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We've all heard stories about life on the road, but what did that look like that for you? You struggled with alcoholism, but you were so young. When did that start?

Lang I don't want this to sound like my parents neglected me or didn't pay attention, because they taught me a lot of great things and I think they did a great job. But with that said, I did a lot of things that slipped by them. I started smoking when I was 11. I joined my first band when I was 13, and shortly thereafter started drinking and smoking pot—the gateway drug. From there I just started drinking more and more, until it got the point where I was definitely an alcoholic. I couldn't not drink. I had to wake up and drink. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and then I just started getting into all sorts of other kinds of drugs. I was partying pretty hard, and, you know, loving it. I loved doing that stuff. I never got to the point where I thought, Oh, I have to stop.

So did you ever have a 'rock bottom' experience?

Lang I don't think I really ever gave myself enough time to be in reality to know that I was at rock bottom. Any time I'd think, Oh, there's reality, I'd just go over here and smoke this or snort that, you know. I just tried to keep reality at bay as best I could.

What got me off of that stuff was this one moment when God touched my life. I never really had an experience where I said, "I need you God." It wasn't like that. I was definitely spiritually hungry, but I was never necessarily desperate for God. But then one day he just …

… did it anyway?

Lang Yeah, he did it anyway. Even when I just hated him. I mean I hated Christianity. I couldn't stand to hear about Jesus. I just hated it.

So what happened? How'd you get from there to here?

Lang When people used to try to persuade me with the message of Jesus, I would say, "I understand that you believe that, but I don't. He's going to have to basically show up and let me know who he is, or I'm not going to believe it." And that's what he did. He literally did that.

Literally? Tell me what happened.

Lang My wife Haylie and I were friends at the time. Her dad, Cliff, was kind of like another dad to me. He was terminally ill, and he was being taken care of at their home. They thought he had maybe a couple of weeks to live, so I was hanging out at their place. One night, I went to my buddy's place, and we were going to smoke pot. He only lived a few minutes away, but when we walked in the door, the phone rang. It was Hailey's mom, saying Cliff had just died—just in that 10 minutes we were gone.

We left to go back immediately, and as I was going down the hallway, I just felt—I mean, I know it was the Holy Ghost now, but then I didn't have any idea what it was. It was just like a wind that went wham right into my chest, and it stopped me in the hallway. It was unbelievable, and I was so caught off guard by it. I wasn't thinking about God or anything. I had no clue what just happened, but something just happened.

I started rationalizing as we were in the car. I thought this is probably some primal instinct rising up in me because someone just died. But I had felt myself change in that moment. I was really a self-centered person before that, but something had changed my perspective. I was more sober minded than I had ever been. It's hard to explain.

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