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This article discusses addiction.

JD Vance rose through the political ranks fast, becoming the youngest U.S. vice president since 1857 — and the second youngest in history. Still in his early 40s when he took office, the second-in-command to President Donald Trump has had an impressive career. The feat is made even more noteworthy considering Vance’s tragic background, marked by parental drug addiction and instability. The tragic life of Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins, culminated in a disorganized lifestyle that saw different men coming in and out of her and her two children’s lives.

Vance’s father, Donald Bowman, split when he was around 1. But Aikins and Bowman didn’t officially divorce until he was 6. His mother shared the news by informing Vance that he would never see his father again. “It was the saddest I had ever felt,” he wrote in his 2016 memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.” “Of all the things that I hated about my childhood, nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures.”

Aikins, a nurse, was addicted to alcohol, heroin, and prescription drugs, which she also dealt since her job offered easy access. “I sold drugs from the hospital that I was working at, in particular morphine. I stole morphine,” she told the Washington Examiner in 2024. Vance was 12 when she was taken by police. His emotions caught him by surprise. “In that moment, I just felt relieved,” he told NBC News‘ Megyn Kelly in 2017. Aikins eventually got sober and earned her children’s forgiveness, but her many husbands had long-lasting effects.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues, help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).

JD Vance and his sister Lindsay Ratliff’s childhood was deeply shaped by Beverly Aikins’ five marriages. They grew up amid chaos, bouncing between different homes and with more half-siblings and step-siblings than they could keep up with. “I had a biological half-brother and half-sister whom I never saw because my biological father had given me up for adoption,” he detailed in “Hillbilly Elegy.” “I had many stepbrothers and stepsisters by one measure, but only two if you limited the tally to the offspring of Mom’s husband of the moment. Then there was my biological dad’s wife, and she had at least one kid, so maybe I should count him, too.”

In fact, Vance and Ratliff were half-siblings, though they didn’t know it at first. “If any adjective ever preceded her introduction, it was always one of pride: ‘my full sister, Lindsay,'” he wrote. But Aikins’ many husbands also affected the family’s legal structure. Aikins’ third husband, Bob Hamel, adopted Vance and made him a Hamel. Aikins also changed his middle name from Donald, his biological father’s name, to David.

In some short years, Vance went from being James Donald Bowman to James David Hamel. But then Aikins divorced again. “One of the worst parts, honestly, was that Bob’s departure would further complicate the tangled web of last names in our family,” he wrote. Shortly before he graduated from Yale, he finally adopted the name of his grandparents: the people who raised him when his mother couldn’t.