Voices for Voices®

Voices for Voices® is a TV show and podcast hosted by Justin Alnais, with a large back catalog about mental health, trauma and recovery. The approach is personal. Justin works from his own life, referring openly to the point when he hit rock bottom and to the work of coming back from it. That history gives his episode on sexual assault awareness its force. He asks whether organizations are actually getting survivors' rape kits tested and getting them medical care without charging for it. Then he turns to his own experience. At his lowest, he says, he explained his story again and again, only to hear that it was not life or death and that without a referral he would wait around six months. His frustration is aimed at systems that make people wait when they are trying to survive. Elsewhere the register quiets. In When You're Waiting for Bad News | How to Show Up for Yourself | Episode 486, he talks through the stress of waiting on a biopsy or other tests and observes that disease takes no notice of age or of whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat. In another episode he recalls his grandmother in her wheelchair. She pushes her tray away and carries a purse with barely anything in it, but one thing he suggests does appeal to her: ice cream. There is room for small acts of nerve as well. He describes going up a scissor lift, about twenty feet by his account, to play guitar and sing for people in person and on a livestream. He is no trained guitarist, by his own account not really a singer, and afraid of heights in a way he never used to be. He ends that episode by repeating 'you can do it' several times. Lighter material turns up too: one episode drifts from a haircut, and hair he says looked freshly showered all day, to his confession that he is bad at keeping secrets, including news for Voices for Voices® that he cannot share yet. The delivery throughout is warm, conversational and prone to tangents. Justin opens by thanking people watching or listening in the United States and abroad. He also asks them to like and share the show and pass it along to the contacts in their phones. Several episodes close with a line about celebrating the voices of people everywhere and being a voice both for oneself and for someone who may not be able to speak up. The show is connected to a charity of the same name, and some episodes end with an invitation to donate. Justin also thanks past guests on air, so the show is not always a one-person affair. A good first stop is Safe Enough to Dream | Safe Enough to Build | Episode 487, where the scissor-lift story and its closing encouragement capture the program's mix of vulnerability and support.