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Episode 89: Athletes and Artists: A Look into the Addiction Abyss of High Achievers · Voices for Voices®

• 0:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: Chapter 4.
• 0:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: High School.
• 0:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Although I played sports for the duration of my high school career, I would not say that I fit in with that crowd outside the baseball diamond or gymnasium.
• 0:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: That bothered me.
• 0:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: In a way, it felt like a form of negative validation.
• 0:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: What was I doing wrong?
• 0:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: What could I change?
• 0:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: In the moment, I honestly wanted others to change.
• 0:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was already proving myself through my sports skills, so they should change their behavior and like me after practice too.
• 0:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: Right.
• 0:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: I would finally be invited to the Cool Kids parties to know they're inside jokes, to be an actual insider with my own teammates.
• 0:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: What I wanted did not seem to matter to them, though, so I searched for validation elsewhere, which led me down a destructive path as I began to form my identity during this stage of life.
• 1:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: After years of top performance in baseball and basketball, in addition to following all season strength and conditioning training, I entered high school with high expectations.
• 1:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: To my disappointment, I was relegated to the freshman baseball team.
• 1:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: Even with a laser-like focus on my preparation and performance In basketball, I could see the writing on the wall as well.
• 1:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: Not sure how to take these critical setbacks, I moved forward the best I could without a plan.
• 1:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: Adjusting was difficult, especially for baseball.
• 1:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: As a left-handed player, I was always one of the top starters on the pitching roster, even in summer league baseball.
• 1:50
  Justin Alan Hayes: Between eighth grade and high school I was a standout, doing whatever it took to help the team stay competitive and win.
• 1:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: Someone watching the team unfold throughout the summer could easily pick up on my talent and assume I would make JV my freshman year.
• 2:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: Making the freshman team instead of JV weighed heavily on me and greatly impacted my social life as I began what I had hyped up to be the best four years of my life.
• 2:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: In an attempt to bury these feelings, I convinced my parents that I needed to switch schools, especially with the lack of respect and little to no playing time.
• 2:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: Eventually they listened and I was transferred from a public school to a private school on the other side of town.
• 2:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: I had high hopes for myself, both with sports and academically.
• 2:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: Unfortunately, not much would change.
• 2:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: In fact, in the back of my mind, I had hoped changing schools would open up the opportunity for me to start fresh with a new identity and thus connect socially with more peers.
• 3:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: To my surprise, the opposite happened.
• 3:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: I still attempted interactions with students from my old school, hoping that the new me would be more appealing to them.
• 3:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, I was wrong about that, because countless times kids would tell me they had no idea I had even transferred and had not noticed that I was missing from classes.
• 3:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: Talk about being an outcast.
• 3:30
  Justin Alan Hayes: This made me feel worse, my little self-esteem sinking even lower.
• 3:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: The new me did not go over well at my new school either.
• 3:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: Being a private school, it was quite common for my peers to be trust fun babies, the sons and daughters of high society parents, doctors, lawyers, business owners, people with power and money, and so, with time, the crowd I settled into was quirky and unique.
• 4:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: We liked to do normal high school stuff like hang out, listen to music, go to dance clubs and stay out late.
• 4:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: We also experimented with alcohol and mixing cold and cough pills.
• 4:15
  Justin Alan Hayes: The feeling of doing something bad that I was not supposed to made it even more tempting.
• 4:21
  Justin Alan Hayes: Even though I was aware of the risk of mixing those pills, the high and weightless floating sensation was worth it every single time.
• 4:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: As a direct result of this new group of friends and our extracurricular activities, my grades began to suffer.
• 4:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: I landed in detention many times, craving that attention.
• 4:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: Even though it was obviously so negative, my attitude changed and I became a smart mouth full of rage and ready to snap back on my parents for their comments about my lifestyle.
• 4:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was having fun.
• 5:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: I found my people and they were happy to have me.
• 5:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was sticking with baseball, still attending practice and playing decent enough to stay off the bench most games.
• 5:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was regularly lifting weights just to say that I did to keep the coach off my back.
• 5:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: I would stall every day in season long enough for another high before practice or the next ride to an away game with the teammates who did not care to have me around.
• 5:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: Suddenly I was sneaking drinks from the bar.
• 5:34
  Justin Alan Hayes: At a few family weddings I began to drop easy to catch fly balls in the outfield.
• 5:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: I eventually had to have shoulder surgery which I never quite healed from, and my plane suffered severely.
• 5:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: On top of the healing time, I was exposed to pain medicines.
• 5:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: The surgery was supposed to help me pitch without pain, yet I never regained my velocity and throwing range of motion.
• 6:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: When it came time to take the SAT and ACT test, I bombed both despite my attempts at studying with my friends, capped off with some pills to ease into the massive test prep booklet.
• 6:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was drinking and driving pre-gaming before the clubs with mixing pill types and downing alcohol.
• 6:23
  Justin Alan Hayes: The moment I stepped off the field after a game, I was back at it with my friends.
• 6:28
  Justin Alan Hayes: Friday night football games met, more binging and loud music, rude comments to my mother as I stormed out the door, only stopping home to shower and change my clothes.
• 6:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: Even this whirlwind life I was living, my competitive nature was the star of the show.
• 6:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: Being competitive in sports is one thing, but being competitive at something dangerous and life-threatening is another.
• 6:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: Something about me was off and I knew it.
• 6:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: It did not show physically.
• 7:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: I had an athlete's build and continued to work on my muscle tone.
• 7:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: In that left only one place it could be inside.
• 7:09
  Justin Alan Hayes: Would it be something mental?
• 7:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: I had no idea, but all signs are definitely pointing in that direction.
• 7:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: My competitive nature took hold in my habits, from the substance abuse to texting friends, checking email, studying and completing homework.
• 7:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: My heart was set on productivity and efficiency, even when it affected my well-being.
• 7:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was knowledgeable about a lot of things and yet an expert on nothing.
• 7:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: When senior year of high school rolled around, my grades and habits suffered harder than ever.
• 7:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: I knew I was loved and my family cared about me.
• 7:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: Despite it all.
• 7:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: I just did not want to admit it.
• 7:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: I had found my way.
• 7:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: Couldn't they see that I did not need to be babied?
• 8:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was going on, 18 years old, the prime of my life.
• 8:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: Well, my low self-esteem went even lower when I opened rejection letters from Ohio State University and a few other schools.
• 8:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: I did not know what I wanted to do with my life.
• 8:19
  Justin Alan Hayes: I thought all I had to do was apply and they had to let me in simply because they wanted my tuition money.
• 8:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: My sister was excelling in college.
• 8:30
  Justin Alan Hayes: I wanted to be just like her, except with, admittedly, way less effort to get there.
• 8:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: But was that what I genuinely wanted to do with my life?
• 8:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: It became clear I was trying to satisfy my mental health by altering my appearance and behavior.
• 8:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: I dyed my hair blonde, blue and even green.
• 8:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: Throughout high school I started playing guitar, even taking it as far as playing at a school dance after a football game.
• 9:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: A couple other students who were seeking a guitarist for their band approached me, and soon after we were playing small gigs together, even though they were house parties.
• 9:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: I thought it was great, living life just like the big bands Green Day and Third Eye Blind, while we drank alcohol, did drugs and had multiple girls on our arms all night long.
• 9:24
  Justin Alan Hayes: However, after a few gigs, I showed up for practice.
• 9:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: Just like always, I knocked on the door, rang the doorbell and called, only to be greeted by the answering machine inside the home.
• 9:37
  Justin Alan Hayes: I got the message another failure for me, leading me down a spiral of thoughts.
• 9:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: Why is this happening?
• 9:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: What is wrong with me?
• 9:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: To help myself make some decisions, I leaned on my usual concoction of pills and alcohol.
• 9:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: At the end of senior year, I ended up heavily overdosing.
• 9:59
  Justin Alan Hayes: That night I took 32 cold and cough pills.
• 10:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: My friend was just going to drop me off at home.
• 10:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: Per usual, I would sleep it off and be fine in the morning.
• 10:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: Somewhere within the fog of his drugged mind, something told him to detour to the emergency room.
• 10:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: He saved my life that evening.
• 10:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: They pumped my stomach just as my organs began to fail.
• 10:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: After overdosing, I began a vague counseling schedule and took the prescribed anti-depression pills.
• 10:32
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was still hollow inside, still searching for myself and the next step to taking life.
• 10:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: I wanted to fit in so badly, and yet nothing I did was getting me there.
• 10:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: All that time spent in my own head continuing to ruminate over every decision and every activity led me falling back into my recent habits.
• 10:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: My only sense of comfort.
• 10:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: What was wrong with me?
• 11:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: What was I trying to prove?
• 11:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: What was I accomplishing with this behavior?
• 11:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: I was hoping to find an answer by popping another pill or taking another shot of alcohol.
• 11:12
  Justin Alan Hayes: Unfortunately, that soon began a way of life that continued well into college and into my 20s and 30s.