Latest / Voices for Voices® / From Booze to Blessings: My Journey to Faith (Ep 342)
Transcript
- 0:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
- 0:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm your host, Founder, and executive director of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes.
- 0:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us, whether you're watching, whether you're listening, uh, whether you're here in the United States, or whether you are abroad in another country across the world, we thank you.
- 0:33Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Whether this is your first episode, or if you've been with us from the beginning, uh, we're grateful to have such a huge turnout, uh, huge uh signs of support, uh, just loving individuals like yourself who watch and listen episode after episode, and who are telling uh your friends and family uh and those that follow you about Voices for Voices.
- 1:10Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we do have this big uh goal to help uh at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
- 1:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a big goal, uh, but I believe that's one of the reasons why I'm still here is to uh continue towards that goal.
- 1:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I know we can't do it alone.
- 1:37Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, and so uh if you'd like to join the movement, uh you'd like to volunteer, uh, want to partner, uh, let's do this.
- 1:49Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh time is short, uh, as we know.
- 1:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Time on earth is definitely short, and we don't know uh when is going to be our time to go.
- 2:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh we don't we don't know if today's our last day or tomorrow, uh if it's our last uh our last breath.
- 2:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We we don't know that.
- 2:14Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Only God knows that.
- 2:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and I think uh just showing uh uh the proper uh etiquette uh towards him or your higher authority is helpful because we know and I've known uh on and off more on now that uh how precious life really is.
- 2:44Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it doesn't matter what I want, doesn't matter what you want, it matters what uh you know Jesus Christ wants uh for us in our in our lives uh while we're on earth uh because our our our time on on earth is is very limited as as we mentioned.
- 3:10Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So an interlude to uh one of our topics of we know our time is short on earth.
- 3:27Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um we wanna want to do the best we can.
- 3:31Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh for me that's trying to do my best to help as many people in whatever way, shape, or form I can.
- 3:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh that's why I founded Voices for Voices.
- 3:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's why we are such a uh a grassroots movement that grows on literally a minute-by-minute basis, and that's all because of you.
- 3:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I said it once, I'll say it again, I'll say it a ton more times.
- 4:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for the love and support you've shown us and uh for sticking with us through some tumultuous times, and we uh are just uh blown away by the the support and the interest, and it's uh it's coming from all over the world, uh countries near and far.
- 4:30Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's it's really incredible.
- 4:33Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, it's one of those things where when you yeah, you when you kind of look forward of what you'd like to do or who you'd like to touch and reach and uh share your story.
- 4:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm speaking kind of in in the the first person.
- 4:56Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So for me, we don't want any limits on that.
- 5:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We want we want everybody to find some benefit, no matter how big or how small it is, uh, no matter how how close the events of my life, of our guest lives, match up with yours, uh, or how or how little uh just the mere fact of talking.
- 5:31Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so whether they're watching or listening, uh I like to say this is you know, you're not alone.
- 5:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I'm not alone even in those you know, some of those darkest hours where we feel that way, where where we feel that we are the only one going through a certain experience, but we're not, and I think once I was able to get over that, it still creeps in because I'm not perfect, none of us are, but as that creeps in, just understanding that somebody else might be going through the same thing, or maybe they already did, and they're sharing and talking, and and maybe you meet somebody I don't know, I don't want to I don't know why the grocery store thing kind of comes to me, but wherever you meet somebody and you find out you have elements of your lives that are similar.
- 7:07Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um I'll go through my as we uh as we talk about how you how unique each one of us is, um, but we're still connected as a human body, the human race, human being.
- 7:29Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And when I used to travel, it was all about getting drunk on uh the airplane.
- 7:40Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I think there's a song out there, I don't know how many years it's been, but yeah, it's about that.
- 7:48Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh when I would travel on airplane, that that would be kind of the goal, is all right, as soon as I get on, gotta I have to start drinking.
- 8:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And again, that was that was just me.
- 8:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I found over the years that a lot of people uh it's not saying anybody's bad, uh, but I went through this phase quite a long time or anyone anytime I would travel.
- 8:29Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That was that was kind of the one of the big things on my mind.
- 8:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It should have been where I'm going, uh, if we go on vacation, uh visiting family, what have you.
- 8:48Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Should have been more about that than how many drinks I am I'm gonna be able to have, and uh uh on that flight.
- 8:59Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I bring that up because I've talked about it a little bit, but I want to continue that conversation is the insecurities that we have as human beings, as we know we're not all perfect, we get that, and part of that imperfection is being nervous about any number of things, uh, and and I'm sure that's what I was doing over the course of those many years was I was hiding my insecurity of my anxiety that I was having while flying, and that was a way to cover it up was drinking and knowing then that I was gonna get to a point where it's but that's what it was all about.
- 10:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It wasn't about where I was going, which is what it should be about, it wasn't about what what trip, how what what what we're gonna do when we get to our destination, and it's only now years later, where I although I was traveling on a destination to somewhere, I was saying I was traveling to get drunk, to consume a lot of alcohol, to kind of numb that that anxiety out.
- 10:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so as I was coming out of that literal, literal, literal fog of my life and traveling, it took a while to get get to the point I'm at at now.
- 11:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But as I was starting to lift that fog up and raise that fog out of that travel sphere, I call it at first it was super hard.
- 11:33Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was having panic attacks all over the place, and I mean I had every gizmo that they could that that talked about lowering stress when traveling and and so fast forward to now, I still have some panic attacks, but I have some coping mechanisms that I'm able to use, and you're gonna have to find those yourselves.
- 12:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, because we're not all the same, we're all the same in the human body, the human race.
- 12:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I mean human body like male, female, I'm just meant as a human being.
- 12:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But now when I travel, I don't travel to get drunk, to consume alcohol on airplanes.
- 12:39Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I when I do travel when with my family, it's obviously to spend time, vacation, um, other times as family traveling.
- 12:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then when there happens to be we'll call it work travel, I don't say time travel, but you know, business travel.
- 13:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm actually traveling for work, so I that's my purpose is to prepare for the work when it's not family and and you know leisure travel with family, and it's not in the travel's no longer travel to get drunk, hammered, whatever word you want to use, so it's it's a huge kind of tectonic plate shift for me.
- 13:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There has been.
- 13:55Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's that's really what it's about.
- 14:40Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's that's what's been able to help me make that shift.
- 14:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it's not just traveling on the airplane, but it could be a a road could be a road trip.
- 15:00Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like actually not definitely not talking about drinking and driving.
- 15:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when I would get to a destination, it would be I would either have my own alcohol or find in a store that sold alcohol.
- 15:22Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Kind of one of the first couple things, get something to eat and find find where the alcohol's at, find where the store's at to buy it.
- 15:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And when my mind's a little bit more clear now, I I just I reminisce uh I spent so much time, money, others, time, money, resources for those types of reasons.
- 16:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And hindsight, I say, is always 2020, you know, the Monday morning quarterback.
- 16:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You always look at the game on you know last Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, and and uh to say, oh, I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have done this.
- 16:20Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here's where we we we should have done something better, we should have ran this play instead of that.
- 16:27Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's easy to do that, but when you're in the moment, we're only as strong as our faith.
- 16:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're only as strong as the team we have around us that truly cares, and so I think we can relate to that.
- 16:54Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And lastly, I'm just gonna touch on this here.
- 17:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've we've uh with an organization that is in such hyper growth mode that we are, it really I'll say any organization that's doing good in the world, no matter how small, no matter how big, there's gonna be people, there's gonna be individuals who are gonna try to the one saying that I don't I don't really care for, but it was one of these corporate America sayings where you uh I would be in a meeting and we'd be talking about whatever topic it was, and each individual would kind of have their own topics, their own things that they're gonna mention and talk about.
- 18:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And more times than not, I'm not gonna name names or anything, but more times than not, there's a particular individual at one of my say corporate America stops that they would be kicking off a meeting, and the words that they would use is you know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give names, so they would say so-and-so, um, not to steal your thunder or anything, and then they would go in and share information that that person, that additional person, was supposed to be talking about and sharing.
- 18:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So that was supposed to be you know their their input, uh, what they're bringing to the meeting, they're sharing.
- 19:01Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I look at it a lot that way for this topic here with uh not just voices for voices, but any organization that's doing good, there's gonna be people.
- 19:16Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, first off, there's gonna be haters.
- 19:18Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's gonna be people that are just they're gonna find every which way that they can just try to try to drag you down, and it's only through God, Jesus Christ, that we're at where we're at.
- 19:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so there's always gonna be people.
- 19:45Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In fact, all you gotta do is look look at our TikTok account.
- 19:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm sure maybe hopefully not, but maybe maybe you uh you you know what I'm talking about with you know these keyboard warriors have no problem typing up these just completely uh not nice comments.
- 20:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so yeah, there's always gonna be haters, and they're gonna do just about anything to kind of bring you down, bring us down.
- 20:21Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it's that strength, it's not that from from what I was talking about earlier with the you know, the alcohol and that uh it's not that alcohol, you know, liquid courage strength.
- 20:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is it's much deeper, and that's why when I talk about God and Jesus for me and for us at Voices for Voices, that's who's really helping us stay afloat when we talk about having people that come at us from all different angles.
- 20:56Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It the easy thing to do is just to fold and say, All right, that's it, we're done.
- 21:06Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But I don't feel like that's I don't feel like that's what God uh that I don't feel like that's what Jesus Christ wants us to do.
- 21:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I feel he wants us to continue and he wants us to continue helping, and he's using these haters, these individuals uh that are just healing our thunder or trying to to do that.
- 21:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so one other way these haters come about is they sometimes they try to impersonate your organization or our our organization, meaning they'll make calls, they'll make text messages, email messages, they'll send out newsletters, they'll do they'll do what they think again is number one gonna pro gonna help them as an individual because they're using a name that is good, it's well known, has brand equity.
- 22:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then they're trying to again impersonate and pretend that they are heading up the organization, not even heading up voices for voices, but just someone that is part of the organization and is making you know these calls on our behalf of Voices for Voices, or sending these emails or these text messages uh and they're just dropping voices for voices and and acting like they are voices for voices when they're not.
- 23:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and so this is where I will name drop.
- 23:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So Steven Reimers, you need to get a hold of yourself, and you need to not tell anyone, anywhere, anybody, any organization, anyone of your friends, colleagues, that you are the leader of Voices for Voices, that you're a member of Voices for Voices, that you're fundraising for voices for voices, and anything in between what I just mentioned.
- 24:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So Steven Reimers that stopped this instant.
- 24:12Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We had you have an understanding that we believe is to be accurate.
- 24:22Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So it's in our good faith that you have, you Stephen Ramers, uh, have been doing at least one TikTok, maybe more, claiming to be you know, voices for voices, claiming to be me, claiming to be uh a fundraiser of the organization.
- 24:45Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, and so you're misdirecting a lot of people by doing this.
- 24:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And this isn't a game.
- 24:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's consequences to this.
- 25:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so just know the more we're able to verify and and validate that you are indeed Don Dis Steven.
- 25:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're gonna have to we're gonna have to report you to uh the proper individuals, proper authorities, proper law enforcement.
- 25:35Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So let's hope this stops.
- 25:46Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Not for my sake, but for all the people that we're helping.
- 25:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And all you want, Steven, all you want, all you care about is the money.
- 25:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's what you all it's all you've ever cared about is the money, uh, relationships, uh, helping people, your newsletters, and all the times you you know ask uh, you know, Usher and Justin Bieber, and and the list goes on that you've asked for money on behalf of individuals that you don't at the end of the day, you don't really truly care about.
- 26:34Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so I'm just gonna recommend on good faith, on good terms now, that this stops, and whatever you have done, if this is true, we do ask that you put apology TikTok out there saying you're not Justin Alan Hayes, you have nothing to do with voices for voices, and you never have and you never will.
- 27:10Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so we're asking you to do that.
- 27:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't want to hear any excuses, I don't want to hear any.
- 27:24Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Well, I would never do that.
- 27:26Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When things get this far to me, as many times as they do, you're not denying it.
- 27:39Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You might try to deny it now, now that it's out in the open, now that it's in the public sphere.
- 27:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But that's also why we do this show, ladies and gentlemen.
- 27:53Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Humans, human beings in the United States and across the world.
- 28:02Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's why we do this, is we like to air out whatever laundry there is.
- 28:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And this is one of those instances where information has come to our attention, and so we're addressing it.
- 28:22Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so this is an avenue that we do have to do that, it's because of you, our watchers, our listeners, our supporters, uh, our followers, our subscribers, our likers, um, our thumbs up, uh, our commenters that are in in good uh good taste that aren't distasteful and uh we just want to say thank you to everyone watching, listening.
- 29:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can find us everywhere.
- 29:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So whatever method you're using to watch or listen to this right now, you can you can get all the episodes on on that uh that platform.
- 29:19Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Or to make it really easy, you head on over to voices for voices dot or g forward slash podcasts.
- 29:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so that is voices for spelled out F O R.
- 29:40Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So it's voices for voices dot or g forward slash podcasts.
- 29:49Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That'll get you everything you need.
- 29:52Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can pick your platform that is the easiest for you, um, and where you Where you get your content from, uh, your podcasts, your shows.
- 30:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, and and the best part besides that is that the top episode is the newest one that we have out.
- 30:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So it's the latest and greatest.
- 30:17Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you don't have to scroll all the way down, like some uh some of these platforms do where you have to scroll down and scroll down and scroll down, and uh it just can get exhausting.
- 30:31Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we we recommend that as a method to find the latest and greatest voices for voices, TV show, and podcast episodes.
- 30:41Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We want to thank you, all the love and support.
- 30:45Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us.
- 30:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, this is, I believe, episode 300 and uh 342.
- 30:55Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh my goodness, this is it's God's work, it's not my work, it's not anybody else's work, it's God's work.
- 31:05Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: 342 episodes.
- 31:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Wow.
- 31:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We we know that you know statistics show few podcasts make it over 100 episodes, even fewer over 200, even fewer over 300, and we're just about at the uh we're getting closer and closer to that 350 episode mark.
- 31:32Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and not to be surprised, we're we're keeping this keeping this rolling uh because we a lot we have a lot of people to help, a lot of people to share information, a lot of great guests coming up.
- 31:48Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some that I never would have thought I'd ever even have an opportunity to even meet or any of us meet, let alone want to come on the show.
- 32:03Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so the last thing I like to say is Steven Reimers, if you are, please stop impersonating voices for voices, stop impersonating Justin Allen Hayes as the leader, voices for voices, please stop fundraising or trying to fundraise on our behalf, claiming that you are part of our organization.
- 32:36Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So anybody who gets a funky message, uh, doesn't come through proper channels, uh take it as it is, reach out to us directly.
- 32:55Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, you're able to do that and find those methods to say, hey, is this real?
- 33:04Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, because we want to help people.
- 33:08Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We don't want to we don't want to confuse people.
- 33:11Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We don't we don't want to confuse people.
- 33:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We want people to know, to trust, to understand our brand, our brand equity, and we're in business of helping people, not hurting people, not taking other people's money, not acting like we're somebody else.
- 33:30Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, and so Steven Reimers, it's R-E-I-M-E-R-S.
- 33:37Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If that is something that you're doing, I am asking you kindly, politely, please stop.
- 33:51Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Please stop.
- 33:55Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's more to life than if this is what you're doing, impersonating us to make a few bucks.
- 34:09Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And you're actually hurting people by asking and having them donate, thinking the money's coming to Voices for Voices when it's not.
- 34:23Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it wasn't me in that studio with Usher and Justin Bieber, and you know, the list goes on asking for money.
- 34:37Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That was you.
- 34:38Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So again, please stop.
- 34:47Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And for all you voices for voices, TV show and podcasts, fans, uh, viewers, listeners, you're just gonna be in for uh what I can just say at this point, and next next several months, next six to twelve months.
- 35:13Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's gonna just be tr something truly truly works of God that they're gonna be able to to see, to hear uh thank you.
- 35:43Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So from me to you, from our whole team to you, if you can smash that subscribe button, you can give us a big thumbs up, like, share, follow.
- 35:58Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That'd be awesome.
- 36:00Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So let's celebrate all of our voices, whatever way, shape, or form those are.
- 36:06Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And let's please be a voice for you or somebody in need.
- 36:12Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We'll see you next time, everybody.
- 36:14Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Bye bye.
- 36:15Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much.