Automatic episode summary
Still Strong #12 is the first half of a two-part conversation between host Keith Vance and Justin Alan, a Florida project manager for a low-voltage company. Keith's read-in notes that Justin is 40, was married once and divorced in 2014, has a daughter and a son, and reached two years of sobriety the previous January. Keith frames the episode carefully before Justin says much of anything: this is not a rare story but a normalized one, and just because society normalizes a behavior does not make it right. Part one covers Justin's childhood through his early thirties and stops at the edge of what he calls his first real rock bottom.
Justin starts at the beginning. He was born in November 1985 to a mother he was close to and to a man he believed was his father. By five or six he understood that the man raising him had adopted him at a year old, and that his older sister's father was in fact his biological father too. The confusion deepened when, writing home from Colorado, he asked his grandmother who his father was and she named a third man entirely. He describes a family where secrecy was routine, going back to a grandfather who left a family in Pennsylvania, and calls it a generational pattern of lying rather than facing consequences. He is careful to say the man who adopted him was a good man: Saturdays at his shop, Sunday mornings fishing, and never once, even after the marriage ended, a word that Justin was not his.
His mother, he says, moved from relationship to relationship and never wanted to be alone. One toxic marriage produced the episode's clearest picture of the pattern: after a fight, she sent her husband to return the movies to Blockbuster and drove the children to Disney World without him. That husband joined the Army, and the family spent about two years at Fort Carson, Colorado, where Justin played football and basketball and where, he says, life looked good from the outside. What he carried was not physical, he says, but mental, and it takes longer to work through because nobody sees the marks.
Back in Florida at fourteen, he skipped school with friends, broke into his adoptive father's house, took a client's Suburban for a joyride, bought pot and drank his father's beer. He lied twice on the phone before the truth came out. A Cape Coral officer put him in handcuffs; his mother poked the officer in the chest and was arrested for battery on a law enforcement officer. He faced three felony charges at fourteen. Keith presses on what he sees as the hinge of the story: a mother's love that kept absorbing the consequences her son needed to feel.
What follows is a long, self-implicating account Justin gives without excuse. Community service brought him into a church for the first time; a Pentecostal church later brought him back for the wrong reasons, and he admits faking speaking in tongues to fit in. A pregnancy at eighteen made him a father at nineteen. Storm work paid well, and he spent it on partying rather than the responsibility in front of him. He describes drinking not as celebration but as anesthesia, a way to make responsibility stop. He names what he did to women plainly, calling it manipulation, gaslighting and mental abuse, and says he did it to every one of them without seeing it. A marriage ended. A relationship ended in a violent argument in front of his daughter. A firearms instructor certification became a new opening line. A gun shop he opened in LaBelle ended when he lied about covering it, flew to New York for a weekend, and his mother and stepfather emptied the store while he was gone.
Keith does not stay neutral. He tells Justin plainly that he is struggling with the picture forming in front of him, and he tells the story of one of his own daughters who came within days of marrying a man like the one Justin describes. Part one ends jobless, single, and at the start of what Justin calls his first real depression and rock bottom.
Speakers
- Intro voiceover other
- Keith Vance host
- Justin Alan guest
- Crosstalk other
Chapters
- 0:26 Why this normalized story matters
Keith introduces Justin, gives the formal read-in, and sets the frame for both parts: this story is common, not rare, and normalizing a behavior does not make it right.
- 4:33 Secrets, adoption, and a good dad
Justin traces his earliest confusion: adopted at a year old, told later that his sister's father was his biological father, and raised inside a family where questions were changed rather than answered.
- 11:40 Colorado, and abuse without marks
His mother's toxic marriage, the Disney weekend she left her husband behind for, two years on a Colorado military base, and Justin's account of a mental rather than physical abuse that nobody could see.
- 22:34 A letter to grandma about dad
Writing home from Colorado, Justin asks his grandmother who his father is and gets a third name. Keith names the weight of a child trying to build an identity on a foundation that keeps moving.
- 29:35 Fourteen, a Suburban, three felonies
Skipping school leads to breaking into his adoptive father's house, joyriding a client's Suburban, drinking and getting high, then lying about it. It ends with handcuffs for Justin and an arrest for his mother.
- 44:42 Two churches and one good stepdad
A cousin calls from state prison to warn him off the life. Community service brings Justin into a start-up church and a new stepfather brings his first steady boundaries, but a later Pentecostal church is for the trips and the girls, and he admits faking speaking in tongues to fit in.
- 58:35 Eighteen, a pregnancy, storm money
A girlfriend gets pregnant when he is eighteen. He goes to Lamaze classes, takes a job his stepfather opens for him after Hurricane Charley, and starts making more money than he knows what to do with.
- 1:11:59 Drinking to numb responsibility
Keith asks whether the partying was fun or escape. Justin answers that drinking ended his responsibilities and suppressed feelings he did not know he had, and admits he drank until he blacked out.
- 1:27:44 Two Amandas and the manipulation
Justin meets the mother of his son and describes lying about his vehicles to win her over, then years of lying, arguing and convincing her the problem was hers when it was his.
- 1:37:33 A father's fear for his daughters
Keith stops the story to speak as a father of five daughters, including the one who came within days of marrying a man he watched manipulate her. The conversation gets raw and he refuses to edit it.
- 1:46:50 Firearms, a fight, a gun shop
A firearms instructor certification becomes a new opening line with women. A relationship ends in a physical argument in front of his daughter, and he opens a gun shop in LaBelle expecting quick money.
- 2:15:14 New York, and mom finally says no
Justin lies about who is covering the shop and flies to New York for a weekend. His mother and stepfather empty the store while he is gone, and part one ends jobless at the start of his first rock bottom.
Key takeaways
- 19:52 Justin distinguishes the abuse he experienced from what people usually picture: not physical, but mental, passed down from parents who received it from their parents. He calls breaking that a generational curse, and says you do not realize it until you realize it.
- 1:22:42 Keith objects to the phrase "me time" as a word that resonates of selfishness, while clarifying that everyone needs time alone, including for the gym and for prayer. Justin agrees and adds that once you choose a family, your family should be your me time.
- 2:01:00 Keith on why a business is not a money machine: you get into it because it is what you love, and you treat it like a child you protect. If the tree bears fruit, do not pick every piece; let it have some maturity.
Pull quotes
Justin on the family he grew up in: "It was like a generational mess up of not telling the truth and not being open and honest." Rather than face the truth and its consequences, he says, the pattern was to lie until you no longer had to talk about it.
Keith on why emotional harm takes longer to work through: "I think that one's harder because you don't see the marks. You don't see the scars."
Justin refuses to let his mother's version stand: "And at the end of the day, I was the ringleader on it all. I was the one that wanted it. I wanted that adrenaline."
Justin on the habit that shaped everything after: "At a young age, I was able to manipulate people and make them think that I was this person I wasn't. And it's something I carried on for most of my life."
Justin on what drinking was really for: "My responsibilities are going to end for me when I start drinking because I'm going to numb all the pain that I have... What I'm really doing is just hiding and suppressing feelings that I didn't know I truly had."
Justin on the marriage: "I was able to make her believe that there's times that she was the problem, even though she wasn't. It was really me. I was the problem." He tells Keith he did not know he was doing it at the time.
Justin issues a direct warning to young women looking for their knight in shining armor: there are men like he was who will lie, manipulate and mentally abuse, who will tear a woman down to their level so they can control her, and whose parents often see through it before she does.
Keith, mid-story, to Justin: "I'm struggling emotionally with my emotions with you right now because I'm getting a clear picture of you right now. And I don't like that person." Justin answers, "I didn't like that person."
Justin on the arithmetic of lying: "I was on like a two to three month thing. I can make it work for like two to three months... And then I run out of money and I run out of lies. It's just easier to tell the truth, because there's no hiding the lie forever."
Justin on his mother, asked whether she ever shut the door on him: "No, never... She never told me no. She should have."
Justin on losing the shop: "That struck a nerve, because now I got to tell people that seen me live in this lifestyle... It exposed me like no other." Keith reads his mother's move as a woman acting where she knew she could not speak, because a conversation would have ended in a negotiation she would lose.
Scripture & context
- 1:37:33 Keith speaks as a father of seven, five of them girls, and says the only thing that matters to him is being a father, a husband and a grandfather. He describes handing a daughter off to a man who loves her more than he does, and having to see clearly when a man does not line up.
Questions answered
- Why does Keith call this a normalized story rather than an unusual one?
- Keith says up front that as he and Justin talked earlier in the week, he thought of half a dozen men in his own circle with similar stories. He warns that the episode may step on toes, because just because society normalizes a behavior does not make it right or mean it was ever intended to be that way. Justin adds that people living the same way will deny it is them. jump · 1:00
- What did Justin learn about who his father was?
- Until he was five or six, Justin believed the man raising him was his biological father. He later learned he had been adopted at a year old and that his older sister's father was in fact his biological father as well. When he wrote to his grandmother from Colorado asking who his dad was, she named a third man entirely, and Justin says he still does not have full answers. jump · 4:33
- What kind of man was the father who adopted him?
- Justin describes him as a great man to him: Saturdays at his shop, Sunday mornings fishing followed by a big breakfast, four wheelers and go karts. Even after separating from Justin's mother, and even after Justin broke into his house as a teenager, he never once told Justin to stop calling him or that Justin was not his child. Justin still carries his last name. jump · 8:50
- What happened when Justin was arrested at fourteen?
- After skipping school, breaking into his adoptive father's house, joyriding a client's Suburban and drinking his father's beer, Justin lied about it twice on the phone before his mother got the truth out of him. At his father's house a Cape Coral officer put him in handcuffs; his mother poked the officer in the chest and was arrested for battery on a law enforcement officer. Justin was charged with grand theft, grand theft auto and burglary, spent a night in the Cape Coral Police Department jail, and his mother spent two nights in the Lee County Jail. jump · 35:54
- What does Keith identify as the pattern in Justin's mother's love?
- Keith keeps returning to the point that Justin's mother never let him carry his own weight. She was angry at the officer rather than at her son, she negotiated instead of telling him no, she took his daughter so he could go out, and she left the door open every time he came back. Justin agrees, and says the love was really an instinct to save him from what she had been through, which made things worse rather than easier. jump · 1:13:50
- How does Justin describe what drinking actually did for him?
- He says he does not think anyone truly enjoys it, and that for him it was an escape. Drinking meant his responsibilities ended, it numbed the pain and his thought process, and he would look like he was having the best time of his life while he was really hiding and suppressing feelings he did not know he had. He also says he never went out to have a few drinks; he drank until he blacked out because he did not know how to stop. jump · 1:11:59
- When did Justin realize he was manipulating people?
- Not at the time. He says he was able to make a partner believe she was the problem when it was really him, and when Keith asks whether he knew that then, he says no. He adds that people can be fifty or sixty years old and still not see it, and that it is even worse for the men who manipulate and do not recognize what they are doing. jump · 1:34:47
- Why does Keith take this conversation so personally?
- Keith is a father of seven, five of them girls, and says his identity is in being a husband and father. He describes one of his daughters coming within days of marrying a man he watched manipulate her and turn her against him, and says her eyes were opened before the wedding. He also tells Justin that during the years being described, Justin was coming into his restaurant looking like exactly the kind of man he would have picked for one of his daughters. jump · 1:37:33
- What ended Justin's gun shop in LaBelle?
- He planned a weekend in New York City from a barstool and told his girlfriend and his mother different stories about who would run the shop, because closing it for two days would not have held up. Customers called his parents' store asking why they could not pick up their firearms, and that Sunday his mother and stepfather went to his shop and emptied it. It was the first time, he says, that his mother ever told him no. jump · 2:15:14
- Where does part one leave the story?
- Jobless, single, and back at his mother's house. The relationship ends because she can see he is a dead end, he briefly helps at his mother's shop after an employee's death but that does not last, and his grandmother passes away leaving a house in the Cape that needs clearing. Justin says this is where he hit his first real depression and rock bottom, and Keith calls the break there for part two. jump · 2:23:23
Helpful links
product
- Boots and Bubbles The episode sponsor, a Southern-style dirty soda business run by Keith's two daughters, aged 15 and 17, available for events in the Lee County area.
- Richardson 112 hats The Still Strong hat Keith gives to every guest on the podcast.
ministry
- Sunlight Fellowship Baptist Church The start-up Cape Coral church, meeting in an elementary school cafeteria, where Justin worked off his community service hours as a teenager.
- Church of God, Fort Myers The Pentecostal church Justin attended in his teens for the youth camps and mission trips rather than for faith.
Full transcript
Intro voiceover: I learned the hard way, nothing's overnight, some days you lose, some days you survive. Still Strong, even moving slow, every step counts more than you know. I found gold in the everyday, showing up and staying brave.
Keith Vance: The following conversation with Justin Allen is going to be a two-part conversation. Welcome to part one. Justin Allen. What's up? Welcome to the podcast.
Justin Alan: Thanks for having me.
Keith Vance: I appreciate you, man. Justin, I'm going to give you a formal introduction. Okay. And we're going to knock this thing out. We've got a lot to talk about. Yes, sir. You and I talked earlier in the week for about two hours. And the conversation that we're going to have is not a unique story. As we were talking, I'm thinking of like a half dozen people that I know in my circle that have similar stories as yours. Yep. And we're going to dissect this thing. We're going to take our time. Those of you that are watching this, stick with us because it is going to hit a target. It's all going to tie together. And potentially, this could be potentially one that could step on some toes. This could potentially step on some toes because just because something is normalized doesn't make it right or doesn't mean that it's normal. Just because we normalize. Just because society normalizes certain behaviors doesn't mean that's the way it's intended to be. Correct. And your story that we're going to share is a normalized story.
Justin Alan: And some people deny it. They're like, they live the same style and be like, that's not me, though. Yeah.
Keith Vance: So we're going to dig into it. We'll potentially step on some toes, but that's okay. Justin Allen, born and raised in Florida. Yes, sir. You were married once, divorced in 2014. I'm sure we're going to hit that in your story. You have two beautiful children, a son and a daughter, both 20 years old.
Justin Alan: I got my daughter's 20 and my son's 13.
Keith Vance: Well, that's your fault because I copy and pasted your text and you said a girl 20 and a boy 20. So hey, son. My bad. Maybe, son, maybe emotionally you're 20 years old, but age-wise you're 13. Yeah, he is 13. And I asked you, I asked you what your relationship with your kids and you got a solid relationship with both the boys. And now I'm proud of you for that. That's important. Yeah. That's good. You're a project manager of a local.
Justin Alan: Low voltage company.
Keith Vance: Low voltage company. You like to travel. You enjoy fishing. You're two years sober. Two years. Two years sober.
Justin Alan: This past January I had my two years.
Keith Vance: And you're 40 years old. I'm 40.
Crosstalk: Getting up there.
Keith Vance: You got a lot more gray in your beard than I remember you when you first started coming around when we first met. I did. You got a few more wrinkles, too. Yeah. Life is life is life and done something to you. All right, brother. Justin, before we get rolling, everybody that comes on the podcast. Gets us Still Strong. These are Richardson 112s. If you know anything about hats, you know these are the best. These are the ones everybody wants. So you can represent us while you're doing your thing. Thank you. Yeah, man.
Justin Alan: I'm a big hat guy.
Keith Vance: You can just throw it on the floor if you want to keep it, whatever you want to do. So, Justin, we're going to dissect this. I don't want to miss anything. You know, you and I talked for two hours and it blew by quick. I don't want to miss anything. We prayed out there that God would give us clarity, that he would just slow down our heart rate and our mind as we communicate. It's communicated clearly and effectively. I've been starting out with childhood because it's impressed me that the things that shape us, the majority of what shape us, who we are today, happen in our childhood. Influences, trauma, like all those things. So I'm going to hand the steering wheel over to you. Let's work through your childhood and we're going to make it connect some dots. Okay. It's all you, brother.
Justin Alan: So, just start from the beginning of time. I was born November 20th, 1985. I have a mom and then I had what I thought at the time was my dad. Growing up, I have an older sister. She's about 16 months older than me. And growing up for the first, probably until I was like five or six, I thought my dad was my dad and my sister. A separate dad. Excuse me. And as time came on, it came out that I was actually, me and my sister had the same father. And I was adopted when I was a year old from another guy that ended up being my dad growing up. Not my biological dad.
Keith Vance: So your adopted dad you thought was your biological dad. Right.
Justin Alan: For a few years of my life. And then as I got older, my parents ended up separating. And it became clear that obviously he was a blue-eyed, smaller guy. And I was brown hair, brown eyes, bulkier. And didn't resemble a whole lot to him, but I resembled a lot more to my sister's dad. I looked more like him. And then I have a half-brother on my dad's side. And then just growing up, it was just something that I never really fully understood, never really questioned. Because me and my mom were always close. So I never really, like she would talk about it, but she would never go into detail of why all that took place. And why there was never no understanding of why I was never part of that side, like my sister. And I always had my dad that I had that adopted me. So at a young age, I was always confused on certain things. And then when it comes to my family, I always felt like we had a lot of secrets and nobody between like my grandma and grandpa. And like that whole story, I'll probably never understand how that situation worked out. And then my aunts and uncle. What do you mean your grandpa and grandma? Like, is it there? There, my grandpa, he had a family in Pennsylvania. And he ended up leaving that family to go with my grandma. And then that's when my mom was born. And so it was always, it was like a generational mess up of not telling the truth and not being open and honest and kind of like being shady.
Keith Vance: Kind of like you walk into a room and there's a conversation going on. And then you walk in the room, everybody, everybody stops talking. Right. It's what it felt like for you. Like you're trying to figure out what's going on and everybody just kind of like changes subject or clams up.
Justin Alan: Yep. And never, never really got full clarity or understanding why, why it was such a secret or anything. It was always just, just pushed under the rug and this is the way it is. And that's like, okay. And I never really questioned it. And as we go on, you'll understand why I still don't have certain answers. But, um, it was, it was, I feel like it was a big part of my growing up was, just because I saw previous generations of my family lying to get by as well. The way I look at it is because instead of face the truth and face whatever consequences you get from it, just lie until you, you don't have to talk about it anymore. And pretend like it didn't happen. Right. Right. So years go by and, um, I would say probably get into like my late middle school, high school years. My mom, she was never one that really. Let me ask you a question. Your adopted dad. Was he a good man? He was a great man to me. He all through my early childhoods, um, like on the weekends when it was his weekend, um, either Saturday, I'd go to his shop with him, um, hang out at the shop. Uh, I would Sunday mornings was always get up and go fishing. After we got back from that, we'd have big breakfast. Um, always doing something, riding four wheelers, go karts. It was, it was a good childhood. There was no, there was no like bad. There was a few times to where I can remember very vividly when my, um, mom and dad were still together that there was one time where he really upset me or where he really, I really upset him. And he got mad at me, um, with that big screen TV back in the day. That was like a box. Uh, it was probably not that big anymore, but back then they were. Huge. I remember him like slamming his hand up against my chest because I forget what it was about, but I just remember that situation. And I think that was the first time in a handful of times where he really got upset with me over something. And I was probably like five years old. But it's one of those memories that just kind of hang out.
Keith Vance: I asked you because I didn't want to assume. But I assumed that he was a good man. The fact that you thought he was your dad all the way to it. And he never even when your mom and him separated, he didn't say, hey, by the way, dude, you're not even mine. Like he like that's a good man. Right. He he he was your dad.
Justin Alan: Right. And there was never a time even after certain things happened later on in life where he never once told me, like, don't call me no more because you're not my child or any like he's never told me that. He was he was a good good man to me. He made sure that I didn't really want for anything. He tried guiding me on certain things in life and I didn't always listen. And it paid off. In the end and really showed that I didn't listen. But there is a few times to where I did listen and there's a few times where I didn't listen. And but there is no doubt he wasn't a good man to me and he was a good guy. And it was a big influence on a lot of people.
Keith Vance: So you were getting ready to fast forward to your middle school before I interjected that thought. So go ahead and continue.
Justin Alan: OK, so, yeah, middle school. Middle school wasn't too crazy.
Justin Alan: We my mom was big like she was always. Never wanted to stay alone. She always went from relationship to relationship, whether she got married or dated or whatever. And.
Crosstalk: It kind of put like.
Crosstalk: Like.
Justin Alan: For me, it was just something like that. I guess I was normal. Like you always have to have to a two person home. You never have to be alone. Never have to understand like certain things on your own. Deal with it alone. Just make sure you always have your partner and somebody to help you get through life. No matter what that looks like. Right. No matter if it was good or bad or anything. Because I I did see my mom getting a couple. Like with some one of her ex-husbands, like I seen her throwing wrenches and like craziness. Like. It was crazy.
Keith Vance: And this is the kind of stuff. That you're observing and your life, like I said, like is normalized because that's all you know. Right. And it's shaping you. OK, so all this stuff is shaping you.
Justin Alan: And not even realizing that. Not even realizing that. Yeah. That this is this is about to be your future. And you're going to this is going to be normal for you for a long time. Mm hmm. And so when we get we get into. A portion where my mom and this guy, they get married and it's a it's a very toxic relationship. I remember one time we lived in North Cape and. There was a weekend that we were going away to Disney. My mom owned a landscaping company.
Keith Vance: Oh, really? Mm hmm. That's cool.
Justin Alan: And she did a lot of Delta and Herons Glen. Like she had. That's all she did was she had the main contracts for those and earned my aunt. They owned that landscaping company and they were selling the company at the time because my aunt and my mom had a fallen out over the company because her new husband owned a lawn care company. And my mom wanted to merge the companies and my aunt didn't want to. She didn't want to split it three ways because she knew she knew it was going to be a train wreck. Got it. And so they had a falling out. So they ended up selling their accounts. And that weekend, I remember me, my sister and my mom and her husband were going to go to Disney World for the weekend. Well, back then we had a rented a couple movies. So she told him to go take the movies back to the movie blockbuster. Yeah. And long times I heard that name. And we left while he was going. We went to Orlando without him. And like back then, I was like, whatever. And not realizing how toxic of a situation that is because they got in a fight.
Keith Vance: And so they got in a fight. She sends him to return some movies and she like load up kids. We're going to Orlando. Okay.
Justin Alan: We went to Disney.
Keith Vance: This is going to be what you just said is going to be a recurring theme instead of facing things head on. and talking about the elephant in the room and trying to fix it, it's all lies, manipulation, diversions. Right. Okay, got it. And you're being taught how to deal with things this way.
Justin Alan: Yeah, just escape, run. You don't have to deal with it. You don't have to face it face-to-face. You can just run from it, and it'll eventually go to Disney World. You come back, it'll be better. Yeah. And so, I mean, we went there. We had a great weekend. There's pictures. And everything. So it was just one of those weekends to where it was normal, sleep, normal. And we come back, and they work it out, and he ends up joining the Army. Wow. And so how my mom convinced my dad and my sister's dad, so we ended up moving to Colorado for two years. Wow. Fort Carson, Colorado. Got it. So middle school. Because her husband's in the military. Right. He joined the military, and that was going to be their easy way out. She don't have a – she was going to go back to school for something, and he didn't want to do the lawn care anymore because, at the end of the day, he was a lazier guy. He didn't have no motivation. He lived off his dad. His dad was ex-military disabled. Got a government military check, veteran check. Got paid very well for it. Remind me, how old are you right now during this time frame? I was in sixth grade, so. Okay. Got it. Sixth grade-ish. And so I was going to school, and then one day I was like, oh, we're going to move to Colorado Springs, Colorado. And my sister's in eighth grade, and I'm in sixth grade, and we're like into the third quarter of our sixth grade year and eighth grade year, and we're uproot in our life and moving to a whole different area. You're going from southwest Florida where it's sunny all the time to a mountain town where it's freezing cold. So I remember we got there, and it was like start of a new year. We were still in the sixth grade towards the end of the year, but I remember it was cold when we got there because the first weekend we were there, we had to go to Walmart and get jeans because there was a blizzard coming, and we've never. You don't know what that's all about.
Keith Vance: No, because. You know hurricanes are about. Yeah, I can handle hurricanes, but the blizzards, I didn't want no part of that.
Justin Alan: Yeah. And so we hung out there for a couple years, and that's, I mean, we lived on a military base. Still no real, there was a lot of weirdness. Like looking back, it's like you look at like that military lifestyle is living on base and being new to that whole thing. The schooling was great. I had a lot of friends. We had friends local that were military because our school was on a military base. Um, and that was when that Columbine high school shooting happened. And that was right up the road from us. I think we were probably the only school in the United States other than other military base schools. Um, but being so close to it, I remember we didn't like leave school or anything like that to where I know like schools here were going home and all that, not us, but it was just, it was like a timeframe, but that's how long ago that was, was when that first school shooting happened. And, um, but I was on the football team there. I played basketball when I was out there. I was very active in those sports. Um, but home life was still, it was up and down. It was good from the outside looking in, but I didn't know the struggles I was going through on a day to day basis and learning and, um, tools that I was going to use later on in life.
Keith Vance: I want to interject something. Um, you said life was good from the outside looking in. Um, when you and I first met, when you would come into my restaurant, um, you would be like, you would be the guy that I would pick for one of my daughters. You're a clean cut. You work every day. You seemed responsible. Like you were outside looking in. Okay. I trust this guy. This would be like the guy that I would say, Hey, be like him. Um, but we're going to, but we're going to get there.
Justin Alan: I was a pro at that.
Keith Vance: You were, we're going to get there. But you talk about the things that are shaping you. You just said it when I was a kid, things were good outside looking in. But as I look back, things weren't, things weren't normal. Not normal at all. So go ahead.
Justin Alan: And it was, it was nothing like, like for me, it wasn't like, there's some people that have a bad childhood. I don't know. I don't know. but like they were abused or like physically abused. But the way I was, I was more like a mentally abused. It wasn't like a, it wasn't like a lot of people don't realize like the way that they were like raised. And it's not just our parents that did it. It's their parents did it to them. And that's how, that's all they know. And you have to break that generational curse of what a lot of people deal with. And you don't realize that until you realize it.
Keith Vance: You make a good point because
Keith Vance: when you think about your parents and abuse, you associate with abuse. Well, they're, they're feeding me. They're sending me to school. Like they're, I have a place to sleep. I'm not on the streets. They buy me whatever I want. Yeah. They're not, I'm not being molested. I'm not, I don't have physical, they might spank me, but they're not. So just because we associate abuse with those things, what you just said about the mental abuse, that there's something there to be, and it'll come out as we talk, but there's something there. And I think that one's harder because you don't see the marks. You don't see the scars. You don't see the, but they're there.
Justin Alan: And nobody else sees it.
Keith Vance: And nobody else sees it. And that's why I think it takes longer to get through some of this stuff when it's emotional. Oh yeah. Keep going brother.
Justin Alan: So, uh, that like my, it was towards the end of my sixth grade year, seventh grade year. And then the first little bit of my eighth grade year, we, we were in Colorado. Colorado. And then it was next thing, you know, of course we'd come back and visit our dads and we'd fly out here for like the summer times. And, um, I remember one time when I was out there, it was back when you didn't have cell phones or really emails or anything. And I always had, I had a pen pal here that, um, her name was Jessica. Me and her were good friends back then in middle school. And I'm still friends with her to this day. Um, but I was, that was my pen pal. We joke about it still to this day. I mean, you're talking 25, 30 year, God, I'm 40.
Keith Vance: Listen, you're, you're, you're bringing up words and terms that I had forgotten about blockbuster. I heard about blockbuster in 20 years and then pen pal, like that was the thing. I pen pal, you read a letter and then you wait for one to come back. Like, okay.
Justin Alan: So, uh, Jessica, my pen pal back home. But I also wrote my grandma and I remember writing my grandma one time out there and I never let my mom see it. And I remember asking my grandma who my dad was and who my grandma said my dad was, wasn't who my dad was. Uh, neither one of them. It wasn't obviously the one that adopted me or it wasn't my biological father. It was another guy. And so that kind of threw me out. Like she didn't even know who my real dad was. Wow. She assumed that it was this other guy. And so that, that always stuck with me over the years.
Keith Vance: And then you're, you're painting, you're painting a chaotic picture. Right. And you're trying to make sense. You feel like you walk into a room, everybody's hush, hush, but you can feel it. Something's off. You're trying to figure it out. You're trying to get some clarity. You thought you got some clarity from grandma. She just made it more confusing for you.
Justin Alan: And you're talking to be hard for a kid.
Keith Vance: It's hard enough as an adult to be talking about this kind of stuff. But for a kid, right. Who's, who's trying to figure out where they fit in this world. Who am I emotionally, physically, all this kind of stuff. And like, these are some basic things. I think a kid should know, right. Who's my dad. Like that's foundational stuff so that you can build off of that. So that you can build who you are.
Justin Alan: Right. At 13 years old, trying to figure it out. That's rough brother. And so I look at it like my son is 13 now. And to compare my 13 year old self to his 13 year old self is a way different. He knows who his dad is. He knows who his mom is. They might not be together, but he's got two solid parents and there isn't anything in the world I wouldn't do for him. And I didn't know that back then when I was 13, I had a dad that would do a lot with me, but here my mom, she took me away from him, moved me to a different state. And then I had stepdads that come along that weren't always the best or nicest or do a lot of things for you. They just kind of, it was just, they were there because they were attracted to my mom. Yeah. And it was just. There's a lot of kids that go through that.
Keith Vance: How's the baggage? Um, I don't want to interject too much because you're doing great, but you. Just said something that I have to say. My sister, she was with this guy for an extended period of time, and it wasn't a good relationship. She had three boys at the time, and that guy told those three boys, I'm not here for you, I'm only here for your mom. Can you imagine that? And they're children. They're children. Somebody can say that to me when I know who I am, but for a kid, when you're trying to figure it out, and someone says, I ain't here for you, I'm here for your mom, what does that do to a kid when they're being developed? And what kind of long-term thing did you just create?
Justin Alan: It's that mental abuse that you don't think about until you're later on in life, and once you're doing certain things later on, you look back at it. And it clicks. It's like, oh. You're like, oh.
Crosstalk: That might have been one of the first steps of a long, troubled life. You don't even realize it.
Justin Alan: And so they ended up getting in a couple arguments there, and they ended up doing their differences, and we ended up moving back to Fort Myers. And it was like right towards the end of my eighth grade year, and Colorado schooling did stuff different than Lee County schooling did. So me and my sister both went to a summer school that year for math. And so I was going into ninth grade, she was going into 11th grade, and somehow we were in the same math class. We went to a summer school, but it was whatever. So, and then for some reason, my sister, she went to Mariner High School, and my mom allowed me to go to Cape Coral High School. I made friends at the middle school I went to, and most of those kids were going to Cape High, and that's where I wanted to go. So she allowed me to go to Cape High. Why? I have no idea. She didn't like telling me no. So we went through that summer school. We went to, we started the school year off back down here. And the guy that she was married to, they finally went through their divorce. She was single for a little bit, very, very little. So, and at this time, I was going to Cape High. My sister went to Mariner. My mom would drop me off, pick me up. Sometimes my grandmother would drop me off, pick me up. My dad worked crazy hours, a lot of hours during the week. So he'd never pick me up from school. He was always at work. Your stepdad. My, my dad that adopted me.
Keith Vance: Your adopted dad. Sorry. Yeah, your adopted dad. So you came back from Colorado to Florida. And your, your adopted dad. Picked right back up in life. Picked right back up in your life. Got it.
Justin Alan: I mean, I still carry his last name to this day. Wow. Good job. So, um, but he's working a lot. Yep. He's working a lot. Did he ever remarry or. Yeah, he's, he, he has ever since. It was probably about six years old. He met a lady cause he had a mechanic shop and he met a part girl that delivered parts back in the day. And she had four kids of her own. And my early, early childhood days, she was very nice to me. She was very good. Um, she'd always do. She was probably another key factor here was somebody that was, um, the first person that really openly talked about religion when she never went to church often, but she always had a Bible. She always, um, listened to Christian music. She had a good friend named angel that, um, song had a beautiful voice and never really clicked back then of the Christianity lifestyle. Um, but it was, it's something that I remember.
Keith Vance: It was a seed that was planted that later on you could draw lines back to. Correct. We're going to get to, I think.
Justin Alan: Yes, sir. Got it. And so she was, she was good to me up until about my high school years. I got into a bit of trouble. I don't want to say a little bit of trouble. It was quite a bit of trouble. Um, my ninth grade year, I started skipping school, hanging out with the wrong kids. Cape high back then. It was cool to smoke dope and drink. And, um. get crazy. So there was one day my mom would drop me off in the front of school. I'd walk straight through the school parking, her school right back to the student parking and me and a couple of friends, we'd leave school every day. So we'd go to either somebody's house or whatever. We started skipping school more often. And then one of the days we skipped school, we went to my mom's house first. It was boring there. So we went to another buddy's house, hung out there for a little bit. And this was, I mean, you're talking seven, eight o'clock in the morning. We're skipping school. Like all our parents are at work and nobody, you don't have cell phones. So it's not like they're tracking us or texting you or anything like that. Cause you're just early two thousands, 2000, 2001. Their cell phones weren't a huge thing yet. But we had beepers, but nobody really. Right. Couldn't do anything with a beeper really. So we ended up going to my dad's house. And he lived out in Cape, North Cape. Back then there wasn't a lot of houses out there. You might, he had maybe two neighbors and everybody was probably like a quarter mile or greater part from each other. Yeah. And there's just open grass and fields. And you see a pine tree every once in a while. Yeah. And that was how North Cape was. It wasn't like how it is now where there's a house on top of each other. And we're hanging out of this house and he had a mechanic shop and he had a suburban in his driveway. And I was like, I don't know whose that is when we first got there. And so I went up and knocked on the front door and acted like I was getting dropped off and nobody answered. So me and my friends, I didn't have a key to his house because there was really no reason because he always picked me up and dropped me off.
Justin Alan: And we went around to his back sliding glass door, popped the slider off the door and got into his house and raided his fridge and was looking around and found the keys to the suburban in that way. And because a buddy of mine, he had a little Mitsubishi Mirage. There were only four of us that could fit in that. So we had took two different cars to my dad's house. But once we were there, there was a suburban. We could all fit in that thing. So we took that thing for a spin. I remember doing donuts out in the field with it. I'm 14 years old. I shouldn't be doing that, thinking that way or doing that kind of stuff. But I was. And we ended up running back up to Cape High, buying some pot off of one of our friends up at school, taking it back to my dad's house. We made a bong out of a two liter soda bottle, put a little bit of water in it, cut a hole in it, aluminum foil, and made do with what we had. But got high, started drinking all my dad's beer. And then he did have one neighbor that was up the road. We didn't know she was home. But she kept seeing all that. And my buddy's car stuck out like a sore thumb. It was bright red. So everybody knew that's who it was. Because back then we worked at, he worked at my Greenwells. My sister worked at my Greenwells. I didn't work there yet. But my sister knew who it was. Even though we all went to different schools, they worked together. And so later that day, we finally cleaned up the house, what we thought. Left it clean as can be, like we found it. What you thought for being drunk and high and drunk.
Keith Vance: You're like, oh, is it good enough? Let's go.
Justin Alan: We cleaned it. I got dropped back off at school. My mom was in the parent pickup line. Got back into the car. And I was 14 years old. I was getting ready to turn 15. And November. And my mom's like, hey, I'm going to take you to the mall. We're going to go birthday shopping for you so you can get some new clothes, new shoes. You got a question. And all that. I got a question.
Keith Vance: If you're bonging and drinking just a little bit before and you get back to school, you're not sober. You get in the car, your mom's in close proximity to you. No warning signs? She didn't see nothing? Didn't smell nothing?
Justin Alan: She didn't. If she did, she didn't question me about it.
Justin Alan: My mom did have a cell phone. One of those old Nokias.
Justin Alan: And I remember we were at the mall, on the way to the mall, and my dad had called her. It was later on in the night. and he wanted to speak to me and I got on the phone with him and he asked me if I was at his house. And at this point, I knew naturally it's easier to lie in life. So I said no. I said I was at school all day today. Here's the thing.
Keith Vance: Knowing what you know now, parents rarely ask questions that they don't know the answer to. I do the same thing now. So whenever my parents would ask me a question, I got that knot in my stomach. So now I'm trying to figure out, okay, they know something, but how much do they know? So there's this negotiation thing where you admit to something, but not too much because you don't know how much they know. So did you have that knot in your stomach when he called and said, hey, were you at my house? Oh, yeah. Okay, so you had that knot. So now you're negotiating. You're like, okay, no. First of all, you were straight up lied. Yeah.
Justin Alan: And then he called back. It probably wasn't 30 minutes, an hour later, he called back and he goes, I need you to be real honest with me right now. Are you at my house? I lied again. Shut it down. He got on the phone with my mom. My mom and him talked back and forth. And then my mom was one that can get me to tell the truth. So she, me and her were talking and I told her, I said, yeah, I did skip school and I did go over to his house and there was people over there. So not knowing what we were getting, I was supposed to go over there and do like a scared tactic. You're in trouble, but not in super big trouble type thing. And keep in mind, this guy's adopted me. He's treating me as his own. And here I am being rebellious, breaking into his house and messing up one of his client's vehicles and taking it for a joyride. And because we took that thing from Mariner High School pretty much all the way to Cape Coral High School and back in like driving it like it's our own. And we could have got an accident. We could, lawsuits and liability on him. Yeah. And so we get to his house and there's a Cape Coral Police Department car there. And that's when it kind of like really hit me like, ooh, that's not good. So then we go inside, we're talking and there were there were marks all in the field from donuts, which I admitted to that, that I did drive the Suburban. I didn't say we drove it all the way to Cape Coral High School, but I told them we drove it around the block and we were just bored. And and then there was, I want to say like $500 cash missing. I didn't know anything about that still to this day. I don't know who took it, but I know somebody took it. And then there was just beer bottles and all in his trash can, like in his kitchen. So we, we threw it away, but we left the evidence plain as day. Like he knows he didn't drink that many beers, but here we are thinking we weren't thinking. So the, there was Cape Coral officer. I remember him like I met him yesterday and I'll never forget his face. I'll never forget his name. And the first time he looked at me, he said, I need you to turn around and put your hands behind your back. I knew I was in trouble. And as soon as he did that, my mom, she was, I was her baby. Like I was her youngest. I was her one that she grew up with trying, because she had me and my sister at a young age and like, she didn't have to worry about my sister because my sister was more independent. And I was very, I was the type that kind of lived off of my mom's emotions and lived off of how my mom's reaction to those things. And so she would do things for me that she wouldn't do for my sister. It was always like me and my sister always joked around that I was mom's favorite, but I think I was more mom's one that she had to worry about, not the one that she could just set free and let go and know that my sister would be fine. I was the one that if she set me free and let me go, she was going to stress about what I was going to do at a young age and how I was going to turn out. And this situation didn't help out any. at all. So my sister ended up coming over to my dad's house. She drove. And so it's me, my mom and my sister there and my dad. And then there was just one officer at the time there. He started putting me in handcuffs, questioning me. And then at that same time, my mom poked the officer in the chest and told him that you better call some backup if you're going to take him. And next thing, No, she got flipped around and put in handcuffs for battery on a law enforcement officer. I was getting charged with grand theft, grand theft, auto and burglary. That's three felonies at 14 years old. And so I ended up going to Cape Coral Police Department jail, sat in there overnight, waited till my grandma picked me up. Obviously, my dad couldn't pick me up. My mom couldn't pick me up because she went to Lee County Jail. She spent two nights there. And she was pissed, to say the least. But, I mean, it's all later on in life.
Keith Vance: Was she mad at you? No. Or was she mad at the officer?
Justin Alan: She wasn't mad at me. She was mad at the officer. Yeah. She didn't. She never. I could probably count on one hand how many times I really know that I made her mad.
Keith Vance: And she was mad at the officer because he was, and I'm just asking, because he was being too hard on her little baby? Yep. Because he's not used to that. She's not used to that. Looking back, and we're going to hear the rest of your story, but looking back, if she would have just stood back and said, hey, buddy, this is what happens when you screw around, I think your lessons would have been faster learned. Mm-hmm. And we're going to get there, right? Yep. So this was the first time that you're remembering where something heavy, your mom's intervening for you. Mm-hmm. Instead of letting you suffer your own consequences, whatever that looks like.
Justin Alan: Right. Yeah. Yeah, because it was never, I never did any wrong. It was always, well, it's got to be you, like school teachers, everybody. Like, it was always, if I got a bad test grade, it wasn't because I didn't study it. It was because they didn't teach me. Teachers aren't working hard enough.
Keith Vance: Right. It's like. It's the other boys you're hanging out with. You're an innocent bystander. It's probably the other boys that convinced you to do this. Like, she's, I get it. I get it. Because that's naturally how mamas think about their children.
Justin Alan: And at the end of the day, I was the ringleader on it all. You were the ringleader. I was the one that wanted it. I wanted that adrenaline. I wanted to skip school. I wanted to, I didn't want to be at school.
Crosstalk: Mm-hmm.
Justin Alan: And.
Keith Vance: So there's a lesson to learn. We're not going to, we're not going to stop here, but there's a lesson to learn on both sides, parents, and children. Oh, yeah. The emotions, how mama thinks, how mama thinks, and how mamas can be manipulated.
Justin Alan: And the parents, the dads, because dads do it too. Dads and moms that do it. Tough love. Mm-hmm. Don't, don't baby them. Be tough. Make them. Mm-hmm.
Keith Vance: And I think that's going to be a big part of this story. Mm-hmm. It's a big part. Not the only part. That's a big part. Yeah. All right, brother. Keep going.
Justin Alan: And so you have a 14-year-old going to court for the first time. And I was looking, I was at Cape Coral High School in Lee County School District back then. I don't know about now. I'm sure it's no different. You cannot have felonies and be in the public school system. So they wanted to send me to what they call ALC, Alternative Learning Center for bad kids where you get in fights and arrested and all that. But they couldn't do that until I was convicted. I was still just accused of it. And so at this time, I went to my first court and I saw other kids my age wearing orange jumpsuits shackled from their ankles to their waist to their wrist. And I was like, I don't want to live this lifestyle. And I ended up getting in. I ended up getting jumped at Cape High by two boys because they thought I had snitched on them and told them their names. But the only. Because of the red car that everybody knew. Because of the red car.
Justin Alan: And it wasn't me that snitched. And I was still. About 30 years. Or 25 years later, I'll still claim I didn't snitch.
Keith Vance: You're holding that one to the grave.
Justin Alan: You don't want to tell everybody who it was? You don't want to say it? Come on, man.
Keith Vance: I feel good to set it free. Let's just.
Justin Alan: Well, what happened back then?
Keith Vance: I don't want you saying no names. Just a joke. All right.
Justin Alan: But it was.
Keith Vance: Hey, don't you know snitches get stitches? Right. Don't you snitch. I held it for 25 years.
Justin Alan: I'm not snitching now. You might as well keep going.
Keith Vance: Keep us impressed.
Justin Alan: But it was just one of those things where. I. I wanted to. Not live that lifestyle. I had a cousin of mine. He was already. Locked up in a prison. My. My mom's side of the family, a lot of my cousins were in and out of the system, and one of them was doing, at the time, I think he did like five or six years in state prison, and at first, I thought it was cool because I had three felonies, and he got on the phone with me one time. He's like, Justin, you don't want this. He goes, I fight every day, like physically fight, and he's like, you're not made for this. You don't want this, because back then, I was 14, 15 years old. I was 135 pounds. I was little, and he goes, you need to get it straight, and then another, so I started doing that, and then another part that we didn't discuss, discuss on the conversation that we had the other day was, so me and my mom are both on probation, and that's when you get community service. Well, how was I going to do my community service and all that? We got a, back when it was big, you still see it now, but you got little brochures in the mail, and we got a brochure from this place called Sunlight Fellowship Baptist Church. Hmm. And that was part of my high school where I first got reintroduced to faith again. Doing, well, I don't understand, you're doing community service there? I, it was a church that was starting up in Cape Coral. Okay. And we, my mom was like, oh, let's try it out. My mom was never a religious person at all growing up.
Keith Vance: Okay, so you're both on probation. You get this brochure, and she's thinking, hey, we need something in our life to change. Is that what you're getting at? Yeah. Okay, so hey, let's try this out. We, like, our life is, I'm on probation with my 14-year-old son. This is not going in the way that I think is a positive direction. So, okay, understood. Got it.
Justin Alan: So, that's, that's where we started. They, they started doing church service at an elementary school. We'd meet every Sunday in the cafeteria. Hmm. And so we started going to church. And we did that for, I did, my, like, the pastor of the church ended up registering with the state of Florida. So he would be able to count my hours, and he would help me out. And I would go help him paint houses. I would go, I was free labor for him, and, but I was getting community service hours. I'd help put chairs out at church, and we had, like, a very tiny youth group that we, there was, like, maybe eight of us that we'd do stuff here and there together. And then we kind of just fell away from that. They had, uh, my mom got a new husband at this time. And he was probably one of the most positive-influenced people in my early adulthood that I came across, or that came to me. He's, uh, they ended up getting married. They bought a house together in Cape Coral. Um, just a... From northern Florida. Country boy that was... He had two kids of his own, a son and a daughter. And he treated me and my sister like we were his own. Like, no question about it. And, uh, he was a very good man. And so he, he was hard on me. He never gave me, uh, he never yelled at me, never yelled. Him and my mom never argued in front of me. It was, like, a whole different lifestyle that I saw. So we're going through the end of probation, get off probation.
Keith Vance: Um, I wasn't... How'd your mom convince him to marry her when she's on, when she's on probation and she got like, my goodness, what, did she lie to him? I'm sure.
Justin Alan: Because, I mean, you got... You... Just my lifestyle that I've done. Like, I've... I look back and I'm like, how did I even convince you to even talk to me? Because...
Keith Vance: But even, but even looking back, connecting some of these dots, here you are at a pivotal point in your life where the road you're on is going to a way of destruction. But then there's these little interventions. You have... You... Accidentally or just happenstance, they get a brochure for a church and you go. Like, these little things. Your mom meets a guy, instead of being the one like he was at the military base, here you got one, that man, that is giving you... boundaries. Mm-hmm. You're experiencing unconditional love, but you're also experiencing the weight of what it is to be responsible. Right. So these little... These little... intervention spots to try to, like, it sounds like there's, sounds like there's somebody orchestrating. Sounds like there's a pathway going this way and someone is trying to orchestrate events in your life to bring you to a different direction. Oh yeah. But it sounds like you're your own worst enemy.
Crosstalk: Mm-hmm. I am.
Keith Vance: So, so your mama somehow pulls this off. She pulls it off. She, she finds a good one. She gets a good one. And, uh.
Justin Alan: And he's investing in you. He's, he's definitely invested in me. Like you told the line. He, I'm finally off probation at this point and I'm able to get my driver's license and you gotta, you can't, you can't be driving in on probation at the same time. State of Florida frowns upon that. So it comes time for me to pick out a vehicle. He's going to help me get my first vehicle and him and my mom are going to buy it. So I'm looking all over every, uh, God, what was them brochure or them books back in the auto trader? Yeah. Well, before the, like the Kelly or the, uh, they'd have them, they had the auto traders and then they also had, they had like two or three different ones. I remember. I just remember the little colored. I remember the newspaper. Yeah.
Keith Vance: They had vehicles that were sold. Yeah.
Justin Alan: So I was always looking through those things because you didn't really look on the internet. Cause there's right back 2003. There wasn't 2002. It wasn't really big yet. Um, and so I found a 96 Ford Bronco that I wanted really bad. It was black on black, black leather lifted on 35s. I was like, this is perfect for me. He's like, boy, you don't need that. Uh, and so I settled for a 98 Jeep Cherokee. It still got me out to the woods and, uh, they did let me drive without a license for a little bit. So I wasn't, I wasn't strictly on the books. I had my permit. So I wasn't completely illegal, but I was illegal driving. And, uh, I did that for about six months. And then I finally got my driver's license and I didn't want to do the whole school anymore. And both of them were big on, Hey, you need, you need some kind of schooling. So I ended up, I, I, after my mess of trouble, I went into, uh, getting arrested. I left Cape high and went to Mariner high school and I ended up leaving Mariner high school before I graduated and go, I went to the vote tech in North Cape. And got my electronic technology degree and, um, finished that way.
Crosstalk: So, so even though.
Keith Vance: At 16 years old, you said, I don't want to go to school anymore. And even though there's resistance saying, Hey, you need to, you know, you need to finish. You're still almost getting your own way. Right. Just, you're not finished out in Mariner. You're not finished out in Cape. Right. You go to leave Otex. So in a way you're still, they're still like letting you like capitulating to you to a little bit, even though it might be not be to the sense that the full extent that you want, they still let you go negotiate with them. They negotiated with you. Yeah. That's a good, that's a good word. They negotiated with you. Instead of them telling me no or telling me yes.
Justin Alan: They negotiated. We're going to meet in the middle.
Keith Vance: Why looking back, looking back, why did your mom negotiate with you?
Justin Alan: She should have just told me, no, keep your butt in school.
Keith Vance: Was she afraid that you would rebel against her? Yes. Something to think about.
Justin Alan: And so we did the whole go-tech. And then at this time, there was another church that came about. So I was dating this girl as one of my cousin's friends. And my cousin and her went to this church in Fort Myers. It's a church of God, a Pentecostal church. And so I went from a Baptist church to a Pentecostal church. And I went there for the wrong reasons. Because we got to go on field trips, well, not field trips, but mission trips and youth camps during the summer. So we went there. I was going there for the hangout with the girls.
Crosstalk: And my sister ended up going to that church.
Justin Alan: And I never fully understood Jesus or God or how all that worked out. But I, once again, I played the role that I did. And I lied and acted like I spoke in tongue just so I'd fit in. Like, because I saw everybody else speaking in tongue. I'm like, well, I can say that stuff.
Keith Vance: Don't do it on air because I'm going to laugh. Don't. Not all about that. I'm just, if you're going to practice, I may not know if I can keep a straight face. If you're telling me, like, what you're doing. Right. Like, don't reenact it. Sorry. So, it's one of those things to where, like... I could just picture you at 16 years old trying to fit in. Sorry.
Justin Alan: It was just one of those things, like I said before, like I could... At a young age, I was able to manipulate people and make them think that I was this person I wasn't. And it's something I carried on for most of my life. And I didn't realize it, that I was doing it. I mean, I knew I was doing it, but I didn't realize the impact it was having on other people. Or even yourself. Yeah. And there's a lot of people out there like that, too. There's a lot of people out there like that. And they'll look at this, they'll watch this video and be like, oh, I can kind of relate to it, but that's not me. And it is you. It's 100% you. You haven't got there yet. And so, we go to a couple missions trips, or we go to a couple... We went up to northern Florida. We were gone for a week on a trip for church. And that was fun, and that kind of made me like it. There was a few people there that I became close friends with. And one of the guys, Brian, where he lived at, his next-door neighbor, he had a pretty girl that lived next to him at the time. And so, I'm probably around 18 now. And I quit going to church. We had a falling out with the church. They swapped out pastors. The youth pastors there were great. I'm still friends with them to this day. They've seen me up and down all these years. Seen me turn my life around. Seen me hit rock bottom several times. Kept their... I don't want to say kept their distance, but watched and...
Crosstalk: And so, we...
Justin Alan: We quit going to that church, but I still remained friends with some of the people that I was in a youth group with. And the big thing, 18 years old, was going up to the bowling alley in North Fort Myers and hanging out and going from there. And either going out to the woods and drink or... Because I didn't drink a lot in my... 16, 17, 18 year old time frame, I drank. But I wasn't getting like where I had to have it every day. Just like a casual party type drinking. Just to fit in. To fit in. And so, when I was 18, I... Met this girl that was next door neighbors to one of my friends and met her up at the bowling alley. And I had my Jeep. I was going out to the woods. I was a... I was a country boy. And so, I thought... I was a Cape Coral country boy. And... But hanging out in North Fort Myers. She was attracted to it. Me and her ended up dating for a little bit. Her dad lived in North Fort Myers. Her mom lived over on the East Coast. I think two to three months of me and her dating. I got her pregnant. And 18 years old. She was 17. 18.
Keith Vance: So, there's a transition here. I know where we're going. This is the start of this transition. So, we talked about your childhood and those early things that shaped you. Now, we're getting ready to get into the second segment. That's a whole other segment in itself. I'm 50. And I drank a whole pot of coffee. So, before we get into this next segment, let's take a break. Okay. I'm going to go to the bathroom. And then this next segment is this whole other thing of these cycles. These cycles. Alcohol and relationships. And adulthood. Into adult. That carry... Because you are an adult. You're 18. Yep. That carries over all the way into adulthood. And I don't want to rush that. And my bladder is rushing me right now. That's fine. Let's take a break. Thank you. This part of the podcast is brought to you by Boots and Bubbles. This is a special one for me, man. This is my two girls, 15 and 17. Boots and Bubbles specialize in Southern-style dirty sodas. An alternative to your regular boring soda. If you're in the Lee County area and you want to book them for an event, find the link in the bio. In the meantime, let's get back to the show. My brother, we're back. Oh, we're ready. So, to recap, your childhood, a lot there. But there's this theme. There's this theme of your mother not really letting... you fully carry your own weight. Always kind of like that little safety net for you where you never really bore the full consequence. Right. And that's why I kind of want to hit the pause button. One, I had to go to the bathroom. But two, this next segment, we're going to hit some cycles. You're on your first girlfriend that you got pregnant, but there's multiples. And your relationship with your mother influenced all those other relationships, and it took several of them before you even realized what was going on. Right. So let's hit that next segment. 18, fake country boy in the woods with his 18-year-old girlfriend. Nothing wrong with that. That's normal.
Justin Alan: And so I remember the first time I had my first real job. I was doing screen enclosures for a local company, and I was making decent money back then for an 18-year-old kid, working 40, 50 hours a week.
Crosstalk: Do you know I used to work for a guy also doing screens? I had a bunch of jobs as a kid.
Keith Vance: But carrying aluminum ain't like carrying lumber, brother. No. It's light. Yeah. It's light. It was too late for me. I felt like I wasn't working hard enough. But what was hard for me, and I'm sorry to segue, what was hard for me is that spline, rolling that spline, the screen in. Dude, I could never get it. You're either good at it or you're not. Dude, I could never get it. Everybody's like, here, you just do it like this, and they would just do it. Mm-hmm. I could never get it. It frustrated me so bad.
Justin Alan: Yeah, the first couple times, it'll definitely make you go crazy.
Keith Vance: Yeah, and I never got the handle of it. Same like playing golf. My dad and my brother started picking up golf, so I just bought some clubs just to find something to do with them. They picked it up so quick. Dude, I'd have to hit it six times to catch up to their one, and I finally just gave up. I feel like I'm wasting their time. Right. Anyway, it's funny that you did screens, and I remembered trying to roll that freaking spline in and just frustrated me, but I didn't mean to kill your story there. Oh, you're good.
Justin Alan: And so I'm working full-time, always show up to work on time. 18 years old. 18 years old. Don't miss work. Took work way more serious than I did school. And then, of course, after work, she was still.
Keith Vance: Did you take work more seriously than school because you saw the value in it? I was getting rewarded for it. Getting rewarded for it. I saw the reward right away. I didn't have to wait for a reward. I always struggled with school because what's the point, man? Like, what's the point? But working during the summers, I saw the point. Right. You work hard, and then there's a reward. And I leaned into that hard as a young kid. I'm thankful I did. So anyway, I'm glad that in your story that you're going to talk about, I'm glad that you're at least responsible when it comes to work. Right. And that you're not missing because you don't feel like it. Right. I'm glad that you learned that lesson.
Justin Alan: Yeah, I did get a good work ethic on it as far as, like, working hard.
Keith Vance: Because a lot of people don't. No. A lot of people, if it's too hot outside, mama says I don't have to. Right.
Justin Alan: But that was the good thing about my mom. She was a workhorse. Like, she was, she had multiple businesses. She had. And that carried over to you. Yeah. She was a director over a school. And so she had that portion of it she was great at. She always made things possible. Good. When it came to that. And that was one of the things with my stepdad at the time. And her, like, you're going to work. Like, there's no doubt there. And then so I remember one of the times I was riding with my mom. And she looked over at me. And my girlfriend, soon to be mother of my child, was back and forth. Her mom lived over on the East Coast. Her dad lived here. When me and my friends used to, we dated. Like, she ended up leaving over here, living back with her mom. It was three hours away. Me and a couple of my friends would always make road trips over there. And we'd hang out there for the weekend. A buddy of mine, he ended up getting a girlfriend over there, too. So it was always, like, a friendship that we lived here. But we had our girlfriends on the East Coast. So every weekend, we were going to drive over there and hang out with our girlfriends and hang out over there.
Keith Vance: Man, the stuff we used to do when we were young. It's crazy. I kind of wish I had that same energy now. For real. I wouldn't drive across the East Coast. Goes for, I don't think anything right now. I don't want to drive to Cape Coral. But the stuff we did for our girls. Right. When we were young.
Justin Alan: So we did that for a little bit. But I remember I was riding with my mom. And she looked over at me. And she's like, is Amanda pregnant? And I'm like, how do you know? She goes, I can tell. And I mean, we're talking like early. Like I just found out. Because I wasn't even, one of my buddies found out before I did. Because she was scared to tell me. And so.
Keith Vance: It's funny that she had that intuition. But not the intuition that you're high or drunk next to you. In close proximity. Which she might have knew. And just didn't want to say it. Or was in denial. She probably just didn't want to say it. Didn't want to bring it up.
Justin Alan: Because she didn't want to cause a conflict of. Yeah. But I'm sure at that time. When she got the phone call from my dad. Wanted to know if I. Oh, she knew. She knew. Yeah. And. But. So I told her. Because I was. It was one of the things that my mom was good at with me. Was like. I could never. Lie to my mom. Like. I could lie to her. But it did me no good. Because she already knew. She saw through it. Yeah. Got it. She didn't. There was no holding back. So. I knew. I might be able to lie to her. But I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep that lie to her. Because she was going to find out. Um. So. She. Pregnant. Um. I'm still working. And. My stepdad at the time. Sees that. Boy. You messed up. Kind of thing. He goes. But. You're going to man up. You're going to take care of this kid. Do you want to keep doing what you're doing? Or. Do you want me to get you in the trade that I'm in? And then. So. I remember him. Talking to me about it. We're. We're going to Lamaze classes. We're doing everything. We're the youngest people in the Lamaze class. We're. I'm 18. She's 17. Getting ready to turn 18. Um. And. At a young age. And. It was. It was for a reason. Didn't know why. I mean. Obviously. If you don't. Practice. Safeness. You're not going to get. Safeness. So. It was carelessness. That got us in that situation. So. We. Were doing everything we could. As young parents. To. Prep ourselves. My stepdad. Offered me a job. To work at. The company he was working at. They created a whole position. Right after Hurricane Charlie. Back in was. Oh. Four.
Keith Vance: When Charlie hit. Yeah. Something like that. All I remember is Port Charlotte. Driving by. Seeing. The light. Poles snapped off. And that's where I. Four of the way up.
Justin Alan: That's where I started at. So. It was. But then now. Then. It was called Sprint. For your home internet. And telephone service. That was. I was a subcontractor for them. You. Work at your own vehicle. But they pay you pretty well. I did that for. Years. We traveled a lot. That. And. I started making. Pretty good money. For an 18. 19 year old. That. Didn't have. Really. The best education. Didn't go to college. Really. Um. And. I thought I was on the right path. I was like. All right. So this is. This is how life's going to be. Drink here and there. On the weekends. Um. Started. Started making. More money. To be able to do. More things. Going to. NASCAR races. Um. That kind of thing. Because that's what kind of lifestyle. My stepdad lived. Was. He was all about. Making. Making sure we. We go to. Miami raceway. Make sure we go to. Daytona. Talladega. The big races that were within. Driving distance. He was always. All about. This is. This. This is. What we do. He was a huge NASCAR fan. Um. It was funny. When.
Keith Vance: I thought you were going to say. Okay. I got this job that pays well. All right. This is my life. I can. Make some money here. I thought you were going to talk about. The priorities of taking care of your young. Your young. New person. And your baby. I thought you were going to be like. Okay. Now I can take care of them. And you just said freaking NASCAR. So you're. You're. I'm still mentally.
Justin Alan: Your priorities are not right. No. And I wasn't. Like I knew that. Like I had to. I had to provide. A little bit. But. I didn't. I still needed that funness. I didn't want to lose my. My growing up. Of my 18. To early 20s. Partying. Like everybody. Got everybody else. That I knew was able to still party. I didn't want to lose that. Uh. Uh. So I remember my 19th birthday. Why was it so important to you? Just. There is no. It was just the thrill. The adrenaline. And it was the. The short answer. It was. It was. It was. It was irresponsible. I didn't have that foundation set in to me that if you make this choice, you have to make it because things are just eventually going to... I know that deep down, if I can't make it, I can always lean on my mom, and my mom's going to be like, oh, we'll figure it out. We'll do this. We'll do that. You don't have to stress over it because if you can't afford it or you can't do this, then I'll help you out type situation.
Keith Vance: The reason why I asked is because I always wondered, like, growing up, people that are my age, like, what they're going to do the weekend was so important to them. And for me, I didn't care. So, for instance, I went to college. They kicked me out before a year.
Keith Vance: And I would sneak off campus and party and stuff, drink, you know, do everything, go to clubs and stuff. But I forced myself to do it. I didn't enjoy it. I need to get back to go to bed so I can be ready for school tomorrow or I can be ready for work. I have to kick me out. I stayed up there for a while so I can be ready for work. Like, it wasn't... It looked fun, but for me, it wasn't fun. It was... I was like, well, maybe I'm not doing it hard enough. Maybe I'm not doing it right. But I didn't like puking. I didn't like... Like, I just didn't like it. But for some people, that's what they live for. And that's why I asked. So, even at 19 years old, I'm trying to force... I'm thinking, this is what... This is what young adults are supposed to be. Right. You're supposed to sow your oats. You're supposed to live your craziness. And then you be responsible later. I thought that's how you're supposed to do it because that's what everybody around me is doing. And I'm trying to. And I remember sitting at a club, you know, all the bubbles and stuff. And I just... Man, I don't like this. I don't like it.
Justin Alan: I don't think anybody truly likes it. Even the people that you look at and like, man, they're having the best time ever. I think it's an escape for those people. Because that's what it kind of was for me. It was... It wasn't a... Oh, I'm going to go get plastered this weekend because I want to have the wake up in the morning and feel like I'm hungover and feel like I got ran over by a truck and puking. No, it's because my responsibilities are going to end for me when I start drinking because I'm going to numb all the pain that I have. And I'm going to not have to worry about anything because I'm going to be mentally and not capable of really thinking. And it's going to start numbing the pain, numbing my thought process, my thinking. And it's just going to... I'll look like I'm having the best time of my life. But what I'm really doing is just hiding and suppressing feelings that I didn't know I truly had or felt. So...
Keith Vance: And we'll get back to your story. This is like a little interjection because I'm curious. For you... Were you escaping responsibility? Were you afraid of responsibility?
Justin Alan: Oh, 100%. Got it. Yeah, because when it came to... I mean, I had a baby at 19... I was 19 when she was born. Like, that's a huge responsibility. You're taking on a whole new life. And... It was... It was something that obviously I've never dealt with. I mean, you're talking four years prior to that. I was a preteen getting arrested for stupid charges that... I made poor choices. Here I am four years later. I didn't make those choices anymore. But I still made other poor choices. And... It... Which I would never take it back. But... Because it's all part of life lessons. And I love my daughter to death. But... It's one of those things where I never really grew up. Okay. Like... To where... Because I was never able to separate myself from my... My mom. I know my mom loved me to death. I know like... But... With... The love that we had was more of... A... I'm gonna save you... Because... She might have had a bad childhood. Or she might have had... Not the best upbringing. So... She's trying to... Think in her own way of... I'm gonna make... His life easier. Make him not go through what I went through... As a child. Well... What she didn't know was... Not only was she doing it... She was making it even worse... For me.
Keith Vance: So... I wanna stay here for a second. Because... You're the baby. Mm-hmm. I'm the... list. How we've been shaped. When I feel responsibility, I had my first baby, my wife was 19, I was 20. Like she, like my son was, he was there when we got married. He was there when we got married.
Crosstalk: Okay.
Keith Vance: Um,
Keith Vance: but that weight of responsibility did something in me where I was afraid of it, but it was like, I need to man up. I need to go harder. I need to be harder. I can't waste time or energy on anything else. Like I was so focused that I don't fail on what I'm supposed to do. Um, even like early on in our marriage, um, I would see friends and stuff go, say we had some friends went to the keys for a, for a lobster and like the mini season. They invited us to go. We couldn't afford to go and to go would have put up more responsibility on me because now I got, I got to catch up that time. I missed off with the money I'm going to spend like the reason that, that, and I, so the responsibility kept me from doing that. So the ones that went that couldn't afford to go, they went, they put in their credit card or whatever. And they were always, they had it like, I couldn't have a good time knowing what I'm going to come back to. Right. The bills are going to be there. I just missed. So I, I couldn't escape, even though it would have been fun to escape for a weekend, you know, to get away. It wouldn't have been escape for me because all I would have been thinking about is responsibility when I get back. So whatever shaped me as being the oldest son or whatever, and then whatever shaped you being the youngest or whatnot, like the, the opposite ends of the spectrum. Oh yeah. You follow me?
Justin Alan: Oh yeah. I was completely opposite of that. I would have been the first one to sign up to go, to go and not worry about that. Not even worry about it.
Keith Vance: Not even worry about it. I just, I just, I just couldn't do it. My wife would be like, how come we can't do it? And I just, maybe, maybe when we, when we come back, like, how, how, we'll just, we just put on a credit card this one time. Everybody else is going. I felt like that pressure. Mm-hmm. Um, but anyway, just, I'm just, I'm just, like, like I told you, when we're talking, I'm digesting and analyzing all your words and I'm putting my feet in your shoes. Right. And I'm sweating, like working through this because it's important. Right. So, okay. I didn't mean to interject so much.
Justin Alan: And so, here we are, we're, like, she, cause she was just as much of a partier as I was. Um, obviously she can't drink when she's pregnant. Um, we had my daughter, um, and then we probably worked out for a little bit longer and she, like, I did a lot of traveling for work, um, with the telephone, especially during hurricane seasons. We went to Louisiana one time, worked out there for four or five months, um, made, I was 20 years old when I did that. Um, me, my sister, my mom, my stepdad, my stepbrother, like all of us subcontract for the same company. We went out there and worked. Um, and cause my sister got into the same line of work. My sister, like he, he brought, like he, that man trained us on what we needed to know and then set us free. And said, this is, this is what you guys, you'll be able to make a lifelong living out of this type of work. And, um, so we, I continued working that for a while. Um, me and my daughter's mom, we got an apartment together. We did that for a little while. Um, almost a year. We left our lease out of that a little early cause of some mold. Um, and that was the first time, like I got that real responsibility of having to take care of her cause she didn't work, um, at the time. And then, um, having a child to take care of and make sure that everything was taken care of, paid for.
Keith Vance: And, but I, but it's not like financially you couldn't do it because you told me when you were in Louisiana, you told me.
Justin Alan: Oh, I was stacking money then. I was making, um, like five grand a week, one week cause we were allowed to work 13 on. We had to take one day off. So, so money was an issue. No, money wasn't an issue back then when I was. And I thought that's how life was going to be forever. It was like, Oh, I got this job and I'll be able to just keep. Got it. Whenever hurricanes come. Cause I was one of those people like, man, if a hurricane comes, I'm making money. Yeah. And so I wasn't ever one of those. I was like, Oh no, don't let the hurricane come. But it's cause I didn't have a house that I had to worry. Okay. about to get destroyed by hurricane or insurance premiums to worry about. I was on the other end of it of I'm here to collect. And that's why I looked at it. Like I can make some serious money for hurricane hits your town. So horrible way to think. Don't think that way anymore. But, uh, so me and her end up splitting up. She ended up, she ends up going back to the East coast where her mom lives. Um, we come up with a mutual thing where we're going to split custody with my daughter, uh, two weeks at a time. So I'm going to have her for two weeks. She's going to have her for two weeks. I'll give her a little bit of money here and there for whatever she needs. Um, kind of like a child support off the books. So I get back into my party and lifestyle that I wanted to live so much for. And it became to where when it was my two weeks to have my daughter, I was out looking for that thrill of drinking, hanging out with friends, live not lifestyle, not being the greatest dad at the time. Um, my mom would step in and say, Oh, I'll take her and you go have fun with your friends instead of making me be a responsible father figure. Um, so that went on for a little bit and then it was always just an easy way out.
Keith Vance: Let me ask you a question again, because what you, what you just said is heavy. You got your, you got your daughter for two weeks. Did you struggle at all with dropping her off with your mom? Instead of wanting to spend time with her and going to, did you, did you feel any guilt or remorse? Like I'm, cause you, you made a conscious decision to choose your friends. Right.
Justin Alan: Over your own daughter. Right. And it's not at that, at this point, no, because I still lived with my mom. So my mom and my stepdad. So it was, it was a leaving her at the house. Why I would go out and drink, whether she was awake, whether it was, um, like a Friday night or Saturday night, I was guaranteed to go to the bar. Like there was no question. I was 21. I was allowed to go to ricochet. I was allowed to get drunk by law.
Keith Vance: Should I have no, but in your mind was, were you just, was there any rationalization at all? Were you, did you think, well, she's a baby. She's not going to know better. Like, were you, was there anything there that you felt? You felt no guilt. You felt no guilt leaving your baby.
Justin Alan: It was pure, pure selfishness because it's like, I worked all week. I worked all week hard. I deserve it. I deserve to go out and have some drinks with my time.
Keith Vance: I hate that freaking word. Me time. I can't stand. It's me time. Don't say me time around me. Right. I hate me time.
Justin Alan: It's, it is. It's a horrible way to look at things because your family should be your me time. There should be no, just you, when you decide to have that family lifestyle, like that's, that is your me time.
Keith Vance: And let me clarify. We all need time alone. Right. I have a gym. I spend time working out. I spend time alone in prayer, but the word me time to me resonates of selfishness. Right. So call it something else. Don't say me time around me, my own personal thing. Right. So I need some alone time or something. Just call it something else. You found something about me that I don't like. Sorry. Sorry. Waste too much time on that. So go ahead.
Justin Alan: So where does, I'm just out living my best life at this time. I'm getting drunk. I'm not being responsible. I'm being completely irresponsible and it's only progressively getting worse. And then there comes a time where me and a buddy of mine, his dad offers us a house that we can rent from him. We're all single right now. So we got three 21, 20 year old dudes that all three of us have great jobs. All of us love to drink. I'm the only one with a kid. I've been friends with these guys since early high school and they have a good head on their shoulders. They're the type that are like you to where it wouldn't, if they're not going to go out and do something, if they can't physically afford it or do anything. Me, I was the one that I don't care what I'm doing. Yeah. I make good money. I'll figure it out. But I still have that responsibility back at my mom's that I'm not taking care of. But I was still, I was the fun one and I would get blackout drunk. I would, I would live, live to drink. And it was, it wasn't the problem that I need at that time. I didn't need to drink. It was, it was just a, I didn't know how to stop drinking. Um, I didn't go out to drink just to have a few drinks. I got drunk until I was blacked out drunk.
Keith Vance: And to me, again, I don't know that lifestyle. I tried it, and it didn't appeal to me. But to me, if you're going to do it, brother, do it. Don't go halfway. Go all the way. So, you're doing it the right way. Yeah. Like, to me, why would you go out just to have two drinks and just, like, what's the fun of that? If we're going to drink, let's do it. If we're going to do something, let's do it. So, you're doing it the right way. Right. You're doing the wrong thing, in my mind, the right way. Right. You don't just go for two. You go for all of it.
Justin Alan: Yeah. And thankfully, I think that that span only lasted maybe about, it wasn't a full year. It might have been close to it. But I know we didn't stay there the full time for the one year. I ended up being the first one to move out of the house.
Justin Alan: And I moved back in with my mom. They had previously, them two, bought a house in Lehigh, South Lehigh Gateway area. And they lived in there for a while. I rented the house out in the Cape from them prior to me moving in with my buddies. And then they ended up getting rid of the house in Lehigh. They moved back into their Cape house. And when they did that, then I was like, I'm going to move back in with you guys. And I'll have back my daughter. And I'm not going to go out and drink as much anymore. But I still went out. So the two weeks I didn't have her, I was going out, hanging out with friends. So then that's when I would probably say my life shifted a little bit. Did you move back in with your parents to get some stability? I thought that's what I was trying to do. You were trying to. And I think it worked a little bit because that's when... You couldn't create stability for yourself. So you're trying to find some stability. Right. And then that's when I found the second Amanda at the bar. So me and my friends, we were well known in Ricochet. We were the life of the party there. There was probably about 10 of us that... I don't even like talking about it, but they still joke, but we dressed the same. We all had like the camouflage t-shirts on, the tight-fitting Wranglers, the Justin Work boots, the cowboy hats, or some sort of camouflage hat. We were Cape Coral country boys. But everybody loved us. We were a great time. We line danced. We danced. We got rowdy.
Justin Alan: And so we were looked at a lot. Like a lot of chicks wanted to talk to us. They wanted to hang out with us. The guys made fun of us because we looked goofy, but the girls loved us. And that's when I met my son's mom, the second Amanda. I have two baby mamas, both of them named Amanda. That makes it easy. Yeah. Can't mess it up. So that was probably the first one I really... I got serious with her. I started off not realizing it, but this was like the beginning of my...
Justin Alan: whole manipulating, narcissism, gaslighting, all the things that I've been called my whole life, and I denied it because I'm like, you guys don't even know what those words mean, but you're calling me all these words. We'll get there.
Justin Alan: And so... When I first met her, I had two vehicles. I had a truck and I had an SUV. I've always been big on having two separate vehicles for myself. And then my mom had, because we all had our money that we made from going out of town and doing all this storm work, we always had nice vehicles. My mom had a Jeep and a Mustang. My stepdad had a brand new F-150 and a Ford Ranger that... We all had multiple vehicles. So when I first met her, it was when MySpace was around. And her MySpace picture was her leaned over on a Corvette, because that's what her stepdad had. And I thought that was her Corvette. So I had to show her up. And I had acted like... I had a Ford Explorer, an F-150, a Mustang. So I started making it look like these were all my vehicles. Got it. So that's how I won her over in the beginning, because I started manipulating her from the beginning, making myself look like I was very... I was a high roller, and I could afford all this. I was a high roller. So, um, me and her started dating, come to find out, um, she was quick to learn that those weren't all my vehicles. And, but we argued here and there about little things, but it was never really, she wasn't, she liked going out and drinking, but she wasn't, she wasn't living for that crazy lifestyle. She wanted to settle down. She wanted to get married and she wanted to have kids and get a house, live that perfect lifestyle. And she got introduced to my daughter. I waited, I think it was like somewhere between four to six months before she met her. They clicked very well. My daughter at the time was like two and a half, three years old. And, um, she fell in love with her. She treated her very well. And then it became a priority for me to make sure that my daughter was the first priority of my life to make sure like, Hey, this, this woman accepts me for me and she's putting my daughter first. I need to put my daughter first, not my friends. So, so you learned something. You grew a little bit, right? That relationship. But I also argued with her because I felt like when I didn't have my daughter on the two weeks off, she wanted to live that same lifestyle. Like we had my daughter, like she wanted to be home. She wanted to do this. Me. I was like, I don't have no kids right now. Let's go out and party. Well, she didn't want to do that. So then I looked at it as like, she's trying to keep me from my friends. So that would cause arguments that would cause fights between me and her. And then there was times to where, um, I would lie to her about, Hey, I'm going to go do this with this person at their house and we'd be out at the bar and I'd be lying to her about it because I still wanted to live that party lifestyle. Not as bad as I did before, but she kind of grounded me a little bit on that. We ended up getting the house together and it is. Did you guys get married? We did get married. So we got the house first. Um, and then we, we dated for about three years before we got married. Um, she didn't want to keep waiting to have, she didn't want to get too old cause she was a year older than me. Um, she didn't want to wait too long till she started having kids. And so I ended up one of the weekends because we just, we were still on that. We went to a three week where we went from two weeks to three weeks with my daughter. And one of the weekends that we were taking my daughter to her mom's, I was like, why don't we stay in Orlando? And she's like, it's a three hour drive. Why are we staying? And I was like, just so we can have a good night away from home. And that's when I proposed to her and, and that's when I proposed to her and in Orlando. And of course I did it. I asked her mom cause she was close with her mom, not so close with her dad. Um, so I asked her mom for permission to marry her and all that. And she was excited. Um, her mom loves me to death still to this day. Uh, we always got along. And so that went on, we ended up getting married or we lived together for like five years, dated, married. Um, and then she ended up getting pregnant. She wanted to get a bigger house. So we sold her house and we moved in with her brother while we first rented a house. And then we looked at a few houses, couldn't find the perfect one, ended up moving in with her brother. Well, throughout these years of, I still had that manipulating lifestyle where I needed to lie to her about money or, um, what I was doing, who I was talking to or just anything that I, I still wanted to have my own freedom, but I also wanted to have that lifestyle. Like I had it, but I didn't, wasn't fully invested in it yet.
Keith Vance: Um, you want to have a relationship with her like you've had with your daughter up until recently. You want to, when, when, when you have your daughter for the weekend, spend some time with her, but I need you to, cause I still need some me time that word that I hate. Like you want her to go away for a weekend so you can have your thing. You're, you're trying, you're trying to negotiate how you can keep doing what you want to do and have her, but you're not fully committed to her. Right. You just want to have her like you want your daughter. The other weekend. Yep. Hmm.
Justin Alan: And it's, and it, I was able to, I was able to make her believe that there's times that she was the problem, even though she wasn't, it was, it was really me. I was the problem.
Keith Vance: Did you know that now, but did you know that then? No. You didn't think you were manipulating her then. You were just doing what you do. That's kind of scary. Yeah. That's kind of scary that you can manipulate somebody without even realizing it, that you're believing your own thing. That's actually really scary because a lot of people, I think, are like that.
Justin Alan: And they still, they could be 40, 50, 60 years old, still believe in that lifestyle and not even seeing it. And then you have all these, like, you'll learn, like, all these people, all these other females that I went through, like, I did it to every one of them.
Keith Vance: You know how scary that is for a dad right now? You know how freaking scary that is right now?
Justin Alan: I'm looking back, but I know, like, between, like, for the girls that are just becoming adults that are looking for their knight in shining armor, like, there's guys out there like me that will manipulate you and lie to you and make you believe they will mentally abuse you. They will tear, you'll be living this lifestyle that you've had a great upbringing, a great childhood and everything. And then you have a me coming along that'll tear you down, that'll bring you to my level so I can control you and make you believe that you're not a good enough person, that you only deserve this. And when you actually deserve way better than what this is, because this is going to bring nothing but heartache. This is going to bring you to depression. This is going to bring you to feeling that you need to be controlled. It's going to bring you to a lot of different scenarios and it's not a good life to live. Like if most females don't pick up on it and they can be manipulated and they can be lied to and their parents will fight them on it and they'll fight with their parents because they feel like that guy loves them or that guy is going to do the best thing for them and their parents can see right through it. And it's a bad situation for a lot of people. And it's even worse for the guys that manipulate the females and don't see it.
Crosstalk: We're only two relationships deep right now and there's a lot more to come.
Keith Vance: But as a dad of seven children, five of which are girls, as a dad who wants to be a good dad.
Crosstalk: As a dad whose identity is in being a father and a husband.
Keith Vance: That's the only thing that matters to me and our grandfather. That's it. Everything else can be stripped away from me.
Keith Vance: Investing in my children the best I know how. Raising them the best I know how. Showing them the love the best I know how. And then there comes a time where you've done your job and now it's somebody else's turn. And you hand that girl off to somebody who you hope carries that same thing that you have. At least the same thing and hopefully more. Now it's different being a dad than it is being a husband. It's a different role. But that same thing that, hey, you know what?
Crosstalk: I die for this. You follow me? I die for this.
Keith Vance: There have been times where my girls be talking to somebody or whatever. And I try to have an open heart and open mind that this could potentially be the one. My reaction as a dad is nobody's good enough for you. Right. And like to have a standard so high that nobody can reach. Okay, that's not fair. Not fair. So I try to have an open heart and open mind, but also have open eyes. Open eyes. See things for the way they are. And if I see something that don't line up, tell my daughter, hey, baby, ain't the one. Because I want to hand her off somebody who loves her more than me. More than me. No dad wants to raise children to live in his house forever. Right. It's not the way it's intended. Right. You raise them and then you let them, you set them free. Yep. And you want to set them free with the one that's going to like live a productive life.
Crosstalk: kh kh kh kh kh kh kh kh And we'll get to it maybe. But there was a touch and go time for one of my daughters.
Crosstalk: We used to be tight.
Crosstalk: And she found you on steroids.
Keith Vance: At least you freaking went to work, dude. At least you could hold down a freaking job. At least you could hold down a job. At least you had two vehicles. This guy didn't even have a vehicle. Dropping my daughter off at work. And then Joy riding around in her car. Hanging out with his friends. Sitting at the bar while she's working.
Keith Vance: Okay. Okay. It came within days of them getting married. And I... How am I supposed to put my blessing on that? Right. When you see the manipulation. When you see the soul getting sucked out of your daughter. When there's a shift in relationship. Where once you used to be tight. And now he's manipulating her against me. You want to know why she's manipulating her against me? Because I'm the fucking... Sorry. I'm the one between her and what he wants. I'm that one. Yep. So trying to build that thing between us so that he can get what he wants. Not because he loves her. Because he loves himself. Mm-hmm. And I see through it. And she makes his life easier. She makes his life easier. She found herself a little mangy mutt on the side of the road that she thinks she's got to take care of. And wash him up and make him... Because he needs me. And he just let her do it. Yep. And luckily, his true colors came out enough times before the wedding that her eyes were opened up. You know what I mean? So what? This is why I'm glad we're having this conversation. And this is why I'm not rushing it. Because this came so close to home for me, brother. Mm-hmm. I almost had a son-in-law.
Justin Alan: And keep in mind, this time of my life is when you first met me. I know. When I used to come into the deli all the time. I know. And you would have never... I would have never known.
Keith Vance: In a million years, guessed I was like that. I would have never known. And that's why I started with, hey, I would have let you date my daughter. Mm-hmm. Because of a certain part. So that's why I think this one's so important, what we're doing.
Keith Vance: And you got some emotion out of me. We don't edit stuff, but I feel like it might... I never said the F-bomb one. But we'll leave it. Whatever. We'll leave it. I'm not whitewashing anything. That's life. I'll leave it. You got some emotion out of me. All right. So relationship number two. Are we done with this one yet? Or is there still stuff here?
Justin Alan: It's... We've moved in with her brother, and it's coming to an end. It's... I did some lying, and... She's finally... What I didn't realize, she was mentally checked out. She physically checked out. Then she emotionally checked out. And then she mentally checked out. So she was done. There was no fixing it. I did... I did my max on the manipulating and lying that I could try and fix it over the years. And I couldn't fix it anymore. You kept saying, you're going to change.
Keith Vance: It'll be better. It never got better. You never changed. So she... You just wore her down. Right.
Justin Alan: Which is what happened to my daughter. Yeah. And it was one of those things to where she... She had a job that she had. And then she left that job. She went through the police academy. And she... I don't know what all they teach in there, but she might have been able to pick up on that manipulating more so. Oh, got it. And so she started... As she's learning her future career... Oh, wow. How to read people. She's reading you. She's looking back at all the years of... I'm going nowhere with this guy. Wow. So... Me and her split up. We didn't get divorced right away. That first year, I was very... I had a lot of anger towards her. Because what I... What was my comfort? What was my easy going? What kept me away from living at mom's house and always running back to my mom? I just hit the reset button again. So now I'm back at my mom's house instead of going out and getting my own house. I ended up having full custody of my daughter at this time. We went because she started school while we were married. With VPK. So I ended up getting full custody of my daughter. My daughter would go away. pay for like summertime and Christmas and all that.
Keith Vance: And that's one thing I will say about you, and I'm proud of you, that your children, that you just said you get full, that you're investing in your children. You know, I mean, guys, they just don't.
Justin Alan: No, they'll pay the monthly child support.
Keith Vance: That's the easy part. Sometimes. So I am proud of you that in the middle of all this, that somehow you're responsible with your children to a certain, and it seems like you're growing through that. Like you were every other weekend, you needed your freaking me time.
Justin Alan: Which that, I mean, that hits hard again to where I don't, I lose that. Yeah. But so I have, now I have two kids from two different women that I'm juggling. One, I have a child. I have more so full time. The other one is split 50, 50. Got it. Um, and then, so like that first year.
Keith Vance: And those two children, I feel like are probably a mechanism that is going to create some responsibility in your life. You would think. Yeah. Eventually. Wow. Man, dude, I'm trying to give you some stuff here and just keep kicking it down. Wow.
Justin Alan: Cause I'm not, I'm not there yet. I'm not, I'm a, I'm still a manipulating.
Keith Vance: I'm struggling emotionally with my emotions with you right now because I'm getting a clear picture of you right now. And I don't like that person. Right.
Justin Alan: I didn't like that person.
Keith Vance: I do not like that person at all. I'm sorry, man, but I'm like, I'm glad that I know where the story's going. Right. Because I'm struggling.
Justin Alan: And you thought I was a good person at this time.
Keith Vance: Dude. Okay. I keep, I keep pausing your story. Keep going.
Justin Alan: But so I got, I got, uh, let me think. So I'm, I'm at this time I went company for the telephone company. I stay local. Um, I got a really good job. Well, I, prior to that, I got the job, but I've been with them for some years now. And so I show up to work. Um, my mom had divorced the guy that I looked up to and she found a new guy during all this time while I was growing, married and all this. Um, and they had opened up a gun store in Lehigh. And I really took a, took a liking to that. I wasn't, I still partied a lot. I still made sure my kids had what they needed. Um, but I was still, I was a good dad then. And then my mom asked me if I wanted to become a firearms instructor to make extra money because I was still living with them. I remember this convenient. Yeah. I remember this. So I became a firearms instructor. There's, it's a very timely procedure to become one. It's not easy. You do have to have somewhat of a clear head. Can you have a felony on your record when you're 15? No. Thankfully those got lowered to misdemeanors and they got expunged. Good. Uh, but so I became a firearms instructor and then that opened up a whole new, uh, like thing that I can tell these females to like, Hey, I got a good job. My parents own a gun store and I'm a firearms instructor. Do you need me to teach you how to shoot a gun? Cause I can. And that was my new way of approaching people is like, how many people do you know that can say all your parents own a gun store or that you're affiliated with the gun shop and have a good job. And like to a mid twenties, late twenties, early 30 year old. Like, that's pretty awesome. Like this guy, even though he has two kids and two different baby mamas, like I was able to use that.
Keith Vance: And because you're able to use that because you're using, uh, you're using what's in a woman, what's built inside a woman, what's built inside a woman is find that guy that's going to provide, protect, care and be, be that shelter. That's what, at the end of the day, that's what every woman is looking for. So you're talking the good part, but it's all, it's all a sham. You're just, you're just talking it. You're not living it.
Justin Alan: No, you're telling them what they want to hear. I was on like a two to three month thing. I can make it work for like two to three months. That lie. That lie. And then I'd get called out on it. Got it. Okay.
Crosstalk: Got it.
Keith Vance: So, so you, you're using what's. A natural, the way God built women, what they're looking for, you're using that to manipulate. I did it very well. Got it. But you just can't hold it together. Right. You hold it together for a few months. I can only hold it for so long.
Justin Alan: And then I run out of money and I run out of lies. Got it. You can't lie. It's just easier to tell the truth. Because if you lie, it's going to come forward. Comes out. There's no hiding the lie forever. All right. So I started dating this girl. She messaged me on Facebook. She wanted to take one-on-one gun classes. I'm like, cha-ching. Got it. So the first class, she's like, how much do I eat? I said, it's on me. I said, let me take you to dinner. So we ended up going to dinner. Or no. Hold on. I jumped. I skipped a relationship. So after me and Amanda split up, I met this girl in the bar. Because this is a crucial one. This is one that really still to this day messes up my daughter.
Justin Alan: And so this one, I'm not going to say any of their names. No, don't say names. So this one, I dated for a little bit. I was still at CenturyLink. And she had a son. I had my daughter. And she's very much a family person. She's a great person. The dad to her son is an amazing guy.
Justin Alan: And me and her dated for a little bit. And then it got heavy on the drinking. And one night we were out drinking. We had my daughter with me. We didn't have my son. It was just my daughter because I had her full time. And to where she, her son and my son were on the same schedule almost. So we didn't have either boys. And then we were out at a mutual friends.
Crosstalk: Like party type.
Justin Alan: He was promoting his business. Okay. At a bar slash restaurant in Fort Myers. And things got hot and heavy. They turned bad. Me and her got an argument at the bar. She left with my daughter. Went back to her house. We lived together. After dating for like four months. Because I did that manipulating. And I was able to move in.
Justin Alan: And when I got back there. After a buddy of mine dropped me off. We talked in the front of her house for probably about an hour or two. She ended up texting me. She's like, are you ever coming back home? And that aggravated me because I'm still a little drunk. And then I feel like she's rushing me. She had already left. I already know my daughter's in bed. I already know my daughter's in the house. And you're not done yet.
Keith Vance: I'm not done having fun yet.
Justin Alan: No. And so me and him. He drops me off. I go inside. And she comes at me with the, oh, you always want to start something. We're out in public. No. And then so we get in an argument. We yell. Then it gets physical. First time I've ever been hit by a female. And she got me really good. She, that girl can punch. And then she had me.
Keith Vance: I hate to say this, but at this point. I deserve it. I'm glad. 100%. I'm so glad.
Justin Alan: 100% I deserve it. And finally some consequence. Funny part is years later.
Keith Vance: I wish I could have been there to watch it.
Justin Alan: Funny, funny part is years later. Like I, like I talked to her not that long ago.
Keith Vance: Yeah.
Justin Alan: And I mean, we're talking years later. Wow. And I just wanted to be like, hey, your son, my nephew go to the same school. Now, if I'm there and you're there, I don't want any, she goes, we were young and dumb. She goes, I have no hard feelings against you. That's cool. So me and her, we're cordial. We're not friends, but I don't have to worry about any kind of future thing. Got it. But my daughter was there. My daughter heard all of it. She saw it, heard it. Got it. So what do I do? I call my mom. Mom, you got to come. Like, I'm still kind of like, I drove from there where she lived to where I worked at. And I went behind the fence because I was worried about her calling the cops on me. I was worried about getting a DUI, ruining my job. Yeah. And because you can't have a DUI and work for CenturyLink because you got to drive a company vehicle. And I'm at this time, I have my, I'm going, getting ready to start going through my, Yeah, you're training. My training for, to be an instructor for the NRA. And so I'm stressing about that. And it's like, so you would think like, that was a big wake up call right there. You should have been like, Hey, this is. where you turn your life around and fix it. No. So call my mom. She picks me up, moved back in with her. Um, and that's just the start of it. That's like that one. So then I'm an instructor. I meet this other girl, um, take her out on a date, teach her how to shoot. That's how we do it. Um, that goes on for about six months. We never moved in together then. And I was able to, she was one of those that every girl that I've ever dated has always been independent and successful. Like none of them were ever bums. None of them were ever. They came from good upbringings. They've always had like great jobs. They've always had, like I had a, like they, people would always tell me like, Oh, you don't have a, you don't really have a, a look that you go after. But I, I didn't physically, but mentally I did. I was looking for that independent, successful woman.
Keith Vance: This is another thing that scares me because you're targeting my daughters. Right. Cause I raised my daughters that way. I, I raised them that way to be able to handle their business. So I'm like taking this personally right now. Right. Because you're targeting people that I love. Yeah. You're targeting people that I love.
Justin Alan: And I did it for years. And so like, and I was able to manipulate not only them, their parents, because their parents always loved me. Like there, I was able to make the parents believe what their daughters believed. And, and then when it all come out towards the end, like after, like we'd split up. So like with the first one, after I was married, that one was different. The second one, her parents weren't like super close, but she was like, they had a very good business in no Fort Myers that was successful. And like that one, like I kind of got away from that, but like, I never had, I didn't talk to the dad or the mom too often with that one. Like that one, I dealt with more with her uncle, like me and her uncle talked here and there, but it was never that. But the next one that I took shooting and all that, her dad as well was very successful in a company. I don't even want to say it because it's well known. And what she did in her line of work, she's very well known. She's very successful. She's very, but I was more like, she wasn't the needy type that wanted me to be around all the time. So it worked out. Like I was able to still hang out with my friends. I was able to spend time with my kids and I was able to hang out with her all at the same time. Like once a week, me and her would meet up, go to dinner or whatever. And then that's how it was. It wasn't even like a real relationship, but we were committed to each other. I'd send her flowers at work. I'd send her nice text messages throughout the day. And it was all to keep in line. I'd go over to her parents' house for dinner. Like we'd meet over there and go hang out with her parents. Her parents are married for like 40 years, 50 years almost. And very great couple there. I'm still cordial with her dad now. Um, and he's a great guy. And so then me and her ended up, I talking and said, Hey, I want to leave CenturyLink and I want to, um, open up my own gun shop because I want to be like my mom and stepdad. Like I wanted my own gun shop and the type of work she's in. She's financial. So I was able to get advice from her and she said it was a good idea. So when she said yes, then I was all on board and I was ready to leave CenturyLink and open up like right then impulse it.
Keith Vance: And, and really there's nothing wrong with that. No, there's nothing wrong with seeing an opportunity. Wanting to make something better. There's nothing wrong with that. No, not at all. And at this time in your life, how old are you? 30, 29, 30. Okay. So at 30 years old, where in my mind, you should be hitting your stride with who you are, what you are, like pretty much dialed in. You're, you're still, you're, you're still a man baby at 30 something years old, in my opinion. Yeah. You, you, you're still trying to figure it out. You're still manipulating. But at least you're still working. Right. Like, that's why I keep coming back to it. At least I'm still working. All right. So you want to have a gun shop like your, like your parents didn't and nothing wrong with that. I mean, I'm, I applaud entrepreneurship. I applaud taking a risk, getting after it. The only thing is I know that you didn't get after it. I didn't. I almost did again. You didn't get after it. So I don't want to tell your story, but let's go.
Justin Alan: So it all happened like real quick. So when I was starting the gun shop, I started looking for locations in LaBelle to get my building that I wanted that I can. And me mentally, I wanted to be right where my parents were. That's already had the gun shop established for four or five years. And I thought I was going to come in right into it and be like, all right, I'm making money just like they are. Well, don't work like that in business. You know that anybody that has a business knows you're not making money for your first couple of years at all. And even with my mom's help, I made money, but not money. And so me and her ended up moving in together. We got a nice two story house. I want to interject something.
Keith Vance: You don't get in the business to make money. No. Okay. That's, that's secondary. The money comes, you get in the business because it's what you love. It's what you're built for and whatever it takes. Like a business to me is like a child. You take care of that child. You protect that child. And then if that child makes some money or if that tree has some fruit, you don't pick, you don't pick the fruit. Every time it gets a piece of fruit, you don't pick it. Let the tree have some fruit. Let it have some maturity. So, I mean, we all need to make money to survive, but to get in the business, to be rich, wrong reason, brother. Right. You got to love what you're doing and then the money will come. So again, a little interjection.
Justin Alan: So I did, so we, we ended up moving in together and I started the gun shop. Life was good. I was, I had my own business. I had a great girlfriend. Um, and I had my kids, like my daughter was full time. They lived with me. Um, my son, half the time there was the party and slowed down a little bit then. Okay. Cause she was not a, she was not a partier. She was fine with going out. Like she'd meet out with like a girlfriend or whatever and they'd go have dinner or lunch. Um, usually it was like a Saturday lunch deal for her. It wasn't, I was working anyways on Saturdays, so it didn't matter. Um, or she'd come up paying out the gun shop or she had her own. She had a business that she was growing on her own. So she treated like that, like how I should have treated mine. Mine was just, I was doing gun classes too. So that kept me busy. I think that's why I didn't really do. There you go. You're too busy. Yeah. The party and too much because I saw the money I was bringing in from just the gun classes alone. I was making more doing that than I was a tactical gun shop. And that was easy money. I was only working three hours on a Sunday and I was making more then than I was all week at the gun shop.
Keith Vance: So you're, it looks like you're in a good spot right now, this part of the story. Um, but there's really been no change. You're just slowing down a little bit. You hit, you, you hit your thirties. You can't party in thirties like you did in your twenties. It just, you just can't do it. So you've slowed down a little bit. Um, there's a few different changes in the dynamic with relationships and where you're at in life, but there's, there's really not that there hasn't been that, that mindset yet where you consciously say, I'm not doing this anymore. We're not there yet. It's just this life just kind of like slowed down a little bit and like it feels good, but it's only feels good. You haven't made any conscious decisions to make it good. Right. Right. And I haven't.
Justin Alan: Yeah. Cause I haven't, not until this point, I haven't done anything that really, really like woke me up.
Keith Vance: The only thing, the only reason why you're not drinking so much is one, you're in your thirties and then two, you're working and I'm doing more of a responsibility at home.
Justin Alan: Got it. And so that part kind of triggered. Cause I have, I have now I have a 13 year old daughter and I have like a five year old son. They both, I got to take him to school. I got to pick him up from school. I got to do all these things. I got a business that I got to make sure because in a gun shop you have ATF that you deal with. So you got to make sure your paperwork is perfect. You don't get to, you don't get to play around with that. So that's good for you.
Keith Vance: You, at this point you have some responsibility. Like ATF ain't your mama. They ain't going to play. They ain't going to play. And they don't. So that's good for you. It took you all this time to get to this point, but I can like, okay, good. All right. There's, there's certain things that are keeping you from, you're thinking twice before hanging out with the guys. You're thinking twice. Like, how is this going to affect me? My daughter's 13. It's not like a baby anymore. I just put her to sleep and let her sleep. Like she's, she has eyes, she has perception, she's aware. Got it.
Justin Alan: And so like, we're, we're. I'm doing okay, but me and her still have, me and the girlfriend still have little issues here and there, nothing crazy. And then, I'm at the point in my life to where I'm in my 30s, I have two kids, I've been married, I don't really want to get married, I definitely don't want any more kids. To where a lot of these more females my age at this time still wanted to get married, didn't have kids of their own, they were wanting kids. So, it was one of those things to where it's like, well, it's not going to work because I'm not having any more. Like, I don't love you enough to give you another kid. I don't want, in my mind, I don't want a third child. I don't want to have a third baby mama. I don't want that responsibility all over again. I didn't like it the first time. Like, it helped. I mean, I loved it, but like on the parent side of it, like certain parts of it, but like it kept me from a lot of things that I was able to go through. And it's not the best way to think, but I knew I made that conscious decision that I wasn't having any more kids. Like, I didn't want them. I wasn't putting myself or another child in those situations.
Keith Vance: And even though you just said that and it didn't paint you in a good light, I'm glad that you're being honest. Right. Because until you're honest, you're stuck in a vortex. You're stuck in a loop and you can speak to that. So, I'm glad you're able to say things that don't make you look in the best light. Right. But man, I sure do appreciate the honesty.
Justin Alan: It wasn't easy to say it, but somebody out there needs to hear it because they're loving it. And so me and her end up splitting up. Once again, I moved back into mom's house. Me and her separate and get rid of the house. Can I ask you a question?
Keith Vance: I don't know how many times it's been that you move back into mama's house, but did mama ever say, hey, listen, dude. Or should you just keep...
Justin Alan: Come back because then she's back with her grandbabies.
Keith Vance: Got it. They were right there. And again, I can't fault your mom for that. I mean, a mother's love. A mother's love, dude.
Justin Alan: At least she knows I'm safe. Unconditional. In a way. She knows that, hey, I got to come back home. Hey, at least I know my grandbabies are safe here. I don't have to worry or wonder what. I've seen what my son's done in the past. I don't have to worry about certain things because I know it's at least they're here and they're going to be safe. They're going to be fed. They're going to be bathed. They're going to be taken care of. A dad.
Keith Vance: I'm just picturing if you were my son. A dad would tell... I would tell Karen, Karen, he ain't coming back. Right. He ain't coming back. He's got to figure this out. But a mother's love, unconditional love, that that door's open no matter what, no matter when, forever. That's... I don't think one's wrong or right. I just think they're different roles. I think they're different roles. And maybe that's why God designed it. Yeah. The way men are built to put a foot down and the way that mamas are built, no matter what, come home to mama. Right. Because you can manipulate your mama and a dad who's... That's his wife. Hey, brother, you're manipulating my wife, my person. Figure this out. Like, needing that voice to protect her. Like, the way God designed things, man, wife, children, like, the whole way it's supposed to work. We messed all that up. Like, human beings messed that up. But there is intent and there is design and structure. Like, things are structured a certain way, not randomly, but for a purpose. Man, who loves more than a mama? Like, your mama, she never... And I was wondering, she never slammed the door on you.
Justin Alan: No, never. Come back home with mama.
Keith Vance: And thank God for mamas. Yeah, I'm glad you had a good one.
Justin Alan: Yeah, she never told me no. She should have.
Keith Vance: She should have. But...
Justin Alan: So we're there, and I still have the gun shop. Still doing classes. I'm able to do more classes now because I don't have a distraction in my eyes. Got it. So I'm doing people that are signing up on my parents' shop. I'm doing those classes. I'm doing my own that I'm signing up at my store. And that's keeping me busy a couple nights a week, on the weekends. Still hanging out with friends here and there. Nothing too crazy. And then... Since... Where my mom lived at and where my... One of my buddies lived at was like two minutes up the road from each other. Um, we started doing like... Friends... Gatherings... To where I was at. like a family oriented thing. So at the first time in my friendship side of things, like it became, I was one of the first ones in our friend group that had kids. So a lot of them didn't understand the lifestyle that I should have been living. And it was still a party, but it was the first time to where it was like my kids and a couple of our other friends had kids that we'd, we'd all get together and bring our kids and do like a family dinner night, friends, dinner night to where it was like a family oriented. We'd play with Nerf guns and we'd shoot each other with Nerf guns and have, it was just fun. We drink a little bit, not get crazy. But it was, it was like, it was like, finally it was like, all right, I got my gun shop. I got my kids. My kids are having fun. It's good. Life's good. Like I don't have a girlfriend at this time, which was probably something I should have evaluated and looked at a little bit more. And then I'm just hanging out in a gun shop one day and two women walk in and one of them's all annoying the crap out of me. Cause I know her from a previous ex she's friends with.
Keith Vance: But, and she, do I know these two girls?
Justin Alan: This one you do.
Keith Vance: Yes. Cause I just heard you say, Hey, two girls come walking in. I just had a mental picture of my two, my two, my two family members, my two girls.
Justin Alan: And so this one walks in and she's trying to flirt with me kind of thing. And I'm not really picking up on it. Cause the way she normally looks, she just got done with work. So she's not like her normal put together self. Yeah.
Keith Vance: That girl works hard too. She does. She is a bad, bad woman. She got a work ethic that'll put, that'll put me to shame.
Justin Alan: And she was one that called me out quick.
Keith Vance: I love that.
Justin Alan: She didn't, she didn't put up with it.
Keith Vance: She got a good work ethic.
Justin Alan: So, but she, she was one that, uh, she came in and she, I didn't really catch what she was putting down. And so like they left and then one of them called, one of them called the shop and said, Hey, do you want to get lunch? Cause it was around that time. And we're going to go up to the barbecue place right up the road. And if you want to go and I said, yeah, I'll shut my shop down. And horrible decision. Number one was I closed my gun shop down to go have lunch with a female. And I normally did it anyways, because when I finally, when I, my daughter was in school, I had her out in the school out in that area. So I, everybody in town knew that I was closed from 12 to one. So I can go get my daughter from school. And cause I was running the shop by myself for the most of the time. Sometimes my mom would come out there and go get my daughter for me or whatever. Um, but I was single. I was trying to build this business and move forward with it. And so I ended up meeting her for lunch. We ended up talking. Um, and then that was probably not just cause you know, this person, but it was probably one of the relationships that I didn't, I got shut down with the mini manipulation in the very beginning. So I wasn't able to do my normal line. And because she caught onto it very quickly. Like she, yeah, yeah.
Keith Vance: She don't play. She don't play.
Justin Alan: She, she got some, she's smart. And so with this one, I did live with her for a little bit when she had not this place, the other one. And, um, but it was just, she was another one back then. Cause you're talking eight years ago, nine. Yeah. About eight years ago. Something like that. Um, she's, she kind of wanted kids. She was on the fence about it. Um, but she, she's in the type of work where she can't be walking around with a big belly pregnant. She'd make a way, no doubt. But, um, partying, like we didn't really, party because she wasn't the partier. She was more of the traveler. Like she wanted to travel.
Keith Vance: She likes to travel still.
Justin Alan: And a lot. Yeah. But for her, it's not expensive because she's got different ways that she's able to do it. So the first time that, so me and her start dating. Um, the first time I think I really pissed my mom off in the business of the gun shop was, it was me and a buddy. I didn't have my kids. I think it was like in the summertime. Um, so I didn't have my, um, She was with her mom all summer. It was my or my daughter. And then my son was with his mom for a few days and we were sitting at the bar and we made a decision of, hey, we're going to go to New York City.
Keith Vance: So anytime you get free time, you make bad decisions. I wasn't grounded. When you don't have your kid, when you don't have responsibility, you make bad decisions.
Justin Alan: And here's another one. Yep. So this one was a this one was a pretty big one. This was a life changing one. And so.
Justin Alan: It became to where I was like, I'm going to go to New York City. And it was going to be a Friday, Saturday and Sunday deal while the gun shops open Friday and Saturday. And. We were able to plan a trip at the bar to go to New York City, the three of us. Because she came along because we were able to get cheaper tickets to fly. It was like next to nothing. And it's not her fault. I'm a grown adult. And. But so. I lied to her and to him and said, oh, my mom's going to open the shop up for me and run the business while I'm gone.
Keith Vance: Well, I told. And the thing is, there was no reason to lie. No, there was absolutely no reason to lie. What do they care? Yeah. But and. But lying and manipulating is what you do. A liar is going to lie. A manipulator is going to manipulate even when you don't have to.
Justin Alan: But also with her, if I just said I was going to close the shop down, she'd have been against that. Oh, because she's responsible. Yeah. And she would have shut me down. So.
Keith Vance: Oh, so there was a reason why you.
Justin Alan: There was a little reason to lie because I wouldn't have been able to go to New York City. If. I didn't have somebody to close the store down or if I was closing the store down because that's not a smart business move coming from somebody that owns a business that's got a very successful business.
Keith Vance: And a woman's a woman's looking for someone who's going to make the right decisions because she's evaluating you. Right. Is this is this the one? And that's what we're doing. She's evaluating you. So you're lying to her. Yeah.
Justin Alan: That is. OK, got it. So come to find out, obviously, all lies come to truth. And. And. Um, we go to New York and pissed my mom off like no other because I told her I was closing the shop down. I told her that and I ended up. Having people calling from that store to the other store, want to know why they can't pick up their gun, why they can't do this and all that. And.
Keith Vance: So why do you just call it? You're the people that were supposed to come pick stuff up to, hey, we're going to be closed. Come get it. Why do you? Why do you just? Why do you just put. Put things in. Carelessness. Because I was. Why do you just say, hey, we're going to be closed? I should have.
Justin Alan: I'd have been a lot better off. Come get your stuff like you just didn't think about it. Or, hey, you're not going to be able to pick it up Friday or Saturday. You can either pick it up Thursday or wait till Monday to get it. You just didn't think about it. No. Because you don't think about consequences. Because I was going to knew I was going to. You just want to have a good time for the weekend.
Keith Vance: Yep. It'll work itself out.
Justin Alan: I didn't have my kids that weekend. I didn't have no responsibility. Got it. Okay. That I thought I did have a responsibility, but I wasn't treating it as a responsibility. Understood. And so. What I didn't know was that Sunday. My mom and stepdad went to the gun shop. My gun shop. Cleaned it out. Cleaned it out by taking all the guns out of there. Taking all the guns out of there. And because I was a 30% owner of their shop and I was a 70% owner of my shop. So even though I was owner of both, I didn't have. I wasn't responsible enough to make decisions, obviously, if I'm going to close my store down for two days. So my mom took that and that was probably the first time my mom ever told me, no, we're, we're, we're closing the LaBelle shop down. And so.
Justin Alan: That, that struck a nerve because here now I got to tell people that seen me live in this lifestyle. It exposed you. It exposed me like no other. On a massive scale. Because it went, it wasn't just something that I could fight.
Keith Vance: You got to tell your people that your mama, your mama. Took my shop away. Took your shop, took your toys away. Yep. Wow. Took my lifestyle away. How are you going to get yourself out of that one? It's.
Justin Alan: Wow. It wasn't easy. I mean, the lies definitely grew. True. It was, it was, it went from. Getting blamed on a hurricane, not making any money. It got blamed on just the town was too small to make money. The store did decent. It. It wasn't a bad job.
Keith Vance: It only had to take care of you. Right. How much business do you have to do? You've got to feed one person.
Justin Alan: And I actually downsized from one store to another store. So my bills got cut in half pretty much out there because it was cheaper.
Keith Vance: So your mom, she took a gamble on you. And lost. She took a gamble on you to help. Okay, maybe this is it. My son's going to get some responsibility. She took a gamble on you. You messed it up. And probably for her own self-interest because she's invested in you. Like she probably got scared. Because where she is in life, his decisions are going to affect me financially and everything else. So she probably wasn't just mad. She probably like, probably the epiphany went off in her head. Like I got this liability floating around out there that's going to affect me. Because I'm going to put myself in your shoes. If I invested in one of my kids and they're not treating it the way that they should be, that's going to come back on me in some way or another. I mean, you guys already went to jail together because she poked a cop when you were 14. Right. I mean, so your decisions have affected her directly. So here we go again, right? I'm just trying to put myself in her mindset. Yeah. And I can see that. I don't know if she thought exactly that way, but I can see that because I would feel the same way.
Justin Alan: And then what other, if it had stayed open, what other consequences could have come from it with ATF, with the sheriff's department? Got it. Not doing paperwork correctly. Like there is a lot of liability there, not just for me, but for them as well. Got it. Like it's just not really a path that you want to go down. So for her, it was a smart decision.
Keith Vance: And the fact that she didn't have a conversation with you about it says a lot. Right. Because I'm sure there was conversations throughout life about other things.
Justin Alan: And I would have probably talked her out of it.
Keith Vance: Got it. And she was, she already made her decision. She knows her weakness. She knows that if you have a conversation, she's going to, you're going to negotiate with her. She's going to give in just like when you want to go to school or this or that. When she tries to put her foot down with you, you guys negotiate. Understood. I'm getting a picture here.
Justin Alan: And I would have stayed open and then worse consequences could have come from it. Got it.
Keith Vance: So she knows she can't face you because she can't tell you no. So while you're gone, she just shuts it down. Yep.
Justin Alan: Hmm. And so then that was the first time to where now I'm jobless. Um, and.
Crosstalk: I'm just curious. My family member.
Justin Alan: Oh, that's when somebody became unalived that worked for her. Okay. It just around the same time. So I was able to help out for a few weeks. Okay. But that was short lived because, um, she wanted somebody with the business and didn't lie to her about it. Got it. Um, she was pissed.
Keith Vance: So at least you guys had a nice little three day getaway. Yeah. At least you'll have that. Right. So I hope it was worth it, Justin.
Justin Alan: Hey, I let her use the gym. All right, let's go. Um, but so me and her at the time, kind of like we, like she sees through me, like she knows, like I'm a dead end road. Like I'm fun, but like, there's no future there.
Keith Vance: And you guys are still friends. Right. Yeah. She just knows what's up. Yeah.
Justin Alan: So, so me and her kind of part ways and which is fine. Um, and that's when I kind of, I hit my first real depression rock bottom. And this is like where it gets like crazy. So like, yeah, it's been crazy, but this is where it becomes a lot more alcohol gets involved. A lot more depression gets involved. Um, so my grandma ends up passing away and she has a house in the Cape that needs to be emptied, cleared, remodeled, couple things. And before we get into this, this feels like another transition.
Keith Vance: Yeah. Let's take a break. Okay. Cause I feel like it's going to be a long one. Right. I'm sorry. I got, this is what happens when you get 50, man. You can't listen. You must have a freaking Superman, like a bladder, like Superman or something over there. Cause every time we've taken a break, you just walk around and wait on me. You don't need to do nothing. Did you, are you drinking enough water, man? I'm worried about you. No, I'm good. You're good. All right. This concludes part one. Stay tuned next week for the conclusion of the conversation. Just a minute.
Intro voiceover: Still Strong. Watch me rise my way. Slow growth turns into real change. I found joy in the simple days. Keep in on his work and faith. Still Strong. No rush. No rush. Keep in on his work.