At 17, Brennan Thought He'd Found the Answer. It Almost Killed Him. Then He Found Real Peace.
Brennan Meyer was trying to do the right things. Youth group. The right friends. But underneath it, something was already drifting. He was listening to what he shouldn't, watching what he shouldn't, and going deeper and deeper into hiding, trying to fix himself on his own.
It all came to a head the first day of his senior year of high school. He found someone with marijuana, got high, and thought it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. For the first time, the noise in his head went quiet.
"I really thought I'd found the answer to all of life's problems. But it turns out that was just the mute button that couldn't stay muted forever."
The Spiral
The quiet didn't last, but the chasing did. Brennan had done well in school for three years. In that final semester he practically stopped showing up, disappearing at lunch and never coming back for the afternoon. He barely graduated.
He had two younger sisters at an impressionable age, and his parents loved them enough to protect them. They told Brennan that if he wasn't going to give up that lifestyle, he would have to find somewhere else to live. He justified it all in his head and decided the lifestyle wasn't worth giving up. So he left, and went homeless, couch surfing where he could.
Called Home
About a year later, in April of 2016, Brennan woke up hungover from a party and felt the Holy Spirit drawing him home. He went to church that Sunday. He remembered what the Bible says about counting the cost before you follow, and he took a few days to really decide whether he meant it.
He did. On April 26, 2016, he got saved, had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, and was later baptized. He was born again, and he thought he was free.
"It turns out that once you get saved, Satan starts cooking up his plans for you too."
A couple of weeks later, Brennan was run over by a construction truck while riding his bicycle. The wheels went over his waist. He should have died, or lost both legs. He calls it divine intervention that he is alive and can still walk. But he had to relearn how to walk, and somewhere in that long recovery, his discipleship fell away.
All the Way Back Down
It started small. The wrong music. Then cigarettes. Then weed. Then drinking. Then all the way down the rabbit hole again. And it stayed that way for four and a half years.
By 2020 it had gone darker still. Drinking daily. A full-blown alcoholic. Three DUI arrests in his home state of Montana in the space of two months, back to back to back. He tried the free help his city offered, weekly appointments with a counselor, but it was just him talking about problems he already knew how to fix and doing nothing about them, sinking deeper into depression.
God Was Working Behind the Scenes
What Brennan couldn't see was that God had been arranging his rescue the whole time.
Rise Discipleship runs fundraisers all over the country. One of them was in Hobbs, New Mexico, where a traveling minister named John Farr happened to pick up a flyer with the phone number on it. Around the same time, Brennan's family reached out for help with his parents' failing marriage, and John offered to come to Montana to help. He visited Brennan in jail and told him about the home.
By August of 2021, Brennan's parents had decided to divorce, his childhood home was gone, and he was facing living out of his car with a deepening addiction. In Montana, a fourth DUI is a felony, and he knew it would come fast. He was done.
"I was willing to go anywhere. I didn't want to be this person anymore, because I knew I didn't have peace in my heart."
Brothers for the First Time
When Brennan arrived at the home, he came in with something rare: joy. He had grown up with three sisters and no brothers, and for the first time in his life he had brothers around him. The hard part was letting go of everything he thought he already knew about God so he could receive something new.
What he found there he hadn't found anywhere else. The home sets aside a half hour every day for personal, one-on-one prayer with God, no one laying on hands, no one else in the middle of it, just a man and the Lord. In that room Brennan received prophetic vision for his future and a peace that overwhelmed him.
He found accountability too, the kind that never let him disappear.
"When I wanted to isolate, God loved me too much to let me isolate from people that wanted to pour into me."
And he found leaders who actually heard from God. His home director, now Pastor Anthony G, would find him out of nowhere and say, "We need to talk. I know you're going through it. I know you need to confess something." And every time, he was right, because he had prayed.
The Moment Someone Paused for Him
One day Pastor Ray visited and offered to answer whatever questions the guys had. Brennan asked how to forgive his mom, whom he still held bitterness toward for the divorce. Pastor Ray clearly had an answer ready, but instead of firing it off, he stopped.
"He said, 'I'm just going to take a moment for knowing what I know about you before I give a response.' That melted my heart. I got to see with my own eyes that I was deeply valued, that powerful people wanted to put their life on pause to pour into me."
Brennan says he can't point to one lightning-bolt moment when everything changed. Looking back, there were two or three dozen of them. Time after time he learned something and thought, why didn't I know this before, or felt God's love through someone and thought, where has this been my whole life.
What Changed
Everything about how Brennan thinks, feels, and responds to life is different now. He used to just react, letting whatever he felt run his decisions. In the home he learned a disciplined mind, how to respond instead of react, how to see people the way God sees them, and how to be patient with a process that doesn't have to look like anyone else's.
A wise man told him something he'll never forget: the way you feel about your situation is the way you feel about God. So Brennan learned gratitude, and perseverance, and finally, real peace.
"The addiction was fake peace. I thought peace was the voices in my head going quiet. But true peace is listening to the voice above all the other noise, and receiving whatever God is telling me."
Where He Is Now
Brennan graduated on August 17, 2022, with no grand plans, just a willingness to trust God's timing. He was offered an internship at the church, and a couple of years later he is still full-time staff at Rise Church, with a spiritual family he loves and a future he is genuinely excited about. He is honored, in his words, to still be a soldier on the front lines.
If This Is You
Brennan was homeless, addicted, and one arrest away from a felony, and certain he was too far gone. He wasn't. If that's where you are, or if someone you love is trapped like this, don't wait. It's free, a real person answers day or night, and it starts with one call.
Ready to reach out? Get help now. Freedom really is just one phone call away. (325) 232-5449.
And here is the part Brennan most wanted said: it's all free because of people like you. "You paid for my clothes when I came in with nothing. You paid for my first meal. You paid for a real miracle. You saved my life."
If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction or thoughts of suicide, you are not alone and help is available. Rise Discipleship's 24/7 helpline is (325) 232-5449.
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