Ben Fuller Testimony: From 14 Years of Cocaine Addiction to Worship Leader

In this conversation on the Rebuilding Life After Addiction podcast, Ben shares the 14½ years of cocaine and alcohol addiction that nearly killed him, the best friend who died from the same drugs, and the single worship service that changed everything.

If you're carrying a secret addiction, wrestling with family wounds, or praying for someone who seems "too far gone," Ben's story will feel uncomfortably familiar—and deeply hopeful.

Quick Summary:

Ben Fuller spent 14½ years trapped in cocaine and alcohol addiction while appearing successful on the outside. His best friend Ryan died from the same drugs. Ben tried to quit on his own—failed. Moved to Nashville—addiction followed him. Then a Vermont family invited him to dinner, then to church. On November 3, 2019, during worship at Church of the City in Franklin, TN, Ben surrendered his life to Jesus. Today he's a worship leader, recording artist, and brings the gospel into prisons like San Quentin and Angola. His breakthrough song "Identity" declares: "I'm a child of the Most High God."

Key Moments:

• Growing up without hearing "I love you"
• 14½ years of secret addiction
• Best friend Ryan's death (December 16, 2017)
• Worship service that changed everything (November 3, 2019)
• Prison ministry at San Quentin and Louisiana State Penitentiary
• New song "Deeper Still"

The Ben Fuller Testimony at Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge

Ben Fuller traveled to Winchester, Virginia to record this interview during a fundraising event for Shenandoah Valley Adult & Teen Challenge. The evening combined worship, testimony, and community support for a ministry that has transformed hundreds of lives in the Shenandoah Valley region.

Justin Franich, Director of Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge, sat down with Ben before the worship event to capture this raw conversation about addiction, family wounds, and the power of God's redeeming love. The interview took place in front of a community that knows firsthand the devastation of addiction—Winchester and Frederick County have been ravaged by the opioid crisis, with an estimated 50,000+ people battling substance abuse.

The Wound That Started It All: Growing Up Without "I Love You"

Ben Fuller grew up in Vermont, a state where Christianity isn't the norm. Church wasn't part of his upbringing because his parents didn't go. What he did know was work.

As the only son on a dairy farm with one sister, Ben was 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, all-American character building.

But underneath the performance and work ethic was a simple, painful question that never got answered:

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

The work ethic was there. Ben could outwork all his buddies. He was captain of the football team. He had everything going for him on the outside.

"But on the inside, I was completely broken, completely empty, and lacking a lot of stuff. I didn't know that hole in my heart was something that only God could fill."

Generational Hurt Being Passed Down

Ben describes it as generational hurt being passed down: "Grandpa passed down to dad, passed down to me. We didn't know any different. Nobody knew any different. What somebody learns, they just pass that down and hand that down again until something has changed, until something is interrupted."

Until Jesus interrupted the cycle.

Today, Ben's relationship with his father has been completely transformed. "I've heard 'I love you' from my dad's lips, which is amazing. He watches and listens to podcasts like this. He listens to Big Daddy Weave and Zach Williams. He's proud of me."

"It's been really beautiful. My relationship with my dad has become so special now to watch what the Lord has restored all the locust years of my life."

Music Before Jesus: God Was Already Drawing Him

Before Ben ever stepped into a church, music was already speaking to something deeper.

"I used to sing to pass the time. I used to sing honestly when I was so tired of work, when I didn't feel like working."

At the time, he thought he was just distracting himself or pushing through another long day. But looking back, he sees it differently.

"Come to find out, doing all this research on music and realizing how powerful music is and how it can take you from a place and bring you to another place."

Ben was struck by the power of Negro spirituals—how servants and slaves used to sing these songs to take them out of the hurt and pain they were in.

"I didn't realize the times that I didn't want to be doing the things I was doing, I was connecting with God. I was actually singing in some of those moments, and I had no idea that I was. Now that I've been saved, I can look back and go, 'Oh my goodness, you were there the whole time.'"

Those moments of singing in the middle of exhaustion were early glimpses of worship—long before he knew Jesus personally.

The Slide Into Addiction: "I Just Began to Disappear in Plain Sight"

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

The slide started quietly between ages 16-18. 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, and 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: The Day Ryan Died

"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, he 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 wears off. Time kind of heals things and you realize, 'Well, maybe I'll be fine if I just have a couple, and maybe I'll be fine if I do a little cocaine.' You slip back into that same old rut."

It never worked. It never does.

1,250 Miles to Nashville: "That Addiction Followed Me"

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, Tennessee in fall 2018. He 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.

The Still, Small Voice

Even in Nashville—still running, still numbing, still trying to escape—God was speaking.

Ben describes hearing a still, small voice inside. It wasn't loud. It wasn't shaming. It was steady and clear:

You need to go. You can't keep living like this.

"The Bible talks about the still small voice. It really was still and small. It was so calm but also convicting—like 'I've gotta go, I need to go, I know I need to go.' Everybody listening knows that point of 'okay, enough is enough.'"

He didn't yet realize that voice belonged to Jesus. But he knew this: staying the same was no longer an option.

Ben's father had always told him something that stuck with him: "Budweiser's gonna keep making beer, man."

"Now I sit back and look at that after I'm out of addiction going, 'Oh my goodness, they will. They're gonna keep feeding me. The drugs are gonna keep coming.'"

This was also right around the time fentanyl started taking over. "When I was doing cocaine, fentanyl wasn't a concern. We had never even talked about it. I'm 38, so that was a new thing that had kind of come in, and everyone started being scared about it."

The Dinner Invitation That Changed Everything

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

A family from Vermont—the Davenport family—moved to Nashville a year before Ben did. He barely knew them.

"I'd landscaped with their son, had kind of a freak incident, met them at the hospital. Next thing you know, they come out and support me at some bars and restaurants. They're the sweet family that would come and support me."

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?"

It was a simple invitation God would use to change everything.

November 3, 2019: The Morning Jesus Saved Ben Fuller

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 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."

Life After the Altar: "I Was Probably Lonelier Than I'd Ever Been"

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?' People were—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.

The Davenport Family Wouldn't Leave Him Alone

"I'm grateful for the Davenport family. They wouldn't leave me alone. They wouldn't let me alone. They kept inviting me back. They kept inviting me over."

Other believers started showing up too. People who had quietly been praying for him for years suddenly stepped into the open.

On November 10, 2019, Ben went public with his faith and was baptized. He posted the video online and was shocked at who responded.

The Man With the Towel: Paul's Story

"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."

"And I've had people all along the way saying, 'Me too, me too. I was praying also. Hey, remember us? Remember we were weird and sweet to you ten years ago? That's why.'"

These were people from Vermont—in this non-Christian community 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.

Identity: From "Hopeless Addict" to "Child of God"

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 (If I Got Jesus), 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. You've turned around, you've come back to me, and I've got 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."

From Addiction to Prison Ministry: "God Caught Me on the Outside"

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 (Angola).

"I Have More Church in Prison Than I Do in Church"

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, and desperate for real hope, not clichés.

"We're baptizing these guys, they're falling in the water, they're like, 'I want this. I want this kind of peace. I want this kind of love. Sign me up. I'm ready. I got nothing left.' And the Bible says in your weakness, He is strong."

Ben has watched men flood the altar in prison chapels, inmates publicly surrender to Jesus and get baptized, and violence, suicides, and conflicts drop as the gospel takes root.

"Violence, all the levels, everything is down. So the wardens love us. We're dealing with less suicides, less stabbings, less fights, less arguments against their COs. They're like, 'Come on back anytime. Here's the key.'"

Why Ben Goes In

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. I was the guy that always somehow—I have no idea how many times—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."

"Just dents on my truck. It's insane that He was protecting me the whole time, but I never got caught."

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

"Now all of a sudden I'm inside these walls going, 'What am I doing in here?' And I think He's shown me, 'Well, these are the places that you could have been. These are the places that I could have let you come into before. But now you can also see that My Spirit knows no boundaries either. I go in there behind those walls, behind those bars. Doesn't matter how thick.'"

A Call to Prayer

Ben recently was at Louisiana State Penitentiary on death row, thinking he was going to bring hope to the inmates.

"A man named Bobby sang over me. I hit my knees so fast. It's like, man, the power of prayer is—I'm sold on it because I've watched the fruit of it. I've seen it. I'm an example of it. I've seen God work in places that you can't imagine."

"Think about the amount of people listening to this right now with no hope—that they have somebody that they don't even know, maybe, that has been praying for their salvation, praying for their heart to be filled up, for them to come to Christ."

Contentment in Christ, Not the 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, and 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."

"You'll reach that, then what? Then you want to play it in front of 500,000 people, and then you want to—so it's like if you're content with Christ, you're content."

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.

New Music: "Deeper Still"

Ben's new song "Deeper Still" reflects his continued journey with Jesus.

"His love goes deeper. It goes deeper still. It's like, 'Man, keep digging.' In my world, I was digging for the wrong things. I had a shovel in my hand, I was digging dirt, and I was traveling down the wrong paths."

"Once I realized, 'Oh, this is where I need to be digging. I need to be digging in the Word of God. I need to be after Him, I need to be reading daily.' It's just amazing how it fills me up. The smallest of digging in His Word can fill me up for the whole entire day."

"Before, I was just aimlessly kind of wandering and looking and constantly searching."

Social Media and the Gospel

Even his approach to social media has changed.

"Posting online—it was all about how many followers can I get, how many fame, how many? I need to make sure to post at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., the high times. Now I'm missing days, and the label's like, 'Hey, can you stay on that?' But it's like, man, when the Holy Spirit prompts me to post, I'll post."

"The scrolling thing can be endless. If it ain't Jesus, it ain't gonna work."

What Ben Fuller's Testimony Means for Your Recovery

If You're in Addiction Right Now:

1. 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 1,250 miles or more.

2. 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."

3. 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 + 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.

If You're a Believer Wrestling With Identity:

Start speaking what God says about you, the same way Ben declares it over himself every night on stage.

Open your Bible, even if it's just for a few minutes a day. Let God define you—not your past, not your feelings, not your failures.

A Call to the Body of Christ

Ben's story is also a challenge to believers:

"How many Bens are there that have had these radical moments at a church service, but there wasn't a Davenport family that had been praying to wrap the towel around them?"

We see these moments—people ready for harvest—and then there's just not that towel, not that community to catch them.

Recidivism and relapse rates remain high when the church doesn't follow through. But when the body of Christ actually wraps the towel around new believers and refuses to leave them alone, transformation happens.

The Shenandoah Valley: A Community in Need of Hope

Ben and the prison ministry teams serve places like Winchester and Frederick County in the Shenandoah Valley—communities ravaged by addiction where an estimated 50,000 people are battling substance abuse.

As Ben says: "We can assume that number is doubled, because I know who I was before Christ. Apart from Christ, my flesh can do no good. So we can just assume."

"We need to be praying for them to come forward and just be honest. What are you running from? Where are you going? What are you gonna do? What's next?"

This is why the work of Shenandoah Valley Adult & Teen Challenge is so critical. For over 20 years, SVATC has provided faith-based, long-term residential recovery programs that address not just the symptoms of addiction, but the root causes—broken identity, generational hurt, and spiritual emptiness.

You're Not Too Far Gone

Jesus is still interrupting generations of hurt.

He's still turning addicts into worshipers.

He's still sending people like Ben Fuller into the darkest places to prove that no one is beyond His reach.

If God can interrupt 14 years of cocaine addiction, save a secret addict hiding in plain sight, and turn him into a worship leader reaching prisons across America—He can do it for you, or for the one you're praying for.

"Who I was, I left at the altar. I am Yours, Lord, I believe."

Connect With Ben Fuller

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

Support This Ministry

Every story shared is a seed planted. Every conversation recorded is hope delivered to someone's 3 AM moment of desperation.

Support Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge: giving.svtc.info/page/RebuildingHope

Hope creeps in—not crashes. Let's keep putting it within reach.