Ben Fuller Testimony: From Cocaine Addiction to Worship

When Ben Fuller agreed to come to Winchester, Virginia for a fundraising event at Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge, I figured we'd get a solid evening of worship and maybe a few good moments for social media. What I didn't expect was to sit across from a man who would articulate so much of what I've watched families walk through for the last two decades.

The evening itself was electric. Ben led worship in front of a crowd that knew the weight of addiction firsthand. Winchester and Frederick County have been gutted by the opioid crisis. Conservative estimates put 50,000 people in this region battling substance abuse. Double that number and you're probably closer to the truth.

Before the event, we sat down to record an episode of the Rebuilding Life After Addiction podcast. What came out wasn't polished. It was raw. Ben talked about 14 years of cocaine and alcohol addiction, the best friend who died from the same drugs he was using, and the single worship service that changed the trajectory of his life.

If you've ever loved someone who seemed too far gone, this story is for you.

The Wound That Started It All

Ben grew up in Vermont on a dairy farm. Only son. One sister. At his father's side constantly, throwing hay bales, handling chores, rushing from the barn to football practice and back. From the outside, it looked like solid character building.

But underneath the performance was a question that never got answered.

"All I wanted to do was know that he loved me," Ben said. "I think that's what I missed most as a kid growing up. Not hearing 'I love you.'"

He could outwork all his buddies. Captain of the football team. Everything going for him on the outside. But on the inside, completely broken, completely empty.

"I didn't know that hole in my heart was something that only God could fill."

Ben describes it as generational hurt being passed down. Grandpa to dad to him. Nobody knew any different. What somebody learns, they just hand down again until something interrupts the cycle.

Until Jesus interrupted it.

The Slide Into Addiction

Like most of us, Ben didn't wake up one day and decide to destroy his life.

The slide started quietly between ages 16 and 18. He reached such a dark place that he attempted suicide but couldn't go through with it.

"I was just too scared to pull the trigger. I kind of saw the flash of the funeral line, the flash of friends and family, and I was like, 'Man, I'm not ready. I can't do this.'"

Not long after, the enemy offered a different kind of escape. Cocaine. Alcohol. Sex.

Ben describes it this way: "I just began to disappear in plain sight."

He found friends who loved cocaine too. One of them, his best friend Ryan, would become a haunting reminder of where that path leads. They used together for about ten years.

December 16, 2017

"Ryan's dead. December 16th, 2017. He's no longer here. Him and I used for 10 years. Why am I still here? Why is he dead? Why did he overdose and not me? We were doing the same drugs."

After Ryan's death, Ben tried to quit in his own strength.

"I said, 'I'll never use again, I'll never drink again. It just killed my best friend. I'm not gonna do that again.' Two months later, I'm drinking 20 beers a night again."

He kept believing the lie. If I just cut back a little. If I just move. If I just change this one thing. I'll be fine.

It never worked. It never does.

This is the part that resonates with me after years of watching people cycle through recovery. Willpower has a shelf life. Sobriety alone won't save you. You can white-knuckle your way through a few weeks, maybe a few months. But without something deeper, without someone greater, the same bondage finds you again.

1,250 Miles to Nashville

When we're miserable, we often think a new location will fix everything.

Ben did what a lot of dreamers do. He moved to Nashville in fall 2018. Left landscaping, stone walls, and Vermont behind to chase music and a fresh start.

But he's brutally honest about what really happened.

"That addiction followed me 1,250 miles all the way down to Nashville."

You can swap states, jobs, relationships, and friend groups. But if your heart doesn't change, the same bondage follows you. Geography can't heal spiritual slavery.

I've watched this play out dozens of times. Families scrape together money to send their son or daughter somewhere new, hoping distance will do what surrender hasn't. It rarely works. The zip code changes. The chains don't.

The Dinner Invitation

Here's where you see God's sovereignty up close.

A family from Vermont, the Davenports, had moved to Nashville a year before Ben did. He barely knew them. Had landscaped with their son. Met them at a hospital after some freak incident. They'd shown up at bars and restaurants to support his music. Just a sweet family that kept showing up.

After they settled in Tennessee, they reached out with a simple question on a Saturday night in fall 2019.

"Ben Fuller, will you come for dinner?"

He came for the food.

"They loved me just the way that I was. They loved me just the way that Jesus does. They didn't judge anything. My language, I had beers, I remember drinking beers over there. I couldn't be myself without alcohol."

At the end of the meal, they asked one more question.

"Will you come to church with us in the morning?"

Simple invitation. God used it to change everything.

November 3, 2019

The next morning, Ben walked into Church of the City in Franklin, Tennessee.

What broke through first wasn't a sermon, a theology lesson, or a slick presentation.

It was worship.

"I walked in there and I heard the music. Again, here comes the music. It rose up inside of me, and I just ran into the auditorium and stood there in the aisle."

"As a man who'd been living his life as a secret drug addict hiding in plain sight, I'd never been higher."

In that moment, Romans 10:9 flooded his mind. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if you believe that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

"I cried out. I said, 'Jesus, help me. I need Your help. I don't even know who You are, I don't even know what this is right now, but everybody's hands up, the music playing.'"

John Reddick was on stage singing "God Turn It Around."

"I surrendered. I said, 'I'm done running.' And He did. He turned my life around."

What Nobody Talks About

We celebrate the altar moment. We share the testimony. We cheer.

But we don't talk enough about what happens the next day.

Ben is brutally honest.

"No one talks about this either, but I felt it. I was probably lonelier than I'd ever been in a really long time after I gave my life to Jesus. It was lonely."

"All my friends, bye, friends. 'What are you doing, Ben? What, are you brainwashed? Jesus? Worship? God?' I had friends, I've still got lots of friends that I haven't heard from, don't talk to anymore, gone away, blame me, whatever it is."

Even family didn't fully understand what had happened.

He had Jesus, but his old world was crumbling.

This is where so many people fall through the cracks. The altar moment is real, but the follow-through is where freedom gets built or lost. It's why I wrote about what happens when treatment ends. The spiritual high fades. The hard work of rebuilding begins. Without community, without people who refuse to leave you alone, the old life has a gravitational pull that's hard to resist.

The Davenports wouldn't leave Ben alone. They kept inviting him back. They kept inviting him over.

The Man With the Towel

"You know who was there at my baptism with a towel? My best friend Paul. He landscaped with me for most of my life. I had no idea that he was secretly praying for me every day."

"I would tell him things, I would show up hungover, and he was there to wrap me with a towel and say, 'Welcome to the family. I've been praying for you your whole life.'"

Paul told Ben something that still moves him: "I thought you were hopeless. I thought my prayers were never going to be answered."

These were people from Vermont, a state that's only 2-4% Christian. The Lord managed to find the people in that community to pray for Ben before Ben even knew what prayer was.

If you're praying for someone right now and it feels pointless, keep going. You don't know what seeds you're planting. You don't know who else God has positioned around them. The work of loving an addict often happens in the dark, long before the breakthrough.

Identity: The Song God Used to Tell Ben Who He Was

If you know Ben Fuller, you've probably heard his breakthrough song about identity in Christ.

Ben says God gave him that song to tell him who he was now.

"We wrote it in under an hour. It was special and powerful, and we had no idea what was gonna come out of it and what was gonna happen."

Only later, especially during his first headline tour, did the Holy Spirit press the message deeper into his heart.

"He really showed me. He was telling you your identity from that day forward. Now you're no longer a drug addict, you're no longer an alcoholic, you're no longer a womanizer. No, you're a child of mine. And I love you."

Night after night, he stands on stage and declares that truth. Not just over the crowd, but over his own mind.

"I'm a child of the Most High God, and the Most High God is for me."

"I'm not thinking, 'Where am I gonna get my next fix tomorrow?' or 'I need to stop for more beer.' No, I'm speaking life over myself, which I think is so important because it's so easy to get down, it's so easy to fall back into the ditch again."

This is the core of what I call the Robe phase of recovery. Who you are matters more than what you did. The Father doesn't hand you a servant's uniform when you come home. He throws a robe over your shoulders. That's identity.

From Addiction to Prison Ministry

God has taken Ben's story into some of the hardest places in America. Prisons.

Ben partners with ministries like God Behind Bars and Prison Fellowship, bringing worship and the gospel to facilities like San Quentin and Louisiana State Penitentiary.

He says something a lot of church folks don't want to admit.

"I have more church in prison than I do in church, to be honest with you. Those guys are sold out and they're tired. They're looking. They're ready. They're receiving, they're humble, they're honest."

Why? Because many men on the inside are done pretending. Tired of the life that landed them there. Desperate for real hope, not clichés.

Ben knows he could have been on the other side of those bars.

"I never got caught. I was the guy that never got busted. My favorite thing was drinking and driving. I have no idea how many times I would park my truck and have no idea where my truck was. I have no idea how I got home or how I didn't swerve and kill somebody or myself."

"So God caught me on the outside so that He could send me in."

Contentment Over Platform

We live in a platform-obsessed world. Even in ministry, it's easy to chase numbers, stages, followers, and reach.

Yes, God has opened wild doors for Ben. Christian radio airplay. The Grand Ole Opry. CMA Fest with Jody Messina in front of 50,000 people. Red Rocks Amphitheatre, twice in one year.

But here's what's changed. He's not chasing those things anymore.

"I set out for my own fame and my own things when I went to Nashville with a 12-pack in the passenger seat. I wanted to sing about country music and beer joints and the rest of it."

"But if you're content with Christ, then you're content. Just leave it at that. God, whatever else You do is awesome."

He's learned that if your heart isn't content in Christ, no stage, stream count, or chart position will ever be enough. The finish line just keeps moving.

This is why I believe so strongly that sobriety isn't the same as peace. You can achieve external success and still be running on empty inside. Freedom isn't just the absence of substances. It's the presence of something greater.

What Ben's Story Means for You

If you're in addiction right now, here's the truth. Addiction is an escape, not a solution. Moving to a new state, starting a new job, or changing relationships won't fix what's broken inside. That addiction will follow you.

You can't white-knuckle your way to freedom. Ben tried after Ryan's death. Two months later, he was back to 20 beers a night. When people tell him they're doing sobriety on their own, he says: "Good luck. I don't believe in luck, but good luck. Because you ain't gonna do it for much longer because you're gonna run out. I don't care how strong you are, how tough you are. If you don't have a Savior, if you don't have Jesus."

You need Jesus, and you need people. Ben had both. The living Christ who met him in worship, and believers like the Davenports and Paul who refused to walk away. That combination, surrender to Jesus plus real Christ-centered community, is where true transformation happens.

If you're praying for your own "Ben," maybe you have a son, daughter, sibling, or friend who looks hardened, numb, or completely uninterested in God.

Don't stop praying. Don't stop loving them. Don't underestimate one meal, one invitation, one act of stubborn grace.

The people who thought Ben Fuller was a lost cause are now watching him preach and sing the gospel in places they may never set foot.

Paul prayed for Ben for years and honestly thought he was too far gone. God proved him wrong.

Watch the Full Conversation

This interview was recorded before a live event at Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge in Winchester, Virginia. You can watch the full conversation above or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect With Ben Fuller

• Website: BenFullerMusic.com
• Spotify/Apple Music: Search "Ben Fuller"
• Instagram/Facebook: @BenFullerMusic