By Michaela Gordoni
Country star Walker Hayes says he was ready to “self-destruct” after his youngest child, Oakleigh, died the day she was born in 2018.
“I drove to a bar called 55 South, and I looked through the window and there were three guys at the bar,” he recalled after his daughter’s funeral. “And I was like, ‘I’m gonna get a little buzz and I’m going to just mess with those guys. I’m just gonna get in a fight with those guys.'”
“It makes zero sense,” Hayes said.
Before he got out of the car, he realized he didn’t have his wallet, so he went home. When he got there, he saw his wife sitting in their house alone.
“My wife, sadly, was just sitting by herself, on the day she’s buried her daughter. My kids are I don’t know where, and she’s just in the dark,” Hayes said. “I could literally see what I was about to do.”
“She’s gonna have to pick me up from jail the next day. We were gonna have to start the rehab process all over, you know, and go back to square one,” he continued. “That was some sin in me that I just saw clearly, and thought, ‘I need a savior.’ I need redemption from myself.”
Soon after, he encountered a pastor who led him to faith.
Oakleigh died after Hayes’ wife, Laney, experienced a uterine rupture. Laney’s life was at risk, too.
Related: Country Star Walker Hayes Talks Sobriety, Finding Jesus: ‘Worth Sharing’
“I just waited,” Hayes recalled of waiting in the hospital. “I really just hoped that this wasn’t going to be the worst day of my life, even though it kind of already was.”
Hayes struggled with alcohol addiction for 20 years. Last year, he released an album, Sober Thoughts.
“I just woke up on a Saturday, and I just knew if I did this one more day, my body would be affected, some organ,” he explained. “I’m not a scientist, I’m not a doctor. I just woke up, and it felt like if I do it one more day, I might die.”
He says “everybody loves a drinking song,” but he loves sharing his sobriety journey. Feeling grateful for his sobriety, he wrote one song a week about his “freedom from addiction.”
“Sobriety, when you’ve been drunk that long, you get addicted to it — the clarity, the pep in your step,” he said. “You go to the gym and you’re like, ‘I feel like I’m 17.’”
Hayes loves that his music about sobriety helps others who struggle with addiction.
“It’s awesome to give these people a hug,” he said. “I guess maybe what they’re hearing when they hear the song is that they aren’t alone.”
Thanks to Hayes’s realization and persistence with sobriety, he’s been able to stay strong for himself and his family.
Read Next: Country Singer Walker Hayes Celebrates 8 Years Sober: ‘There’s Freedom’
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
- Content: +2Share:
- Content: +4