiffany closed by telling the women that an incredible life awaits on the other side of addiction.