Episode 47: Marcus’s Journey to Stillness

In this week’s episode, we sit down with Marcus — who recently celebrated eight years clean and sober on October 29th. Standing 6'7" with a quiet strength and deep insight, Marcus shares how his path from chaos and paranoia to inner peace has reshaped how he sees sobriety, self-compassion, and spirituality.

Before recovery, Marcus was driving a beat-up van with expired tags, working hospice while high, and numbing his pain through constant escape. It wasn’t until his sober father called him out that Marcus finally got honest. He walked into an AA meeting with his dad’s contacts — terrified but willing — and started doing everything his sponsor told him to do: 90 meetings in 90 days, daily calls, full surrender.

But early sobriety wasn’t easy. Marcus describes feeling psychotic and suicidal, closing his eyes on the freeway just to feel silence. He was haunted by shame, guilt, paranoia, and hallucinations until his parents intervened and got him psychiatric help. Medication helped stabilize him, but the stigma he faced in recovery made him feel even more isolated. When COVID cut off access to his meds, he turned to veganism, meditation, and spiritual practice — finding healing in mindfulness and compassion.

Now working at The Hoffman Process, an experiential retreat that helps people rewire trauma and cultivate forgiveness, Marcus uses what he’s learned to help others connect with presence and self-acceptance. While he doesn’t sponsor others, he honors his boundaries, protects his peace, and lives by the same mantra that got him through the hardest days:
“One day at a time.”