I’ll be honest. I pressed play on this episode of Human School expecting a nice conversation with a worship leader I admire. I didn’t expect to be sitting in my car afterward, thinking about my own life.
Most of us know Chandler Moore from the music. The Maverick City songs. The five Grammys. The voice that’s carried a lot of us through hard seasons. But in this conversation with Miles Adcox, Chandler sets the music down and talks about the man behind it. And he doesn’t hold back much.
When It All Fell Apart
Back in 2023, memories of childhood sexual abuse that Chandler had buried for years started coming back. Flashbacks. Pain he didn’t know how to carry. His words: “I spiraled uncontrollably.” That November, he checked into rehab for about 40 days. He missed Thanksgiving with his kids and made it home the day before Christmas.
What got me is that he doesn’t wrap it up with a bow. He admits that even before rehab, when he and his wife Hannah went to a therapy intensive, he still watered his story down because he didn’t feel safe telling all of it. Months after treatment, he sat across from Hannah and read four or five pages of things he’d kept hidden. He called it the hardest thing he’s ever done. I believe him.
Let’s Talk About Therapy
If you take one thing from this episode, let it be this: therapy changed Chandler’s life.
He grew up a pastor’s kid, and he was one of the first in his family to ever go to therapy. That’s a big deal. A lot of us grew up in church spaces where needing help felt like a lack of faith.
Chandler didn’t keep quiet, and look what happened. He says he finally learned that there are safe places where you can tell your whole story and still be loved. His friendships got deeper. He had a best friend of 15 years who never knew he was struggling, and now that friendship feels richer than it ever was. Even his parenting changed. When his eight-year-old got detention, Chandler talked with him about taking ownership of his own part, the same thing he had to learn in rehab.
And then there’s the letter. While he was in treatment, his mom wrote him a note full of everyday updates about the kids and the family, and she ended it with three words: “You did it.” He read it aloud on the show and I teared up right along with him.
If you’ve been putting off therapy, maybe this is your sign.
“Let Them”: Why He Stopped Living for Other People’s Approval
While I was listening, I kept thinking about Mel Robbins’ book Let Them. If you haven’t read it, the idea is simple. You can’t control what other people think or say about you. So let them. Then put your energy into what you can actually control, which is you.
For years, Chandler lived the opposite way. He told only small pieces of his story to see how people would react before deciding whether he was safe. His therapist called it “faux intimacy.” He was always reading the room, always managing what people thought of him. It’s exhausting just hearing about it, and if we’re honest, a lot of us do it too.
When he finally opened up, some people didn’t know how to handle it. Some pulled away. He could have gotten bitter, and for a while he did. But he came to see that most of them weren’t trying to hurt him. They just didn’t have the tools. So he let them, and he took responsibility for his own healing. That’s what Robbins means: let them do what they’re going to do, and let me do my work.
You can see that freedom in where he’s headed. He’s done trying to be the perfect example everyone expects a pastor’s kid or worship leader to be. He knows that talking openly about rehab is risky in Christian music, and he’s doing it anyway. His next album’s working title is I Checked In Rehab. He says he’s making it for one person: the guy he was two and a half years ago, who couldn’t see a way out.
That’s what it looks like to stop caring what people think. Not being loud or reckless about it. Just being honest and letting the chips fall where they may.
One more thing I loved: at one point Chandler stops before sharing part of his story because he just isn’t ready to say it out loud yet. He doesn’t push himself to give the audience a big emotional moment. Not caring what people think works both ways. You don’t hide to keep people comfortable, and you don’t overshare to impress them either.
If you’ve been afraid to get help, or you’ve been keeping your life small because of what your church, your family, or your followers might say, listen to this one. Then go do your work, and let them think whatever they want.
This episode talks openly about childhood sexual abuse and addiction. If you’re struggling, the SAMHSA National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) is free, confidential, and open 24/7.
