My Memoir
My Job Is Me
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My Job Is Me: A Memoir of Growing Up Around Addiction and Learning to Let Go
She was fifteen. Her baby sister was eighteen months old. And their mother was passed out down the hall at two in the afternoon.
For most of her life, Jody Lamb had one job: find a way to finally fix Mom.
She drew the curtains so the neighbors wouldn’t see. She kept the secret from teachers, friends, everyone. She rocked her baby sister to sleep and got so good at holding a family together that nobody noticed she was coming apart.
The job continued into adulthood. On the outside: college degree, steady career, big smile. On the inside: chronic anxiety, deep exhaustion, untangling her parents’ collapsing finances, and the unshakable belief that if she just tried a little harder, her mother would stop drinking and they could all live happily ever after.
The job she’d accepted as a little girl nearly cost her everything.
My Job Is Me is the story of a daughter who spent decades trying to love her mother into sobriety, and what happened when she finally stopped. It’s about the secrets kids keep, the pain that travels quietly from one generation to the next, and what it costs to put everyone else first. Told with unflinching honesty and unexpected warmth, it ends not with a cure, but with something better: peace and a family changed by letting go.
For the millions who grew up around addiction, and for anyone loving someone they cannot change, this is proof that a completely different life is possible.
Your first job in life is to take good care of yourself. It’s never too late to start.
Includes a resource guide for readers beginning their own healing journey. From the award-winning author of Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool.
Get your copy today!
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I may earn a small commission if you purchase the book via one of the links above.
If money’s tight, please consider asking your local library to get a copy on the shelf for you and your whole town!
What’s Inside?
I tell the story of growing up with an alcoholic mother — the chaos, the caretaking, the years I spent holding my family together and believing I could love her into sobriety. And I tell the story of what happened when I finally stopped.
It’s about the specific exhaustion of being the responsible one. The performance of being fine. The guilt that shows up the moment you even consider putting yourself first.
But this isn’t only a book about addiction. It’s about what it costs to put everyone else first, and what becomes possible when you stop. Your details might look different from mine. You’ll still recognize yourself.
Who I Wrote This For
The responsible one.
You managed everyone’s moods, kept the peace, and learned to read a room before you learned to read. From the outside you looked fine. You’ve never been sure anyone noticed what it took.
Anyone who loves someone they can’t fix.
A parent, a partner, a sibling, a child. If you’ve spent your peace, your energy, and your joy trying to save someone, you’ll find company in these pages.
Anyone who wants to stop, even though it feels like betrayal.
You know something has to give, but letting go feels like giving up on someone you love. This book shows you what it looked like when I did.
Anyone who forgot to come first.
You’re the one everyone leans on. Rest makes you feel guilty, and you can’t remember the last time you came first.
A MEMOIR, NOT A MANUAL
What Makes This Book Different
The honest version of letting go.
Not the clinical definition of detachment. The real one: what it actually felt like to stop, what it cost, why it didn’t feel loving even when it was, and how I live with having done it.
It makes its case through story.
This book doesn’t hand you a to-do list. It builds the case for a simple idea— that your primary job in life is to take good care of yourself — by showing what happened when I finally believed it.
Written from the middle, not the mountaintop.
I’m not a therapist, and I’m not writing from decades of distance with every lesson tied up in a bow. This is my true story, told honestly, including the parts I’m still figuring out.
Meet Jody
Hi, I’m Jody. I grew up with a mom who struggled with alcoholism. From the outside, I looked like I had it all together — good grades, successful career, checking every box. On the inside, I was exhausted, anxious, constantly on edge, and running on fumes.
At 26, I hit a wall. And then it hit me — the thing nobody had ever taught me: my primary job in life was to take good care of myself. Not my mom. Not everyone else. Me. My Job Is Me is the full story.
My first book, Easter Ann Peters’ Operation Cool, is a middle-grade novel for kids growing up with an alcoholic parent. It won the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award and was recommended by the Betty Ford Center.
I’ve been writing and making videos about life as an adult child of an alcoholic since 2009, and I’m still in it, still learning. I live in the Michigan mitten with my husband, Andy, and a senior cat who’s convinced she’s still a kitten.
If You’ve Ever Loved Someone More Than Yourself
This is the story of what happened when I stopped trying to save my mom, and finally took on the job that was mine all along: taking good care of myself.
Get My Job Is Me today
Ebook:
Paperback:
I may earn a small commission if you purchase the book via one of the links above.
If money’s tight, please consider asking your local library to get a copy on the shelf for you and your whole town!
