Breaking Free From the Chains of Addiction

Meet Robert Reeder. Reeder was born in Memphis, Tennessee.

Reeder recalls being around 16 when he had his first girlfriend. At this time, his girlfriend's dad was a preacher, so Reeder would go to church just to hang out with her. He admits that during this time, church was boring to him and he would question why he was even going. After years of continuing to go to church and progressing, he says, "I remember turning eighteen, and I woke up one morning with this sensational love around me and this peace. I truly can't explain it to this day. I knew it was God."

When Reeder returned home that evening, he says that he played basketball as he did every day. After he was done playing basketball, he explained that he sat in a chair and began speaking, saying, "God, if you show me you're real, I'll live my life for you." Reeder then explains that he suddenly saw a vision, which became the first of many, in which angels were painting in the clouds, using the clouds as canvas. "I began to see things, spiritual things, that I still can't explain to this day," Reeder explains. Reeder explains that at this point, he knew he had encountered God and that God had called Reeder to follow Him, but instead, he decided to go in the opposite direction.

"I was still smoking weed. I was partying, but internally I was dealing with something that no one else understood," explains Reeder. He explains that after this vision, he felt confused, which led him to drink, party, and smoke weed even more once he left high school and entered college at Lewis and Clark University in Alton, Illinois. "I partied. I'd go out. I'd drink, purposely, to try to escape. I fell into an even more deeper, darker depression."

At the age of 22, after being in and kicked out of different colleges, Reeder says he was back home in Memphis and in between colleges. Although he continued to get basketball scholarships at different colleges, he explains that he was so crazy that he would typically either flunk out of school or leave school. He recalls a day when he was at a friend's house. The two of them were in the living room smoking weed when he heard a voice say, "You're here for a reason. You're here for a purpose."

"All of a sudden, it felt like reality got too much, and I felt my soul slipping from my body. Everything got dark. (...) [Then] I thumped back into my body," Reeder says, explaining a supernatural moment that happened to him. He then goes on to say that this caused him to quickly leave his friend's house, run to his car, and cry. He explains that he felt alone and as though nobody understood what he was dealing with.

Reeder goes on to explain that, "secretly, I [would] drive to this park and just cry to God and sing these love songs to God." He says that he would take non-Christian love songs and use them to sing about his love for God. During this time, he was crying, after leaving his friend's house, Reeder says that a commercial was playing on the radio, but it abruptly switched to a song he would use to worship God. Despite feeling as though God was trying to speak to him, Reeder began to feel depressed and suicidal, saying, "Every day felt like my last day."

At the age of 23, Reeder began studying in Louisiana at Southern University through a basketball scholarship. During the first three months, he says that he continued to deal with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts, but that he would take time daily to go to the library to study the Bible and pray. One day, after basketball practice, Reeder says he was sitting on the curb, it began to rain, and he cried out, "God, I'm done talking to you. I know you're real. You just don't care."

Reeder continues to explain that as he was sitting on the curb while it was raining, a car pulled up. A man was inside and offered to give him a ride. As the two were riding, Reeder explains, "he started to tell me things about myself that I've never [told] anybody. He started to tell me about the depression, the weed, the anxiety, all the things that happened to me." The man told him the holy spirit was in the car with them, and Reeder began to cry. Reeder explains further that the man said to him, "God told me to tell you, when you get home, he's waiting for you in your room." At that time, Reeder says he did not believe the man because he felt he was "too bad."

When he got home, Reeder says as he walked down the hall to the door of his apartment, then touched the handle of his door, "hope [started] to swell." When he opened the door, Reeder explains that "peace and this love just [shattered him]" and caused him to break down crying.

Follow Rob Reeder on Instagram.

Reeder then explains that from that point forward, he desired to become closer to God, and he also began to be discipled by the man who picked him up that day. The man, he learned, was a pastor at The Word and Worship Church in southern Louisiana named Ted Lamont Scott. Reeder says that even to this day, they have stayed connected, and he continues to mentor him. Reeder says, however, that God continued to show him signs and wonders, which led him to realize that his peace came from God, calling it "the initial phase of me changing my whole life around."

Reeder says that after all these experiences, he still began to live a double life. He was addicted to pornography, drugs (pills, percocet, marijuana, molly), partying, and alcohol.

In 2015, Reeder got out of the military and came to Germany for love. When the two split in 2019, he decided to move to Stuttgart to pursue a job opportunity. On Halloween in 2022, Reeder had another encounter with the holy spirit that led him to stop drinking and partying. "It took so long of a process for me to get it all together," he says. "That's why I know that life, when on this path, especially when you're weeding out all those things, especially the world. It takes a while for you to clean all those things out of your system."

Now, Reeder is the associate pastor at Stuttgart New Beginnings in Sindelfingen, Germany. Reeder realizes "every addiction [he] ever had was a coping mechanism because [he] didn't know how to cope with life back then." To anyone on the fence about Christ and trying to understand life, Reeder simply says, "ask God to draw you close to him." He continues by saying, "if [you] truly have a desire and [you] open up with that prayer 'Lord, draw me close to you,' and sincerely mean it with all your heart, mind, and soul, then the Lord will draw [you]."

Reeder preaches at Stuttgart New Beginnings. (Photographed by Dani Fielder.)

Reeder studies and prepares to speak at church. (Photographed by Dani Fielder.)

Reeder stands smiling in his aparment's kitchen. (Photographed by Dani Fielder.)