“For My Soul, My Wife, My Family”: Acclaimed Country Singer-Songwriter Recommits To Lifelong Sobriety After Freak Accident

Ruston Kelly is opening up about his addiction. In a candid Instagram post, the singer revealed that he’s three days sober. The news follows a relapse that stymied more than five years of sobriety.

“I told myself back in 2021 that as long as I wasn’t using amphetamines that I would be on the right ‘clean’ journey for myself,” Kelly wrote. “I had never been addicted to any drug other than those pills. I lumped in alcohol and THC etc initially because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.”

“Somewhere along the way I became obstinate in my journey, that I wasn’t an ‘addict’ in the traditional sense of the word, that I was only addicted to amphetamines,” he continued. “‘I’ve never had a problem with alcohol, I’ve never had a problem with XYZ. See I can be like everyone else, I can show self control, I am in control.’”

Though Kelly noted that he “got to the point of recent spiritual surrender,” he revealed that even that didn’t stop him from using.

“I still attempted to live a lifestyle that was satisfactory to my carnal impulses because I ‘never had a problem with them,’” he explained.

Ruston Kelly Celebrates 3 Days of Sobriety

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Things worsened for the singer in June when a golf cart accident left him with a broken arm.

“After my accident where I broke my arm in half, I was given fentanyl morphine ketamine dilaudid and oxycodone for 3 days leaving with a month long Rx of Percocet,” he wrote. “I needed it for the level 15 pain but very quickly they started running out sooner and sooner.”

“I was chewing them in the pharmacy before I walked out the door. I was hiding how many at a time I was taking. I was complaining to the dr it wasn’t enough,” Kelly admitted. “It awakened something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.”

His breaking point came the following month.

“On July 26 I decided to end any chance of ruining anything good,” he wrote. “For my soul, my wife, my family, my art and career, and my people.”

“I admitted that whether I like it or not I will forever have a substance abuse disease. ALL drugs/substances including alcohol and THC are off the table for good (working on nicotine),” Kelly continued. “That if there is something that will scratch an itch I didn’t think I had, I will use it beyond excess and into addiction.”

Kelly concluded his vulnerable post by writing, “I am 3 days completely clean and sober again, and intend to remain this way forever, one day at a time.”

Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images