A Clean Mess: A Memoir of Sobriety After a Lifetime of Being Numb

by Tiffany Jenkins Narrated by Tiffany Jenkins

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ The bestselling author of High Achiever chronicles life after addiction-the raw, the dark, and the hilarious-from setting out with nothing but a backpack to discovering her marriage was built on a shakier foundation than she'd ever imagined to staying sober when life fell apart.

“Tiffany Jenkins illustrates that recovery is not just about sobriety, but about learning to live and feel again. Her compelling story is a testament to the power of resilience, humor, and hope.”-Sarah Levy, author of Drinking Games

A Clean Mess opens with the moment that changed everything. Tiffany is about to go on stage when she receives an odd message from her husband: “Hey Babe, some of the guys here are making some stupid decisions. Not me. But I just wanted to let you know in case you heard it from some of the other wives.” By the end of the night, Tiffany knew her life would never be the same.

This wasn't the first time she had to start over. After the opioid addiction and jail sentence that she chronicled in her bestselling memoir, High Achiever, Tiffany was ready for a fresh start. A chance to try life again, this time without drugs coursing through her veins. In A Clean Mess, she takes us back to those early days of recovery, and the whirlwind that she entered the moment she was out of prison. In just two years, she went from inmate to married and sober mom of three.

Told with humor and honesty, A Clean Mess is Tiffany Jenkins's story of how she learned to live and feel for the first time without numbing herself with drugs-and how she discovered inner reserves of strength she didn't know she had. From her tentative first days of sobriety, to seeing two pink lines on a pregnancy test weeks later, to navigating anxiety, a new marriage, and motherhood at the same time, to surviving betrayal and divorce, Jenkins shows how she got through it all when her crutches and Band-Aids were taken away from her. An inspiring memoir that reads like fiction, A Clean Mess is a book that will buoy anyone seeking a life raft in hard times.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In this deeply personal and unflinchingly honest memoir, Tiffany Jenkins illustrates that recovery is not just about sobriety, but about learning to live and feel again. Her compelling story is a testament to the power of resilience, humor, and hope.”—Sarah Levy, author of Drinking Games

“A Clean Mess is the book we have all been waiting for. Once again, Tiffany has taken us inside her life in recovery using humor, humility, and love as her compass. Tiffany’s second memoir gives readers a raw and honest look into relationships as a recovering addict. She’s relatable and endearing while living through some of the most unimaginable circumstances. I laughed. I cried. And then I called my parents.”—Lyssa Chapman, author of Walking on Eggshells

“When I read A Clean Mess, I found myself so deeply relating to Tiffany’s pain that it felt as though I’d crawled right into her body to live through it all over again. She holds nothing back and bares her soul with wit, honesty, and raw grit: things that make for both an excellent human and an excellent read. From one woman who has walked through fire to another: Read this! It’ll remind you that while we’re all kinda f***ed up, none of us are alone.”—Jodie Sweetin, author of unSweetined: A Memoir

“Jenkins takes readers on a rollicking ride-along through her addiction and recovery in the moving and darkly comic follow-up to High Achiever . . . Jenkins’s raw reflections have the rueful quality of diary entries (‘During the years I should have been learning to save money, file taxes, and pay bills, I was stuck on a train to nowhere’). Throughout, she avoids facile empowerment messages while still providing hope for those lingering near rock bottom. This inspires.”— Publishers Weekly

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193560982
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	06/03/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Present Day

A pit formed in my stomach as I stared down at my phone. I was backstage in Omaha, Nebraska, getting ready to do a show on the My Name Is Not Mom tour. Something about my husband’s message was off.

“Hey babe, some of the guys here are making some stupid decisions. Not me. But I just wanted to let you know in case you heard it from some of the other wives.”

In the nearly ten years we’d been married, this was the first text he’d ever sent that activated my Spidey-senses.

My heart thudded in my chest. The other wives he was referring to were my best friends. We’d all met in recovery when I’d first gotten clean and had remained close throughout the years. Our husbands were also in recovery and were also good friends. They were currently in Las Vegas on a bachelor trip for my best friend Amber’s fiancé.

Colin and I met in early recovery and got married rather quickly. I trusted him with my whole heart, which is why I hadn’t questioned the bachelor party plans. I knew he would do the right thing. So why was he being so weird?

I read the text over and over, trying to understand what he was referring to.

“Five minutes till showtime, ladies,” Brent, our tour manager, called.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, not looking up from the phone.

I know they wouldn’t be using drugs or drinking. Each of the guys had around a decade each of clean time, so that couldn’t be it.

“Call me,” I typed.

The dots to indicate he was typing never popped up.

“I have to go on stage in a few minutes, can you Facetime me real quick?”

My foot tapped impatiently as I waited for him to respond. Something fishy was going on, and I couldn’t go out and perform without knowing what the hell it was. A terrible feeling crept over me, not just because I was worried about my husband, but because the men he referred to were married to people I cared very much about.

My mind raced. Maybe he meant they were spending too much money? That’s probably what it was. I’d given Colin a budget for Vegas because if I hadn’t, lord knows he wouldn’t be able to control himself. Maybe the other guys didn’t get one? If he could just call me I wouldn’t have to speculate, damn it.

Deciding not to wait, I picked up my phone and called him. It rang and rang. No answer. He’d just texted me five seconds ago, so I knew he had his phone in his hand.

“HELLO?!?!?” I texted angrily.

No response.

“Is everything okay?” asked Marilyn, my friend who did the show with me.

“No, dude, I just got the weirdest text from Colin.”

“Oh, shit—he’s in Vegas, right?” she asked.

“Showtime, ladies!” Brent called, bursting through the door. I shook my head and stared at the text one last time.

I was angry that he would send a text like that right before my show and then not answer when I called. But more than angry, I was terrified about this feeling in my gut. Something bad was happening, and I had no clue what it was.

•

I couldn’t exit the stage fast enough, desperate to hear my husband’s explanation. I didn’t even acknowledge the security or staff on my way back to the dressing room like I usually did. I’d spent the past two hours on stage, forcing the worries down so I could make these people laugh, and all I wanted to do was talk to my husband.

I picked up my phone and gasped . . . Not because I saw something that shocked me, but because I didn’t see anything. He hadn’t responded the entire time I was gone. My heart hammered as I furiously texted, “What the f***?”

What had he been doing for the past two hours? Why would he send such an ominous message and then disappear?

“What did he say?” Marilyn asked, entering the greenroom.

“Nothing, dude, not a peep. It’s so messed up—he knows I had a show tonight and he knows I have horrible anxiety, so like why would he send that and not elaborate? I’m actually furious now.” I looked down at my phone and realized my hands were shaking.

“We gotta go do the meet-and-greet. You gonna be okay?”

“I have a bad f***ing feeling about this, dude. Something is off. Gimme just a sec. I’ll be right out,” I mumbled.

I called my mother-in-law to check on the kids, and hearing their voices made me feel better. But the fact that she hadn’t heard from Colin once since we’d left four days ago pissed me off even more. A good dad would have checked in on his kids. A good husband would answer his wife’s f***ing calls.

Just then my phone rang. It was him.

“What the hell is going on? Why aren’t you answering?”

“Sorry, babe, I was talking to the guys.”

“Facetime me real quick,” I said.

“I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m at a football game.”

“I don’t give a shit. I just had to spend two hours on stage thinking the worst. I just need a little reassurance.”

Click.

I pulled the phone away from my ear in disbelief. He’d hung up on me.

I called him on Facetime, my blood boiling. I needed to get out to the meet-and-greet, but more than anything, I needed to know why my husband was being so weird.

I let out a sigh of relief once he answered.

“What?!” he asked, annoyed.

“You can’t send me a text like that and then disappear. My mind is friggin’ racing, Colin. What is going on?”

“Nothing, just some guys making poor decisions. It’s not really my business, I just wanted to give you a heads-up. Damn. Why are you freaking out?”

Did I imagine it, or did he just slur the word “out”? I studied his eyes to check his pupils, but I couldn’t see them because of the bright stadium lights. I knew something was off.

I narrowed my eyes and bit the corner of my lip. “What kind of bad choices?”

“I don’t know, babe, just . . . F***, dude, I really didn’t want to rat anyone out.” There it was again, that word. He’d definitely slurred it this time.

“Just tell me, dude. I gotta go do a meet-and-greet.”

“Listen, I gotta go. We can talk about this later, okay? It’s really none of my business, Tiffany, it’s their shit. If I would have known you were gonna get this crazy over it I wouldn’t have said anything.”

“Crazy”?! I felt like I was being pretty damn composed considering the level of sketch my husband’s behavior had reached. He was usually transparent about things, and as far as I’d known, incredibly honest with me. He’d never hesitated to tell me the truth, even if it hurt my feelings, so why was it so important to him to keep whatever the hell this was from me?

“I gotta go,” he said, hanging up before I could respond.

Rage welled up inside me. The audacity of this asshole to turn this around on me and make me seem like the crazy one. I had asked a simple question.

Did I have a right to know? It felt like I did. But maybe he was right—maybe I should have just appreciated him giving me a heads-up instead of turning into a detective. I hated questioning myself like this. But something was off, and I was going to get to the bottom of it as soon as this meet-and-greet was over.

•

Smile, shake hands, hug, engage, seem happy, take photos, say thank you, wave goodbye. We repeated this process over and over again until the line dwindled down to only a few people. I couldn’t remember meeting anyone; I was too busy imagining what could possibly be happening in Vegas.

As we waved off the last of the people, I was informed it would be about twenty minutes until the crew was packed and ready to go. I marched straight to the greenroom, on a mission.

“Call me immediately and tell me everything or I’ll tell the other women that something is going on.”

I wasn’t sure if a threat would work, but it was worth a shot. Frankly, I was angry that he was even putting me through this emotional roller coaster, so I really didn’t give a shit if it pissed him off.

My phone rang instantly. Of course it did.

Marilyn entered the room slowly and I held up a finger to silence her as I answered the call.

“Hey,” I said, removing my shoes and crossing my legs on the couch.

“Hey,” he mumbled.

“All right, I’m done playing. I need you to tell me what’s going on before I have a damn heart attack.”

“I don’t know why you’re being so dramat—”

“Just f***ing tell me!” I screamed as the last strand of sanity snapped.

“It’s drugs!” he screamed back. My blood turned ice cold. “It’s drugs, dude,” he said, quieter this time. “Some of the guys f***ed up, Tiffany. John brought drugs on the plane, and as soon as it landed, everyone—well, almost everyone—started shooting them up and snorting them and shit. It was the craziest thing I’d ever seen.”

Tears formed in my eyes, and I realized that regardless of who he was referring to, people I cared about very much were soon going to have their lives changed forever.

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