My experience with the Denver Voice

By John Alexander

Let’s see, where do I begin? When I first started vending the Denver VOICE back around October 2008, or about two months or so later? Those two months were life changing, so we’ll start back in October. There I was, running up and down Colfax from Broadway to Chambers eastward, and Broadway to Sims westward, selling my artwork by day and buying drugs to get high by night. I had been doing drugs then for about 20 years.

Homeless and doing drugs. Doing drugs and homeless. This was my way of life. I had been all over the country living this way. I had just gotten back to Denver coming from Georgia. Even though I had been gone away for a great many years, as for the drug world I wasn’t lost, I was right at home. I was more so at home here with drugs, because it was here in Denver 20 years ago where my drug addiction started.

The only reason that I had been to so many different places all across the country is because I was trying to run away from everything and start my life all over. You know, run away from myself. But no matter how far I went, or how fast I left one place going to the other, I still could not get away from myself. A person would have a better chance of taking an elevator to the roof of the tallest building, and jumping off of this planet than he would at trying to escape from oneself.
Then one day, when things were going kind of slow with my artwork, I ran into someone that I knew very well. I had known him all of his life. He had been knowing me for about 56 years. He was one of my younger brothers. He was carrying this stack of papers, the Denver VOICE. He was real happy, which was an accomplishment for him, because he had been in and out of prisons for more than half the years of his life.

He was telling me all about this paper. How he got started with only a certain amount of papers, free. He went on and on about how all you had to do was go in. When you leave, you are automatically in business for yourself; you are self-employed. Anyway you want to put it, all you have to do is apply yourself. He said it was a work program for the homeless or people trying to make ends meet or keep from being homeless. You could work part time, full time, in your spare time. Just apply yourself and you were going to make it.

As he talked on, I was looking at him. I was looking at his papers. I was looking at his papers and I was looking back at him. I never interrupted him. I remember thinking, he certainly has more money than I do, and he is making it legally. From the looks of the amount of papers that he has, and counting the dollar value, he has more inventory than I do, too. He even took me to lunch, paid for it and gave me some money!

It was getting on into the evening and we went our ways. I got back on schedule for the day and returned to my regular routine. But the seeds from what I saw and all that he told me had already started taking root in my head.

A few days later I was completely broke. I had no money to buy frames for my artwork and by now, those seeds were beginning to grow. So I went on over to that Denver VOICE place, because I also remembered that you could get some papers free. I figured that the amount of free papers would be just enough to put me back in business with my artwork.

When I got to the distribution center, it was just like my brother said. There was a program. It was designed to help a person without one single penny in his pocket get into a position where he could help himself.

There were all kinds of people with all sorts of circumstances and situations. I saw people that were indigent, transient, homeless, recently unemployed, long time unemployed, people that were handicapped, mentally and physically challenged. I saw men and women, people of all ages and nationalities. But they all had one single thing in common. They were all there, willing to accept help from the people that were there to help them help themselves, and to better their lives.

I signed up that day and became part of the Denver VOICE works program. I started vending the Denver VOICE and just like my brother said, I was immediately employed, self-employed. I like to say, managing my own business.

There were no limits to the benefits from the program. It is like anything else that you do. It’s how much you are willing to apply yourself. I choose to vend the Denver VOICE full time, and then some. After all it is my own business that I am building.

The one thing for me about the Denver VOICE and the benefits from the works program is that it was taking a hold of me and was becoming a great part of my life. It was making a change for me. The change was strong, and it was not gradual.

I was vending the Denver VOICE everyday, including Saturdays and Sundays. I was still in my old routine. Working by day, buying drugs and using by night. This is when the fight within me started. It was really more like a war, and the battles each day were intense and furious.

The more I worked with the Denver VOICE, the more these battles were raging within me, and I mean literally. I want to echo more on the fact that these changes, these battles and all that were happening, were not a gradual thing. Everything was happening immediately.

I started vending the Denver VOICE and within days I was one of the top vendors. It was about two weeks when the numbers came out. I was listed among the people who were the top ten vendors of the month. Every day I was vending more and more papers. The more papers I was vending, the more people I was meeting. But what was it that was really happening to me? It was the people!

A lot of the turmoil for me was because of the people. The more papers I would vend, the more people I met. The more people I met, the more of them I became acquainted with and they began to get more familiar with me. People were giving me handshakes, hugs, a big hardy hello with big smiles as they spoke.
People were stopping and asking, “How are you doing?” I could feel the real sincerity and concern on their part for me. If people didn’t stop when they spoke as they were on their way to work, lunch etc. I could still feel the warmth from their hearts. I was having daily conversations with people that were getting the Denver VOICE from me. They were truly interested in me and concerned about things in my life and I found myself feeling the same way for them.
My father taught me that you can tell how much a person is interested or concerned about something by how they give of their time and money. I was also taught that you can judge a person by their ways and actions. The people that I had met and was meeting were living, practicing, sharing with and bestowing upon me, all of the good things that I had learned from my father.

When people gave me donations for the Denver VOICE many of them were saying to me by their action, “This is for you; I hope for and wish the best for you.”
Nobody I ever met while I was vending the Denver VOICE on the streets and no one at the distribution center or the office passed judgment on my past or tried to judge me each day. They all treated me, not as the man that I saw myself to be daily, but as though I was the man that I intended to become.
The way everyone treated me was the fuel for the turmoil that was bothering me. The more I did drugs, the more the turmoil and the more the battles raged. At night I could not do drugs and get high without thinking about that day. I would think about how kind and caring everyone had been towards me.

Then the next day came—time to go back to work, stand before some of the same people from the day before. They may or may not know about me, the drugs and the night before, but I did. I knew. I would drag myself together, getting ready for work, try to make myself look presentable, because a lot of nights I never went to sleep. I was awake all night either from the drug use or the guilt. I could only hope that I did not look as terrible as I felt. I tried to wear a mask, hide behind the mask; only the mask did not make all of those horrible feelings go away.

I felt like a deceiver, a liar in the lowest form. I felt guilt, shame. I felt like I betrayed all the people that I had met. I am telling you, there were times when I went to get my papers and go to work that the sun felt like God’s flashlight. No, more like his spotlight. It didn’t seem to be shining on the crops, the beaches, no other people—just me.

Never in all my years of doing drugs did I ever put up a fight to stop as I was doing then. I remember the feeling and telling myself, “No. No. No more drugs. I am the man that I intend to be.” The agony was like a persistent toothache and like a real bad toothache. The drugs and that life had to go.

That was about eight months ago. Today, because of my many experiences with the Denver VOICE, drugs are no longer part of my life. Technically speaking, I am no longer homeless, either. I haven’t found a place to stay yet, but I have the money.
There will be people that read this article that may not believe spiritually in a God of the universe. I don’t judge that and I do not hold it against you. Just don’t judge or hold it against me because I do.

The greatest and most rewarding experience that I have had with the Denver VOICE is the re-introduction to God. Through my brother, people from the Denver VOICE, their program, people from the Auraria campus and all of the many people that I have met while vending the Denver VOICE, God was able to reach me. All of you people whom I call God’s angels, may God always be with you and continue to bless you.