Country Singer Announces He Is 3 Days Sober After Relapse

Ruston Kelly revealed in a heartfelt Instagram post Wednesday that he is three days sober following a recent relapse.

The country singer-songwriter shared a photo of a chip from Narcotics Anonymous, saying that he has given up all substances, including alcohol, for the first time after an injury earlier this summer led him to relapse.

Kelly, 37, wrote that in 2021, he told himself he’d be on “the right ‘clean’ journey” so long as he was not using amphetamines.

“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 wrote. “‘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.’”

After marking five years of sobriety last year, he said he found a point in his journey where he was able to try and live a lifestyle “that was satisfactory to my carnal impulses because I ‘never had a problem with them.’”

But in June, he was riding in a residential golf cart when it hit a root growing out of the pavement, PEOPLE reports. He overcorrected and the cart flipped, throwing him headfirst into a mailbox and breaking his arm.

“After my accident where I broke my arm in half, I was given fentanyl, morphine, ketamine, Dilaudid and oxycodone for 3 days,” as well as a month-long prescription for Percocet, he revealed. He said he quickly started abusing the prescription opioid and was even “chewing them in the pharmacy before I walked out the door” and “hiding how many at a time I was taking.”

“It awakened something I hadn’t felt in a very long time,” he explained.

“On July 26 I decided to end any chance of ruining anything good. For my soul my wife my family my art and career and my people,” he continued. “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) 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. I am 3 days completely clean and sober again, and intend to remain this way forever, one day at a time.”

Much of Kelly’s music, which blends country with rock, centers around his struggles with addiction. His 2018 album Dying Star was written following a 2016 overdose, with his 2020 album Shape & Destroy documenting his path to sobriety.

Kelly’s most recent album, 2025’s Pale, Through the Window, chronicled falling in love with his wife Tia, whom he married in May after proposing to her at the Grand Ole Opry.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or addiction, please call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). SAMHSA’s National Helpline is free, confidential and available 24/7.