The SALT TALK with Jermine Alberty
The SALT TALK w/ Jermine Alberty is a podcast dedicated to having conversations of healing and recovery surrounding topics of mental health challenges, addictions, spirituality, and guest will talk about how their work serves, affirm, loves, and transform those they encounter. Join us for each episode as we get salty.
The SALT TALK with Jermine Alberty
From Gunshot Wounds To Grooves: Faith, Drums, And A Relentless Comeback
Eight years ago, Antoine Roston Sr. survived a shooting that changed his life forever.
In this powerful conversation, he shares his journey from pain to purpose—the nights of questioning, the sustaining power of faith, and the long road to recovery that led to renewed vision for life and hope.
Antoine describes life after a brachial plexus injury and the form of music therapy he created for himself. With his left arm barely responsive, he found a way to keep drumming—propping his arm on his leg and letting gravity guide the rhythm—until control slowly returned. That persistence not only restored his technique but also reclaimed his identity.
He opens up about faith that doesn’t hide behind clichés, forgiveness as a form of healing, and the weight of survival guilt after losing those he once mentored. Antoine also challenges assumptions about invisible disabilities and shares his simple mantra for dark days: “Live to get to tomorrow.”
If you’ve ever struggled to hold on to hope while carrying your scars, this episode offers real insight, raw honesty, and a reminder that healing is a journey—one day, one choice, and one act of faith at a time.
If this conversation moves you, share it with someone who needs strength for their next step, subscribe for future episodes, and leave a review to help others find The SALT Talk with Jermine Alberty.
The SALT Talk with Rev. Jermine Alberty
Service. Affirmation. Love. Transformation.
Thank you for tuning in to The SALT Talk, where we inspire transformation through honest conversations about faith, healing, and purpose.
Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this episode with someone who needs encouragement today.
To learn more about the SALT Initiative or to book Rev. Alberty for training or speaking engagements, visit www.jerminealberty.com.
Until next time, remember:
Serve with humility, affirm with compassion, love with courage, and live a life of transformation.
And uh eighty things as far as me and uh dolls around who we share the story with I want to be really clear that this episode is not about violence, but it's about victory. And it's about what happens when a man of faith refuses to quit. And we're feeling a ministry uh of its own, sometimes the artist miracle or the ones of anything. And uh so I want to welcome my brother, my friend, Antoine to the top. Hey, it's not today. Hey man, it's always good. You posted a video uh this evening, uh sometime today, uh on Facebook, and I was like, man, we need to do a podcast. And uh so it's one of those impromptu interviews that I'm glad you agreed to do. And uh I gave you a series of questions, we're gonna just have a conversation. People love the last podcast we did with you and Janice Green. They love that podcast. They said, man, it was like just three friends just talking. I was like, it was three friends just talking. Yeah, it's it's authentic. Yeah, very authentic. And uh, you know, I think a lot of people when they talk to us being you know, men of faith. Um, sometimes they have this expectation that we're supposed to be superhuman and uh not get upset and you know not have issues. I feel like that's the expectation. But I really want to know, tell us about your physical and your emotional recovery and what surprised you in this process. I mean, today we were talking eight years ago. Uh you were you were shot, and here we are today.
SPEAKER_01:Um well it's been quite a journey, if you would. Uh a lot of uh I'm still healing, you know, like just emotionally and uh and my uh physical ailments. Uh you know, one was my speech because I got shot through the face, which uh with which those bullets went through my tongue, which affected uh how I spoke. And now um I listen to my own playbacks, and I hear my previous voice that I didn't like no way. But I was always recording or doing something on TV or radio. Um, so but so so I I I I've worked my way back to that, and sometimes you may even hear it tonight a little bit, especially when I began to get emotional. So there's always the emotional part of uh the damage. There is the nerve damage that I have, but you know, like I'm about to try for a couple more bands, man. So like, you know, I'm I'm taking my craft, my my uh gifting, if you will.
SPEAKER_00:So you were talking about uh gigs just a moment ago in your craft, and it really is a good segue because part of your recovery journey was something that you started doing much younger in life, and that was playing drums. And I like I said, I have said to you before, I think that you ought to talk about how music therapy really like took your physical strength, you know, you you basic gained physical strength by playing drums. Um tell I mean talk about how music and playing the drums have been healing for you.
SPEAKER_01:You in love with drums, we know that probably probably more now than I ever have. Uh but but um you know with with my nerve injury, so my brachiople plexus was damaged, which controls and dictates how you use your your uh at least your arms. I don't I don't know about anything else. Uh so I got shot on the left side and that was damaged, was in uh impaired my uh left arm usage, which uh for uh you know for all my life up to that point, I never had a problem with my left arm. So uh I was literally paralyzed, but I could not lift my arm and wave. I couldn't wave at you with my left arm. Uh I could use it for my rotator cup, but I couldn't um like lift it from my elbow up, I couldn't curl my arm. I I certainly had no control to swing a stick. So like how I kept myself motivated was just trying. I would just be in my basement playing, and I learned how to take my left arm, my left leg, put my arm on my left leg and throw it up and try to let my arm fall on beat. That's how I was playing. And that worked, and I just like had um a voice in me that just said, keep doing it. Just don't stop, don't stop playing, just keep doing it. And I just uh kept doing it, and uh and I kept going to physical therapy, which was like two years, and uh one day I can actually swing the stick, I could I can control my arm. And um, and so sometimes people uh even just last night when I was playing, I was just thinking, like, what in the world? I'm not up here just like playing. I ain't um ghost noting, and and and and you have to have touch to do that. I'm like, I'm doing stuff that uh I didn't even know the terminologies uh for before, but I got so engaged into this this crap that I know what it is now, and it's like, well, I couldn't do this at all. Just like four years ago, really. I mean, you know, just four years ago. So it's like the the the drive to want to play just kept me going, just kept me going to the place where I was going to hear live music, and I was like, I can do that. I I can do that. And somebody said, Well, why don't you? And so I started um looking for opportunities and found some opportunities and played a lot last year, and and now I'm becoming one of the guys that's like, man, you're really good, and and you've gotten better since I met you, you know. I'm like, wow, that's that's an honor. But I am driven uh just because I almost lost it, literally. Like I could have just literally just been like, I'm fearless. You know, I was being told just hang it up, get get uh disability. You can get disability, get disability. And uh I read and understood that if I got disability, I was gonna have to get, I was gonna be disabled in my pocket too. Yeah, give up a lot of what I own, you know, a lot of what I had, my my autonomy, you know, all that stuff. And I just wasn't worth it. So I had a drive to play, to live, to to continue to be in the spirits and have what I had uh been blessed to have, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I wanted this this uh podcast tonight because I think so many times um when we have these dramatic events in life and these anniversaries come, we can do two things. We can get stuck in the harass of oh, woe is me. Or we can celebrate and look at, man, look how far I've come from that moment. And you know, healing is never a straight line, it's more like a river winding and deep, but always moving toward restoration. And I'm I'm grateful that eight years later, uh, as you said, you're still healing, but so grateful that you're not where you were, you know, eight years ago, you know, where you basically was told, hey, just throw in the towel. And you said, no, I ain't gonna throw in the towel and pick up the towel.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the mom told me that uh when we did the test, the nerve tests, and everything, she said you probably will be paralyzed in your left arm for the rest of your life. There's nothing that we can do. I was just like, What? Like nothing? Wow, and I had a physical therapy appointment afterwards, and I love my therapist, Stacy. She was just so dope. Like, you know, we made friends, and I I went and talked to Stacy, you know, and before we got to work, she just let me just talk and cry. Because I cried, you know, the doctor said that you uh gonna be paralyzed, and so you know, you hear in church and things, you know, um who's report what you believe, and all these different things, and and I can't believe I don't believe what the doctor said, I believe what Dr. Jesus said, you know, whatever. It's like, okay, what what are these people talking about, man? But to tell you really out of experience where a doctor tells you that something is impossible, that this you this is this is the best it's gonna be for you. I understand that doctors are not designed to give you hope. They they have to give you the worst of the news, right? Uh because if you t if they give you uh quote unquote false hope and it doesn't happen, you technically consume them. So they they do what they have to do to protect themselves. But when I heard that man, I went, I cried, I did my thing, and she said, What do you want to do, buddy? I said, Let's work. Let's work.
SPEAKER_00:What do you want to do? Let's work. You know, I love a good segue. After eight years, what has this journey taught you about life and purpose?
SPEAKER_01:Man, depending on the day of the week, some days I don't have a clue. Um other days, when I think about what I've gone through, and I I I believe that 99.2% of what happens to you and your outcome has everything to do about your attitude, your want-to, your how to, and your gon to. Uh uh, I I remember Mother Nelson used because I I I was a kid that they would say I had a bad attitude, right? So I was angry a lot. I had my reasons, but that's a different podcast. But but she would always say, this is stuck with me. Your altitude, your attitude determines your altitude, right? So I think that that's true in everything in life. Your attitude about whatever it is you're dealing with determines your altitude and your outcome. And so I chose to take a positive role and drive to get where I am today and to continue to go where I'm going tomorrow. Like it's not clear, right? Like before I got shot, I understood that even though I wasn't pastoring at the time, uh, that I was Antoine Rostin Sr. the man of God, the husband, the father, the community worker, the, you know, all this and that. And after I got shot, I was just, you know, I had that surgeon, right? Right. It's like I survived. God saved me for a reason. And I know what it is. It's to preach the gospel, it's to go out into the, you know, all this or whatever, and then that wave just crashed on the beach, and it was like, wait a minute, slow down. You can't even talk. Okay, that you know, that's one thing. Second, um, why are you doing this? Are you doing this out of purpose? Are you doing this out of emotion? Out of uh a sense of loss. So I was lost. Wow. I was I was I was lost without definition because I had more questions. You know, I I I didn't understand why this had to happen to me. Yeah, why um how you know, even when I got shot, man, I'm crawling on all fours, I'm crawling on all fours, and I'm having a discussion with God, and I said, Is this how it ends for me? And and and I start repenting my life. I was like, I've lived for you, I've served you, I've done anything to deserve this. Like, like, you know, I was like, I can't die. Like, I got I got I got a graduation to go to. I I just told my daughter I was gonna teach her how to drive. I I don't think my wife is ready for me to be gone. I I mean, even though she's responsible with money and things of that nature, and I'm like, well, maybe this is why I have so much money and uh life uh life life uh life is yeah. I was like, but I was like, but like I live for you, I can't die like this, and then I heard in my spirit that this wasn't unto death. So I had peace and I was able to calm down and not go through an anxiety or anything like that, but yeah. So I hear people talk about stories of angels and and seeing Jesus and angels and all that. I didn't have none of that. That was a question. So it's like, well, what what what was you know what why didn't I have that experience? You know, I I I've prophesied. I've I've seen into the future, I've seen people's lives. Why why didn't I see my angel, see the angel, and see Jesus and all this or whatever? So it just it just left me with more questions, right? Uh do I know my purpose? Uh I don't know, but I'm pretty sure I have one because I'm here. Um I have had one-on-one with people. Uh I was able to talk to some young people, I was able to maybe save some lives. I've been able to unfortunately bury uh younger people, which ooh, survival guilt is real. That was that was really real and hard. So then I have to go back and ask more questions. Why did you let me survive? I my teens had me for 12 years, eight years, 10 years, 20, 18 years, whatever the ages were. Uh I think actually it was 12, 16, yeah, 12, 16, and 18 or something like that. And uh, and uh and my tears had me, and these young men died with with tolerance. Babies that was just born, and I never know their father. They only hear stories about them. And and so you're dealing with that, you know. Then I'm like, why is everybody calling me for funerals? I mean, you know, I do other things, you know. But but yeah, it was it was uh it was quite the experience. So I I still struggle with what what my purpose is or uh uh all that. But when you can have that one-on-one conversation, like once I talked to an atheist and I was sharing my story, and she said, I don't believe in God, but even I have to acknowledge nothing but a God to change you in that moment, wow, you know, or or just you know how how people uh might be complaining about something. Because I've had customers get in my car complaining. And I tell them, you know, if you didn't get shot today, you probably had a good day. Stop being shot and it wasn't a very good year after that. Two years after that, you know, and people be like, okay, perspective, you know, right? So however I can use my experience to impact uh someone, young, old, indifferent, whatever, to make somebody tend, to make somebody understand that you don't understand the plight people have experienced in life. You never know what people experience because the other problem with my injuries is that though they really happen, I don't really look like what I've been through whatsoever. Some would say I actually look better after getting shot. But but but I don't look like I got shot through the face, and no one would know that I experienced what I experienced unless I opened up my mouth to tell them, you know. I mean, we were in Belize, you know what I'm saying? So I'm sharing my story and believes uh with the Masseuses and things, and and they were just like, wow, like amazed, though. The one therapist was able to use me as a a teaching moment, you know. So I mean, like, I didn't feel like I was uh a guinea pig of being disrespected. I saw it as like being honored, and and and and she was caring for me, like I really want to go back just for the cotton picking massage, right? It's like, you know, and and it but but those young ladies was able to learn something so that maybe the next customer or clients that come in that's had some similar experience, they don't know what to do because they had an interaction with me, you know. So your purpose sometimes isn't always what you think, right? It sometimes it's greater, and I think it's become greater than I limited it to before.
SPEAKER_00:I think that what people fail to realize is that our callings um often evolve based upon our lived experience.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:And there are two human experiences that are often intertwined, and those are pain and hope. And there's a sacred tension between pain and hope. Pain often reminds us that we are alive, that we are vulnerable, and that we're deeply human. And so I've experienced you know, loss, I've experienced disappointment, I've experienced betrayal, uh, I've experienced a weight of unmet expectations. And um when you experience that kind of pain, it can isolate you, it can make you sometimes feel like you're just suspended in sorrow. Um and then what I realized though is as I was telling our friend today, hope is my currency. If I run out of hope, I'm a poor man.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's real.
SPEAKER_00:So because with within that pain lies an invitation for me to often just pause and to feel that, you know, you know, you're feeling this pain right now, but there is a tomorrow. Right. There is a tomorrow. And so I I read somewhere that hope is pain's quiet companion. It whispers through the cracks of despair, insisting that what is broken can be healed. What is dark can be illuminated, and what is lost can be transformed. And one of the things I know is that uh while hope and faith are intertwined with one another, just because you have hope doesn't erase the pain that you have experienced, what it can do is it can redeem it, and it can often help us reinterpret our suffering as preparation for growth, compassion, and wisdom. And so, you know, uh with that being said, my question to you is how can others walk in hope even when their stories still carry scars? Because you still carry the scars of your wound. Uh you still have a bullet enlarged in your shoulder, I believe, or in your back area. Uh and so you still have the scars, but I was just doing some research about different awareness days in the month of October. And what I didn't realize was that October is also this month is celebrated invisible wound awareness. Invisible disabilities is what it was, visible disability awareness month. I was like, oh my God. I know so many people who have invisible disabilities that people would never know. Uh, and they will be like, What's wrong with you? Only knew. If I took off my shirt, if you only knew. You know, uh, if you were there at midnight and my body's aching, I have neuropathy, and I can't even get over if you only knew. And so, you know, how can others walk in hope even when their story still carries those scars? Is is the question I want to ask you uh as we wrap up this uh this interview, uh, and then I want you to share any final remarks you have, but I will really love to hear from you uh from that question. Once again, how can others walk in hope even when their story still carries scars?
SPEAKER_01:Well, for me, um I found hope in several places. I found hope in others' hope. I I share this story. I I remember emphatically, like this woman really impacted me because I I I can't forget, I don't remember her name. She was a double empathy. She came into physical therapy to uh start working on her uh her prosthetics. And uh she had on a Wonder Woman costume, and uh she was older, she was uh she was in our age, right? You know, like she she she she uh she was just yay and just so excited to get on those prosthetics, and she got the prosthetics on and it was a lot of work and she seemed defeated, but she just kept trying. And she had on that Wonder Woman kind of uh costume, and and and she was ready to work. And uh I said, well shoot, if she's gonna work, I'm gonna work. I can work harder because I got shot, but it could have been worse. And my hope is that I can get better. I know I can get better, you know what I mean? Um uh I found hope in my faith. Uh I had to lean on faith. I'm not as deep as I used to be with it, but I understood that without God, without faith in God, this wasn't gonna happen. I I I prayed, I believed God, uh, and and uh and I believed his report as I was saying. And and his report said it wasn't until that. Yeah his report was that that he was gonna restore me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't think it was gonna take so long to be still in the process. Um but but uh but I found hope in that. I found hope in that I didn't get carried out in the body bag. Yeah, and so I thought about what it could have been. Like I said, when I looked at that picture of the crime scene, if it had not been me, I would have thought somebody died. Period. You couldn't have told me that somebody survived that. It was a lot of blood. Wow. It was a pool of blood. It was a lot, I lost a lot of blood just that night uh at the scene of the crime. So understanding that I could have been dead, maybe should have been dead, um but I wasn't dead, meant that I had a 99.9% chance uh of getting better. You know? And uh I just kept kept pushing, kept trying to stay positive, feel when I feel, crying when I cry, mad when I got mad. Um is I I I I damage people sometimes and uh and uh but but but designed to grow me designed to be better, designed to uh not just physically, just overall. Um because I think such trauma really show you what you made of good, bad, good, and ugly. And I got to experience all of that, I got to see all of that. And uh and I decided I wanted to be better all the way around. So that's what I'm in the process of doing, being better all the way around. Um so I say that when you have your scores, just remember how you got them. Just focus on that you survive. Yeah, what you have gone through, a lot of people didn't survive it. Yeah, physically, spiritually, in no way. Some people still alive but didn't didn't come back. Like I experienced all of that, just not almost like just like people would not understand just how much I understand the streets and how I understand how people will make rash decisions based on revenge and things of that nature. And um yeah, I you know something else to I I I I to think about is immediately, immediately in the hospital in the hospital when I come to, I was thinking about what I was gonna do. How I was gonna handle it. I remember T D James did an interview with uh Oprah Winfrey and said that uh forgiveness is not about the other person. Forgiveness is about you. Because if you harbor all that anger and all that frustration and all that stuff, it's gonna make you sick. It's gonna make you uh incapable of getting better, it's gonna hinder you from moving forward while they go on about their life. And literally, that man that shot me was in Florida on the beach. He was on vacation, he was out with his family and friends, he was just doing what he wanted to do. So I could have got off angry and mad, but the only person that was gonna hinder is me. So I made a decision in the hospital that I wasn't gonna give no energy towards that. I was gonna put my energy in getting better. Yeah, I was gonna put my energy in uh uh get being able to get about that bed first of all, because I was in it for so long. And then once you did you I don't know if you know, but if you lay in the bed too long, you your body don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, actually.
SPEAKER_01:So I had to like relearn how to walk for a minute, and then once I got my coupoos, they couldn't stop. I start running because I was there by the hospital. So I'm like, y'all worry about me. Hey, I can run. Let me show you what I can do. Let's go. Yeah. So um, so it's just it just was that just that desire to just have to be better, have better, and and you know, stop sitting at home. Whoa, I I don't know how to sit still. So that was hard.
SPEAKER_00:I just wanted to take this time to memorialize this day, this eighth year anniversary, so that you can look back on this and go, man, this is where I was eight years in my life. Look at God where I am 15 years later, you know, because sometimes we have to memorialize things to testify about the goodness of our Creator and testify about you know what what God has done for us. And uh this quote I heard is something that I think if we can embrace is not seeing our scars as reminders of our pain, but seeing them as proof that grace still works. Yeah, you know, we have a inside joke about the Clark sisters, but the Rend the Clark said, I'm still here, and it's by the grace of God. And I think so many times, um one of the things I just try to make sure that people who may have experienced loss or may have experienced death don't feel like, well, where was God at for me? You know, this person made it, but my child didn't make it. This person survived, but my husband didn't make it, or whatever it may be. And we are all graced differently. We're all graced differently. And you know, survival is not always about just staying alive, but it's about how you learn to live again. There are people who have survived, but literally have not learned how to live again. Uh, and so what I'm so grateful is is that you can testify about how that healing for you is still processing physically, emotionally, spiritually. And here we are eight years later, and your testimony reminds us all that transformation begins where trauma meets faith. And that faith wasn't only in God, but it was faith in your own ability that with God all things are possible. Absolutely. Um listen, as we wrap up this podcast interview, we talked about eight years ago how my friend Antoine survived the shooting that changed his life forever. And today he shares that journey with us from pain to purpose. Uh, we talked about many times in our conversation about those nights of questioning, but then also the power of faith and how the path of recovery has led you to renewed hope. And it is my hope that through this conversation that listeners would have heard about how you discovered about how you would live your life in forgiveness and resilience and what it really means to live a life that is anchored uh in grace. And so, my friends, I want to I want to I want I want to invite you to just share any last words that you may have with our listening audience.
SPEAKER_01:I would just say uh just always remember that um today is today. If you keep breathing, you have a tomorrow, and live to get to tomorrow. And if you focus on just living to get to tomorrow and doing the work that's necessary, you can always have you're gonna always have an outcome. Then you're gonna be able to smile about at some point. Uh, I think that for me, I realize that um helping others and and giving of of what I can give to help others uh makes me feel good and makes me understand that that if I don't have a defined purpose, yeah, and that my sooner I have a purpose.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, my my friends, I want to thank you all for joining us for this special edition of the Salt Talk uh with Jermaine Alberty. I want you to stay tuned for more episodes to come and just know listen, you can make it, you can make it, and you're not alone. And what I'm so grateful for is that when I listen to the Golden Girl theme talk for being a friend, yeah, that speaks of me and Antoine Rostin. So listen, stay tuned for those couple of talk talk. What do you mean, Albert?
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