As Jewel recounted in a November 2020 interview with People magazine, her father's efforts to treat the PTSD he endured after serving in Vietnam led him to attempt to self-medicate — a thing that is sadly more common than not. (According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, which surveyed Vietnam veterans who were seeking treatment for PTSD, roughly 60 percent to 80 percent of those within the group also suffered from alcoholism.)
"As much as we have a genetic inheritance, we have an emotional inheritance," Jewel said of her upbringing. "My dad was also raised in a wildly abusive home. I had a way better go of it than he did when he was young, but it still wasn't good."
At 15, Jewel decided to move to a cabin by herself to escape. "I started paying rent and working a couple jobs in town, hitchhiking to work," she told the magazine. "It felt good. My dad and I had a difficult relationship, and I thought, 'I could live in a cabin by myself or I could live in a cabin with a guy that isn't that nice to me. So, why not go live in a cabin by myself?'"
Eventually, at 18, Jewel spent a year homeless before moving to California, where her music career would eventually take off. All throughout, Jewel said she "was determined to heal... and figure out how I could be the one who changed those habits."
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