Jada Pinkett Smith’s Mother Was Addicted to Heroin: I Abused Drugs For 20 Years

Jada with daughter Willow & mother Adrienne Norris

Jada Pinkett Smith’s Mother Discusses Her Heroin Addiction: “I abused drugs for 20 years.”

Jada Pinkett Smith and her mom Adrienne Banfield-Jones is getting real about addiction. The mother-daughter duo recently had an honest conversation about the struggles of overcoming addiction and how Banfield-Jones has been sober for 27 years. The 64-year-old admits on the show that she struggled with drug use for over 20 years.

“It’s difficult to talk about something that is gonna go out to the world,” Banfield-Jones says through tears at the beginning of the emotional episode.

I couldn’t hide the unmanageability of my life, and the emotional damage and the spiritual damage I did to myself and to her. That was devastating. I abused drugs for over 20 years.

Pinkett Smith offers her side of the situation and how she realized her mother was struggling with heroin addiction when she was young.

I think I didn’t find out my mother was addicted to heroin until I was in my teens. I could tell when my mother was high. She couldn’t make it on time to pick me up from school. Or she’s nodding off, falling asleep in the middle of something. You just realize, oh, that’s not being tired, that is like, a drug problem.

She continues,

Alcoholism and drug addiction runs through my family, and I’ve had my own addictions that I’ve had to get over. It just made me realize that really great people just get caught up.

Banfield-Jones says she decided to get clean when the opportunity for a relationship with a man she was interested in opened up. She admits,

At that time, I didn’t think I was anything without a man. So I had this man come back in my life. It’s sad to say that I did it for a man. 

Banfield-Jones says she eventually got to the point where she was doing it for herself, and leaned into religion.

I had to come to the understanding that there was a power. That God had been looking out for us, you and me both, through all of that. And I just had to let go and surrender so I could receive what he was trying to give to me, through other people.

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