Speaking during an interview on Fox News, country music superstar Walker Hayes explained how a pastor helped him leave behind the atheism and alcoholism of his past and find a new, reformed life in Christ Jesus. He explained how he had been living a busy life of trying to make his mark in the music industry while also working a normal job with long hours, and how he stuck to the bottle despite his busy schedule before ultimately finding Christ and moving on.
Beginning, he described how he had made it eight years, at the time of the interview, without drinking, then commented on how he started hitting the bottle as a young teenager and clung to it even as he worked a normal job and in his music career.
He said, “I’m eight years sober this October.” He continued, “I woke up one day when I was working at Costco. I was working at Costco from 4 to 11 and then writing and then playing shows. And man, it caught up to me. And honestly, I had been drinking since I was probably like 13.”
Then, describing how that changed when he felt worse than ever one morning, Hayes said that he first tried to make it one day sober, then that snowballed into weeks of sobriety and better life choices. He said, “I woke up one Saturday, and I just felt like I was going to die. I felt like physically if I did one more day, something was wrong. And so I stopped, and then one day turned into two, and then two turned into a week. And then a week turned into a month. And then I did the whole high on sobriety thing and got into working out and stuff. Kind of traded a bad addiction for some good ones.”
He then added that his wife and he lost a child as he battled that alcoholism, but then a pastor named Craig helped him turn his life around, much to his surprise. Hayes said, “I lost a kid, I have nothing going on musically, I’m an alcoholic. I’m great at pushing people away. So here comes this guy named Craig, who was drawn nearer to me.”
Hayes added, “And it was quite confusing. There were a lot of times when I was like, ‘What’s this dude’s deal? Like, why does he love us so much? Like, why does he keep feeding us food? Why is he giving me a minivan? Why is he encouraging me? Why isn’t he like everybody else?'” He continued, “In the long run, I honestly found out he’s just as broken as me, but he just knows Jesus. He needs Jesus. Every morning he wakes up, he needs Jesus, and Jesus is a light through him.”
Hayes further spoke about his faith and spreading it when speaking to Taste of Country, saying, “I don’t think there’s anything [more] worth sharing than what Jesus has done with me and the redemption I’ve experienced here on Earth and will continue to experience from knowing Him. That’s it. That’s why I wanna share my story.”