Bryan Tuggle stumbled to the front door of his parents’ home, a fog of drugs and alcohol clouding around his head. Three days prior, he’d broken into his five-year-old son’s savings box in his bedroom, snatching whatever cash he could find. Armed with $350, he set out to feed the demon that had sunk its barbed tail deeper and deeper into his brain.
“I broke his little treasure box and got $350 out and went and bought an eight ball and half a gallon of whiskey,” he says. “I was going to go kill myself ― that way, he’d have some other daddy that could be there for him.”
Bryan didn’t end his life, but he did procure the usual array of things that were wrecking it, drinking and drugging his way through a seventy-two-hour bender. Now, he was back in a familiar place, standing at his parents’ threshold, mired in the depths of his life.
“I showed up back at my parents’ house where my boy was, and, well, when I walked in the door, my mom hit me,” he said. “It got real bad right there.”
The whole family broke down crying. Bryan had tested the limits of their patience since high school when he first started dabbling in weed and alcohol, diversions that led quickly to harder drugs, to fit in. Then in his early thirties, those youthful dalliances with substances had long ago soured into full-blown addiction.
For Bryan’s family, his lies and theft were secondary to the fear of the call they’d one day get that he’d finally overdosed. For Bryan himself, the fear was living more days in the strangling grip of the demon bent on possessing his body, mind, and spirit, one drink and one hit at a time.
“I hated me, but I couldn’t quit doing what I did,” Bryan says. “I was raised in church and knew that my life had become a real spiritual war. Drugs were no longer any type of fun; it was just all kind of demonic to me.
“I didn’t need someplace that taught me I had the power within myself, because I knew I couldn’t quit. I needed to find a place that taught the Word of God and would teach me how to apply the Word to my life. That day, I told my family that if I could find a place that taught Jesus, I would go because I could conquer this through Christ.”
Now age sixty-one, Bryan tells the story of his addiction casually. After all, he has had a lot of practice telling it through John 3:16, the recovery program he launched twenty-two years ago to help others struggling with addiction. Based in Charlotte, Arkansas, near Batesville, the faith-based program is one of the more unusual recovery programs out there, starting with the fact that the six- to twelve-month program is entirely free for the asking, an element Bryan adopted from New Beginnings in Houston, Arkansas, where he finally got clean and sober.
“Dennis Hamilton started New Beginnings, and he’s still running it,” Bryan says. “When I went there to get help, you know, I didn’t have a quarter, and I’d taken all that my mom and dad had. Mr. Hamilton told me that it wouldn’t cost me anything ― that Jesus Christ had paid my price, and it was paid in full. I would just need to come, broken, and with a willing attitude to change.”
The program worked so well that within a month or two, Bryan’s head cleared enough to start working with other men there, particularly the new guys. He found he had a knack for such work, which made him want to push the boundaries of the ministry. Striking out on his own, he founded John 3:16 Ministries.
The primary difference of his organization was that it looked beyond a person’s residency and prepared them to reassimilate back into the world. To that end, John 3:16 Ministries includes an auto shop, carpentry shop, screen printing operation, and performs catering for events. The goal is to get those in recovery to look beyond the two-hundred-acre campus to what’s next.
“We do those things in community because if we’re just stuck here all the time, how will somebody have the confidence to return to the world when it comes time to leave?” Bryan says. “We want them to know that they can make it out there. Confidence is a big factor in anyone’s mind when recovering.”
According to its website, John 3:16 Ministries has graduated more than 2,200 people in its history, including 200 in the past year alone, 160 of whom have also been baptized. Still, Bryan is the first to admit the process by which the ministry serves people continues to evolve.
“Well, actually, it’s still being shaped,” he says. “For a long time, I believed that we can find answers to all of our questions and problems in life in God’s Word. I still believe that wholeheartedly, but as I get older and hopefully wiser, I understand that mental health is part of addiction, so we’re working a lot more with medical professionals about the mental health part of it.
“Take me, for instance: I never meant to become an alcoholic or drug addict; I was just doing it for fun. You know, do a little cocaine, and you can drink and dance a whole lot more. But why did I ever start that, anyway? My brother didn’t, my sister didn’t, so why me? Why did I feel that temptation? I still don’t have those answers, but I’m still searching. I can’t find everything in the Bible.”
Bryan says the big challenge for the ministry going forward is to fill beds, which is surprising given the rate of addiction in society in general and Arkansas in particular. Bryan says COVID reduced the ministry’s numbers, and knowing the need exists, he is eager to get to full capacity again. In the meantime, he’s reaching out to other groups to see how they can work together to reach more people and repair more lives.
“I want to work with anyone who wants to help overcome alcoholism and drug addiction, whether working through mental health professionals, working through churches, whoever,” he says. “Our message remains the same, but we understand we need to be able to adapt and change to carry out our mission, to learn other methods to help people who are struggling to live because of their addiction.”
As for his sobriety, Bryan admits to enduring some rough patches early on where life led him to backslide into his old ways. The difference was, where his younger self might have thrown in the towel and plunged deeper into self-loathing and shame, the reformed man stopped wasting that energy and redirected it into his ministry. He doesn’t forget those bad times ― even if he could ― because by owning them, he takes away their power.
“You know, I never see myself in the person graduating from our program. I always see myself in the man moving in for the first time, whose family is broken all to pieces and needs help,” Bryan says. “I’m sixty-one years old, but I’m always the new guy.
“I believe God will keep me here as long as I have that heart and want to work with people, you know? I always want to reach one more soul.”
If you or someone you love needs help, contact John 3:16 Ministries. They can be reached at 870.799.2525. Learn more at john316thecure.com.
