David Tucker Puts His Addiction in the Rear View on New Song 'Forgetting Her' (Exclusive)

"I went through therapy for several years and did a lot of training and exercises to be able to move forward from those moments," the rising country star tells PEOPLE

David Tucker has spent a good portion of his life in some sort of pain.

The pop/country artist lost his 10-year-old brother when he was just 12 years old. He dealt with a long undiagnosed and often misunderstood autoimmune disease called HLA-B27. He lost friends and family and nearly lost his life in a car accident just five years after moving to Nashville to pursue a country music career.

Tucker also found himself time and time again battling addiction.

“The only thing I wanted was to be out of pain,” Tucker, 27, tells PEOPLE of his addiction to pain pills, which only got worse after the serious car accident. “And when you're on stuff for that long, your body itself gets addicted. Your body fuels for it.”

And it was this addiction that almost caused the Kentucky native to lose it all. “I lost pretty much everyone in my life, my career was put off, everything was put on hold,” Tucker says. “I was just in a very dark and lonely place. I didn't know how I could put the pieces back together. They felt so shattered to where it wasn't possible.”

But through intense work on himself and all that plagued him, Tucker now finds himself on the other side of it all.

“I went through therapy for several years and did a lot of training and exercises to be able to move forward from those moments,” he says. “I’m now able to start a new chapter in my life because really, there's always been this fire inside me. It's never given me the option to quit.”

Not only will Tucker release his debut EP this fall, but his new single “Forgetting Her” shows off his wide vocal range and unsurpassed vulnerability.

“We wrote 'Forgetting Her' in about 30 or 40 minutes,” remembers Tucker of the song he wrote alongside Jake Saghi and Qvint premiering exclusively on PEOPLE. "I just always thought a lot about this song. It kind of changed the whole game of the way I write things and the way I put songs together and even how I sing. Being able to find those little hooking moments where I can throw a cool vocal run or something that kind of changes the game up a little bit."

Related: JoJo Never Thought She Would Struggle with Addiction Like Her Parents. Then It Took Hold: 'Super Self-Righteous' (Exclusive)

Tucker is also actively changing the game for others, as he frequently speaks to students in the D.A.R.E. program about his past struggles with addiction.

“Not only did I have to go through it, endure it and then figure out how to come out of it, but now I’m also helping other people that walk through very similar shoes at times,” says Tucker. “In a way, I am able to be a light to their path and their darkness and just show them that it is possible to come back and put the pieces back together. I think that's kind of cool to be able to just hope that I can help them see light at the end of the tunnel.”

However, Tucker admits that his addictive tendencies are not completely gone.

“At the end of the day, it's truly a choice, whether you're an alcoholic, whether you're a drug addict, whether you're an abuser in a relationship,” he says. “Whatever it is, you decide and make the choice to either take a step forward from it or a step back into it. It's hard to have one foot in and one foot out. You got to be both feet out.”

He draws in a deep breath, admitting, “I still have pain at times, and it’s almost like a trigger.”

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Read the original article on People.