MORE THAN JUST A NEW COVER, A NEW BOOK: a Mother’s Journey from Addiction to Higher Calling

By Stephan Drew, Editor

For nearly a decade, Jessica Beasley’s name was known around Darlington County for all the wrong reasons. Her mugshot circulated. Her arrests made headlines. Her family worried, prayed, and braced for the next phone call.

Today, the story reads entirely differently — and Beasley wants everyone to read it.

“Everybody put the bad stuff out there,” Beasley said, “but who’s going to put the good stuff out there? They didn’t mind putting my mugshot everywhere, they didn’t mind talking bad about me but, my story might help somebody.”

Now a stay-at-home mother, choir director, and recent Wheel of Fortune contestant, Beasley has spent the last 14 years rebuilding a life that once seemed destined for tragedy. Her turnaround, she says, was not her own doing.

“I’m not bragging,” she said. “The Lord gets ALL the credit. I am a product of prayer.”

Born in Hartsville in February 1982 to Lisa and Steve Adams, Beasley’s struggle with methamphetamine addiction began around the time she had her oldest child, now 23. For nine and a half years, addiction dictated the course of her life, landing her in jail on multiple occasions — first in May 2009, then again in February 2012.

It was after that second arrest that her mother, Lisa Adams, delivered an ultimatum that would change everything.

“No more,” Adams told her daughter. “We’re not doing this. You’ve got to figure this thing out.”

Beasley calls it the best “tough love” she has ever received — though it didn’t feel that way at first.

“I was angry at first and lashed out,” Beasley recalled. But as the hardship set in, and as she realized her family’s love had never actually left, something shifted.

While incarcerated, Beasley began attending Bible study, and she says that’s where the transformation truly took root. She knew, even then, she was being given a second chance.

“It’s your choice to walk out of that door a different person,” she said.

She walked out a different person indeed. Beasley is now a faithful member and Choir Director at New Providence Baptist Church in Hartsville, and for nearly 18 months she has carried her testimony directly back into the jail cells she once occupied — this time as a mission worker leading Bible studies for incarcerated women.

“I’ve been on that side of it. Now, I’m on this side,” Beasley said. “And, to be honest, they know I’m not judging where they are. They listen because I’ve been right there where they are.”

Some inmates have asked to see proof of who she used to be.

“‘Miss Jessica, we want to know what you looked like when you were a drug addict,'” she recalled them asking. “I printed out my mugshot and they said, ‘That is amazing!'”

For the ones who doubt their own capacity to change, Beasley meets their hesitation head-on.

“When they say, ‘I can’t turn from this,'” she said, “I say, ‘Yes you can. Let me show you what God can do.'”

Beasley’s public image has undergone its own kind of rebirth — this time, on national television. Last year, she appeared as a contestant on Wheel of Fortune.

“I was on TV13 and it wasn’t for something bad!” she said, laughing. “I was so happy to be on the news for something good.”

She was upfront with producers from the start about her past. “I wasn’t going to lie,” she said. “I told them who I was and what I did.” After full evaluation by their legal team, the producers ensured that her history wouldn’t keep her off the show.

Her first scheduled appearance was delayed by wildfires in California. When she returned for taping, a new obstacle appeared — the show’s theme that week was “Margaritaville.”

“This is something that will be aired on national TV, and I’m a Christian,” Beasley explained. “I couldn’t promote that.”

She called producers and explained her convictions. They agreed to move her to a different taping the following week — one where she went on to win a trip to Hawaii.

In 2014, Beasley married her husband, Chris. Today, the couple co-owns and operates C&J Faith Investments, a local home rental business, and they take part in Christian mission trips together each year. The Beasleys have three children: Cole Sheldon (23), Cooper O’Neal (16), and C.J. Beasley (11).

Her mother, Lisa Adams, sat with her during the interview, reflecting on how far her daughter has come.

“After her first year of being clean, my sister called me and asked, ‘How does it feel today?'” Adams recalled. “I said, ‘It finally feels like the shoe’s not going to drop.’ It was just amazing to see her transformation. She gave herself to the Lord wholeheartedly and she’s worked really hard.”

Adams also remembered an early jailhouse visit, when her daughter despaired that her secret was out.

“The first time I visited her in jail, she said, ‘Everybody knows!'” Adams said. “I responded, ‘That’s a good thing. You have nothing to hide anymore.'” Beasley agrees — it was liberating.

Fourteen years clean, Beasley says her life isn’t just turning a new page — it’s an entirely new book, one she hopes others will read and believe is possible for themselves. In the Preface of that book are two Bible verses she holds dear to her heart and fully lives. Psalm 18:2 – “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength in whom I will trust; my buckler and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower” and II Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

She shares her story for a very good reason. “I just want people to know there is hope,” she said. “You can’t believe how different and amazing your life can be through the Lord. We can make the choice, but He has the power to make it happen. There is a Divine appointment for everything.”