Voices for Voices®

Chasing Approval Almost Got Me Killed | Episode 167

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 167

Share episode

Chasing Approval Almost Got Me Killed | Episode 167

SUPPORT THE VOICES FOR VOICES® TV SHOW AND PODCAST
https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/supporter

Chapter Markers
0:00 Struggles With Self-Esteem and Substance Abuse
11:49 Balancing College Life and Health
22:00 Academic Competitiveness in Summer Class
27:04 The Power of Supplements and Vitamins

Struggling with self-esteem and substance abuse can be a lonely journey, but you're not alone. Many of us have faced the daunting challenge of finding our place in a world that often feels unwelcoming. Tune in as I recount my quest for validation through physical strength, the highs and lows of college life, and the risky behaviors that nearly derailed my path. This episode offers a candid look into my personal battles with identity, the impact of a life-threatening moment, and the transformative lessons learned along the way.

Navigating college wasn't just about academics; it was a balancing act of social pressures and personal growth. I open up about my encounters with over-the-counter drugs and alcohol, culminating in a DUI that forced a reevaluation of priorities. With an unexpected connection to an exercise science major, I discovered the revitalizing power of simple dietary changes like flaxseed oil and sea salt, which helped me regain focus and energy. These small, yet significant, shifts enabled me to juggle the party scene with academic commitments, leading to surprising success and a new perspective on life.

Join me as I share the turning point that was a summer class, where academic competitiveness ignited a passion for self-improvement. The power of supplements and vitamins became evident, pushing me to rethink my lifestyle and health choices. While this journey led to some health challenges, it also paved the way for newfound confidence and a proactive approach to success. This episode isn't just about my story; it's about the universal struggle for acceptance and the resilience found in unexpected places. Be part of this conversation as we continue to explore these insights on the Voices for Voices® TV show and podcast.

The episode describes a personal journey grappling with mental health, societal pressures around physical appearance, and the struggles of youth. It explores the effects of substance use, the importance of self-care, and the shift from partying to academic success, culminating in a quest for balance and self-acceptance.
• Reflection on the pressures of achieving physical perfection
• Experiences with substances and the consequences of reckless partying
• Hospitalization as a wake-up call for healthier choices
• The transition from party lifestyle to academic focus and improved grades
• Introduction of holistic health approaches and nutritious food
• Importance of self-care and balancing social life with personal well-being
• Encouragement for listeners to prioritize their mental health
—
Thanks for listening!

Support Voices for Voices®: https://venmo.com/u/voicesforvoices
Learn more about Voices for Voices®: linktr.ee/Voicesforvoices

#stopchasingvalidation #indaclub #bodybuilding #muscles #club #grind #chasingapproval #stopchasingpeople #stopseekingapproval #seekingapproval #howtostopchasing #externalvalidation #stopchasingvalidation #menstartchasing #approvalofothers #approval #needforapproval #stopchasingthem #approvaladdiction #stopchasingadvice #nochasing #approval-seeking #boostself-esteemandconfidence #fearofmissing #overcomingfear #masteringself-improvementandpersonaldevelopment #lifemastery

Support the show

Speaker 1:

Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you for your support, the love you've given us as an organization to continue to do the work that we're doing. To continue to do the work that we're doing by expanding, expounding on voices of the common person as well as those that are leaders of organizations, such as a leader, a CEO, a president. This episode is going to be partly on what you can read in my mental health autobiography the House of you Prescription for Living, and it really revolves around growing up, reaching that kind of pre-college phase as a male, working out, being ripped, having big muscles was something that was very important to me, so I was taking all kinds of different supplements to help boost the workouts that I was undertaking.

Speaker 1:

The main goal was to work out and get the biggest muscles possible. To be straight up about it, and part of that was I wanted to feel a sense of meaning myself and I wanted others to look at me and say, wow, that's an individual that works out and values his health from the outside, what we could see and what I could feel, and so again, that was taking supplements, working out, taking more supplements, protein shakes really never dabbled into the steroids or anything like that, but was looking for supplements that were help achieve as close to that as as possible. So the vitamin shop a GNC, you know became my friends. I was constantly on the on the lookout for the new, improved, the most cutting edge supplement that could help get me those larger muscles, my own self-esteem, and that was for what I felt like. Having other people who I didn't know like wow, you know that that that must be somebody important. You know they're, they're working out, they have all these muscles uh, I don't know. It's laughable now as I'm talking through this with you all, but that was, that was where I was at for do on weekends and time away from you know, if we're talking about college, so time away from classes from you know.

Speaker 1:

If we're talking about college, so time away from classes. If we're talking about post-college, you know, time away from work and time away from the gym and in college, and I would say even pre-college in my high school years, really set things in motion from what I was thinking that was going to be important to me and that was clubbing, going to the club, listening to music, dancing, hanging out with people that I thought were friends, meeting new people. You know all that, and so that was where I I spent a lot of time on a Friday, saturday night, over holidays, you know. There just so happened to be a when I was that age, you know, kind of like. You know, the teen club the funny part to me was called the grind, so it was kind of self-explanatory, and so the few people that I felt were friends that's kind of what we would do we would plan our time away from you know, we're talking late high school years you to the club on the weekends, and so what came with that was well, I don't want to be, I don't want to be sober when I go to the club. You know, I have to not be sober, whatever that is. And it fluctuated.

Speaker 1:

There were, there were times where we weren't 21, so we were able to consume alcohol and then go in this particular club. We would be, you know, stand in line for maybe up to like a half hour, because there was only a certain amount of people who could be in the club at one time. So once two people came out, two people could go in. And so during that time, you know, we were still consuming alcohol in line and it was just kind of what we did. And then there were other occasions where you've heard me talk about cold and cough pills, over-the-counter pills that we'll get into a little bit. But we would start to experiment with the cold and cough pills because those would make us feel high in a sense and we didn't have to kind of find an intermediary to help us out. We could go to the, we could go to the pharmacy and and purchase those ourselves. As long as you're 18, we could do that. Several times that we did that. Uh. There were again the other times where we would, throughout the week we would find alcohol and we would consume near, near the, uh, the club, the, and then in line, and a couple of times we probably snuck some in plastic bottles and that.

Speaker 1:

So that was what my life really revolved around at that time and that was because I'd kind of fallen out sport-wise. You know you've heard me talk at lengths about being an athlete and baseball being kind of my favorite sport, and then how things really just didn't work out. I had shoulder surgery and from then on I just know it was never the same Throwing the ball. I was dropping fly balls on the outfield, just things that like weren't. I wasn't trying to do that, those things were just happening. So that really put me down like this, this darkish path to where, where they beginning of this show, then talking about so he turned to, you know, a group of friends. So I wasn't with the cool kids, I didn't have the cool friends, I didn't get invited to the cool parties, you know, with the doctors and the attorneys, and you know these mansions and pool parties and and all these things. You know, we look at the Kardashians and and other influencers and and people like, oh yeah, that's, you know, that's living the life there, you know, and so that I wasn't so I, one reason or another, whether consciously or subconsciously, I think it was a little bit of both consciously I wanted to fit in and subconsciously my mind was thinking of, alright, how can I do that and who? Who can I fit in with? Or who who wants me to fit in with them or be close to fitting in with them, and those are all things right.

Speaker 1:

Growing up, going through the hormone changes as growing up, going through puberty, and those things happen, you know, to a large extent, at least a little extent with everybody, extent, at least a little extent with everybody. For me I kind of took it took a little bit too far because you know we talked about the cold and cough pills that I was experimenting with the same kind of peer group outside of high school and that was the group that I was with when I took 32 with these cold and cough pills. I ended up in hospital for a few days, had my stomach pumped. You know there were terms like you know, if you went to Brompton Hospital he might not have made it, or we're being said that, you know, by doctors and nurses, and so we would think that that would be kind of that flashpoint where I'd say, okay, Justin, hold up, we need to just take a step back and from, say, from the over-the-counter pill standpoint pretty much dead. And part of that was because I was advancing in years, age-wise, getting closer and closer to 21, age 21. And the closer I got, put me in contact with more and more people that were 21.

Speaker 1:

So finding and getting alcohol wasn't as difficult, if that makes any sense. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but that's, that's the best way I can think about it approaching 21, going through a relationship, but was still going to the clubs by school. Where I was at college and then kind of my hometown, there was a club that was open until I think, two or three or maybe sometimes even four in the morning and put myself in a lot of dangerous situations behind the wheel, just call it that. And one time I got pulled over, got a DUI, that's just kind of the way it was. One time I got pulled over, got a DUI, that's just kind of the way it was. So that was 20 years ago or so that that happened.

Speaker 1:

As we know, I don't drink and has something to do with that, that drinking and driving part, but the other is kind of the mental health and finding, finding, I guess, what I'm feeling, that I want to do in life, that why I'm here on earth still goes on. The part in for the most part was Thursday, friday, saturday. Every week, every week, every week I was at school. That's what it was. After after I say freshman year, after after I would say freshman year, kind of going into my sophomore year, I started to get academic wise, to be able to be in school forever and I wasn't going to have family that was going to support me forever, which I shouldn't have If I was going to spend all my time out partying and missing class and having to repeat class after class after class.

Speaker 1:

There was one class, one of my economics classes, that I had to retake because I think I got a D or D minus in it, and so that's kind of a wake-up call of alright, I need to get, I need to, I need to figure this out. And so I started to go through that process, and that process was I'm gonna continue to go out, I'm gonna continue going clubbing, but I was gonna limit it as much as possible to the weekends. So I would from say, sunday afternoon, monday, tuesday, wednesday, and in the in the thursday and many thursdays I didn't, I didn't go out, but during that those times it was go to to class, work on projects, meet with groups and go that route. And, my grades notwithstanding, they continued to rise and so I kind of found my valley, and then I started to rise.

Speaker 1:

Once I started to get serious about finding what worked for me and how this all is gonna intertwine into the following episode is one of the individuals that I met was a exercise science major and former military, and so we thank all our troops, past present, veterans on earth and heaven, and he was he's mentioning, I said, like a concoction of flaxseed oil of seas, thinking sea salt, mix a little bit of water, and by doing that and eating a lot of salmon and a couple other things, eating things that weren't in cans that if I went out, went to the bar, went to the club, drank a lot of alcohol, a lot of shots, that as long as I did kind of this regimen of mixing a little sea salt water, and on the flaxseed oil, that I'll be able to hang on to. I'll say hang on to my sanity, hang on to hang on to being able to focus, focus in class and do what needed to be done there, while still being able to go out and do you know the clubbing things and being you know the. You only live once. You know that mindset happened in the. You know the early 2000s for me, where that got started oil and sea salt, and that it's when, because that was the first time, anything other than regular food got introduced to my what called diet, where you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner and then I was incorporating this regimen into my schedule, so I was open to it. I was open to trying. It Felt like it was working. Things were working, my grades were improving. I tended to feel sharper. Yeah, whether that was the case or not, that was, that was what what I felt and was feeling, and it's my grades were improving, I was still going out, and so I was able to kind of live the I'll say the best of both lives, in a way where I could go out Thursday, friday, saturday, but then still be able to, you know, come Sunday afternoon, you know, kind of flip that switch and say, okay, let's, let's, let's get, let's get focused on, on the school and on the, on the the school and on the academics. And so that carried me through the rest of my years in college.

Speaker 1:

I say eating wise. I mean I was eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, eating fish, salmon, at least least once, maybe twice a week. A lot, of, a lot of chicken cereal, even though I was taking flaxseed oil. I was, uh, I was also some of these uh, exotic cereals have different, uh, different grains, different seeds, and so the flax seed was one of those that was in one of the cereals that I was eating, and so I felt like, oh right, if you take double it's going to work double. That's not the case. But that was where my head was at. I again was performing. Well, there was even one one. Uh, experienced it.

Speaker 1:

I would have thought never would have happened, for for me as a student, if I rewind the clock, in the high school I was taking a summer class and we were having an exam that was coming up, and so summer classes were known for being easier, because the instructor doesn't want to stay the whole time. They want to go out golfing or go to the pool or just not be in class. You know the four hours or so that we're usually in class for once or twice a week class. And this was at the time where I was really peaking, doing very well. I was locked in academically and so this exam was coming up, and so I studied and came into class the day of the exam and again I was peaking. I was doing very well. I was answering a lot of questions when other students may not have thought of the answer to a particular question. The instructor would go to me again. I would. Years before I would have thought that would never occur.

Speaker 1:

It'd be the opposite way they would go from justin to somebody else, not from somebody else to justin, to kind of get get things wrong. So come into class and a student raised their hand and said hey, hey, can we have an oral exam? Meaning that the instructor would go through the exam, but instead of each individual student having a copy of the exam and going through it themselves, that the instructor would. Let's say there's 10 questions like 10 essay or 10 model of 10, model choice, doesn't really matter what kind of questions they were. I'll just say there's 10 questions. Well, and say there's 10 students, because the summer classes some are bigger, some are smaller, so we're just calling it 10 for our sake. 10 questions, 10 students, and I'm one of the ten.

Speaker 1:

And so instructor reads question one, if it's multiple choice, here are the choices, and then the instructor picks a student to answer the question and if that student got it right, you get all. Everybody in the room gets all the points for number one. If this student that was picked got it wrong, you got all the points wrong or got all the points taken away for question one. And here I am, I'm peaking, I'm doing very well, I'm like I actually studied. I'm not going to let this happen. I'm not going to get a low score because somebody didn't study and they think that I'm going to pick up the slack for them.

Speaker 1:

And so it was kind of that competitiveness in the sports that was now in the sports. It was now since I wasn't playing the sports, I was using it academically and I said, no way, I'm not doing it. I said I'll go in the other room, give me my own exam and we'll do that. So I I told instructor that's what I wanted to do. He said okay, is everybody? Close your eyes, put your head down and ask would you like to take an oral exam? Raise your hand. And then, would you want to take an individual exam? Raise your hand. And I still to to this day.

Speaker 1:

It rarely blows my mind, you know. So I'm talking about this here. I was the only person, so he gave me an exam. I went to the room next door that was open and I was the only one. And then a minute or two went by and another student and another student and another student pretty soon there was I think six instructor came over and said okay, everybody, we're going to come in, we're going to have an individual exam.

Speaker 1:

So to me, this concoction, the flaxseed oil, the sea salt and water, the concoction that I was taking, I was eating, you know, like I said, the three meals wouldn't say I was eating three full meals, I was eating part of a uh a meal. So again introduced flaxseed oil, sea salt, kind of in my mind and in my mind saying, okay, I'm open to this type of uh, open-mindedness when it comes to supplements and vitamins. So that takes us to our next episode, where vitamins, supplements were in many ways overtaking. They were, they were starting to overtake food and some of the issues that was coming up in my life where I was heading back down into that valley and then into the hospital. So we'll see you on the next episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes. Thank you so much for your support. Please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Justin Alan Hayes

Host