Gospel singer Dennis Quaid details his journey from drugs to Jesus: 'I lean on God'

Dennis Quaid has long been a familiar face in Hollywood, starring in hits and cult classics such as "Traffic," "Parent Trap," and "Innerspace." While he continues to appear on celluloid, lately he has also been mounting stages to sing God's praises.

Shortly after releasing his gospel record "Fallen" in June 2023 — which landed in the top 15 on Billboard's Top 200 Christian/Gospel chart — Quaid provided BlazeTV's "Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey" incredible insights into his renewal of faith and road back to an intimate relationship with God.

Quaid, a 69-year-old Houston native, recently expounded on some details of his spiritual revival while promoting a new television special, telling the Christian Post how after a period of disillusionment with his inherited Baptist faith, he "started asking questions that didn't have answers."

The Emmy Award-winning actor apparently looked to the Orient in search of understanding, consulting the Buddhist Dhammapada, the Bhagavad Gita, as well as the Quran. Evidently, he was left unsatisfied.

Quaid revisited the Bible, but he remained spiritually obstinate.

"I read the Bible cover to cover as well, back then, and I got hung up in the Old Testament, how violent it was. God seemed like a punishing God back then to me," Quaid told the Post. "A lot of it just didn't make sense."

Rather than embrace what then appeared to be an omniscient disciplinarian, the actor apparently turned to pleasure and lawlessness, experimenting with drugs. The road well traveled left Quaid addicted to cocaine.

In 2002, the New York Times characterized this period of Quaid's life as his "decade in the Hollywood wilderness."

Quaid hinted at the seed of a return to faith at the time, telling the paper, "Mostly, I was mad at God, you know? Why was I in this predicament? I knew it was all my own fault, but at the same time I wasn't thinking straight. I was caught in a place, living a life that I didn't want to live but couldn't escape."

When speaking last year to Allie Beth Stuckey, Quaid recalled his realization at the time: "I saw myself as either dead or in jail or losing everything I had ... so, I did get myself straight with that, but that still didn't fill the hole that was there — in fact, it was a very deep hole after that."

The actor recently underscored to ChristianHeadlines that to get out of this hole, he had to once again crack open the Bible.

"I got clean in 1990 of cocaine, and I read the Bible again. I'd read it as a kid, and I read it again. And this time, I was really struck by the red words of Jesus," said the actor. "And that's really what started, I think, what I've been looking for all along — and which, you know, my mother told me and other people [told me], but I never really understood, which is having a personal relationship with Jesus. And, of course, that has grown over the years. But I never really understood it until then."

"I lean on God. I talk to Him every day," added Quaid. "I talk to God about problems. ... And gratitude for the blessings that I have."

Quaid made expressly clear that drugs could never satisfy and comfort the way that faith does.

"Everybody has that [void] — they try to fill that with relationships or with drugs or with money or with whatever it is, you know, our heart's desire," said Quaid. "What we're really looking for is to fill that ... God-sized hole."

Quaid told the Post that after reading the Bible through multiple times, he is now particularly fond of the book of Ecclesiastes for its insights into life and morality. The Gospel of John, however, appears to be the actor's favorite biblical text, not least because it underscores Christ is the Logos.

"I think John brings together physics and the Spirit and explains it in a timeless way," said Quaid. "He points to a bigger truth that we have no words for."

Extra to the DVD special for his gospel album, the prayerful actor is set to appear in "Reagan," a feature film about the 40th U.S. president, which will reportedly hit theaters in late August.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!