Jeff Healey had it all. And he nearly threw it all away.

A musical prodigy, Healey had become by the 1990s one of Canada's most commercially successful rock artists. He had also begun a self-destructive tailspin that threatened to end in disaster. Today, he says it was God who helped him to find another path.

Healey describes his march to the top of the charts, his near-descent into tragedy and the new direction of his life today on an upcoming edition of the VisionTV signature series Credo .

Now in its third season, this revealing half-hour program invites famous Canadians to talk about life-changing experiences and the beliefs that sustained them through these times. The interview with Healey airs on Monday, Nov. 8 at 10:30 p.m. ET .

Adopted at the age of three months, Healey lost his eyesight while still an infant. He demonstrated an unusual facility for music at an early age, and by the age of 14 had begun hosting his own CBC Radio show, playing selections from his vast collection of vintage 78 rpm recordings.

A self-taught guitarist, Healey developed a revolutionary technique that would earn him a reputation as one of Canada's most electrifying live performers. By the mid-1980s he had formed The Jeff Healey Band, a scorching blues-rock outfit whose debut album See The Light went platinum in the U.S. In the years that followed, they recorded four more albums, amassed multiple Juno and Grammy Award nominations, toured with the likes of ZZ Top, Bob Dylan and Bonnie Raitt, and appeared in the feature film Road House .

These should have been years of great contentment. But Healey began to feel increasingly trapped. “I wasn't playing the type of music that I wanted to play,” he recalls. “I was not doing what I wanted to do … I was not being honest and true to myself.”

A marital breakup and a growing substance abuse problem eventually forced Healey to re-evaluate his life and choose another direction for his music. Now performing traditional jazz (his first love) with Jeff Healey's Jazz Wizards, he says he feels revitalized both as an artist and a person.

Healey's adoptive parents both had a strong spiritual grounding (Baptist roots on his father's side, United Church on his mother's), and he believes this solid foundation has helped him to weather the dark times in his life. “I thank God that I had the family that I did,” he says. “Because a lot of people in similar situations to me continue to spiral downward.”