Episode 3: From Rock Bottom To Redemption

Markus and Chelsea share their raw journey from addiction to redemption and how God restored their marriage through their darkest season. Raised in very different worlds, Markus found identity and escape in football, while Chelsea grew up in a structured Christian home shaped by perfectionism. A career-ending injury led Markus into prescription addiction, nearly costing them everything, while Chelsea endured a life-threatening pregnancy unaware of how deep the addiction ran.

Their breaking point came when Chelsea called the police, leading Markus to Teen Challenge, where surrender brought true deliverance. Out of that season, Reach1 was born—despite criticism, uncertainty, and fear. This story is a reminder that no one is too far gone, and God can turn even the deepest pain into purpose.

If this resonates with you, share it with someone who’s struggling or walking alongside someone who is. Sometimes the hardest decisions lead to the greatest healing.

Transcript

Anniversaries And An Unexpected Icebreaker

SPEAKER_04 0:04

Welcome back. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

It's been a minute.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

Long time. But you know what also has been a minute? 14 years of being together.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And 11 years married.

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Come on, just celebrate our 11-year anniversary. 11, 10 of the greatest years of my life. I'm just kidding. All 14 have been incredible. Well, not all 14. We'll get into that a little bit later.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Definitely not all 14.

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Yeah, there were three of them.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

That's what I think we should share about today.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Didn't know where we would make it. So, yeah, what better way than uh to help those who may are maybe are new to Reach One to understand who we are, where we come from, our backstories, what Reach One is, and you know our our journey together.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

So I forget that not everybody knows what we've been through. Our story is so big to us. And I forget that not everybody knows what God had us walking and journeying through and how much we've learned. And so yeah, I think we should definitely talk about that. Absolutely. Why don't oh go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

But before we do that,

Backstories: Chaos, Church, And Identity

SPEAKER_04 1:02

I want to ask you a question. I think this will be good.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Um your questions make me nervous.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

It's okay. You're gonna be all right. Um if you had to be roommates with one Bible character for a year, who would it be and why?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Oh my gosh. I need like six days to think about the answers to the show. I got one.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

I already know who I'd be who I'd be roommates with. Like for sure, 100%, without a shadow of a doubt, I will be roommates with Samson.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Samson?

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Samson.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

For what?

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Well, because look, check this out. Nobody's ever gonna run up on us. We're always protected. My dude was mad strong. And uh, I just think that we would be okay. And I would probably try to give him a little bit of wisdom. Like, hey, bro, you gotta watch out for some of these, you know, some of these ladies, you know, especially ladies named Delilah. Like, come on, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Like, you want to change the course of history?

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Like, you know, you don't gotta go out like a sucker. So, but no, I'm excited to get into today's episode. So um, let's just go ahead and get into it.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, why don't you share a little bit of your backstory and how you grew up for everybody who doesn't know?

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Absolutely. So I grew up in California. Um, you know, my dad left before I was born. I had a mom and a stepdad. My stepdad was sick my entire life. He was on his deathbed basically, he ended up dying in 2011. And so what that did was it created this identity crisis because I got a lot of brothers and a lot of sisters, and all of us have different last names. And I'm just kind of in a position where I'm just looking to be seen and accepted by somebody. And the only thing that accepted me was football. But at home, it was a lot of chaos, a lot of pain, a lot of brokenness. My mom had went through a lot of abuse herself, and so she would abuse us. And I remember there would be times where we wouldn't have running water or electricity, and you know, as an inner city kid, I just had to do what I had to do to survive, and oftentimes it meant going to grocery stores and stealing food and just just doing whatever I had to do to you know to put food on the table for our family. But football became my outlet. But I was a I was a socially awkward kid growing up. I know I know some people are shocked, like, there's no way Marcus was awkward.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

No, I was wait, we gotta put a picture up to the camera of what Marcus used to look like when he was a kid.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

Yeah, I was I was I was tore from the floor up, just was socially awkward, didn't know how to have conversations with people. Um, I was just, you know, I was I was different. But on the football field, you know, it was it was a different story. I was I I took out my aggression on the field and it opened a lot of doors for me, but I didn't have any type of discipline in the home. I didn't have parents that were saying, Hey, are you doing your homework? I had parents saying, hey, like, what are we gonna eat tonight? And you know, my family was involved in a lot of gang and drug activity, so growing up, it just was a chaotic environment. So it wasn't like a safe space. Uh and I didn't graduate from high school because of my grades, had a bunch of division one scholarships, but school for me was it was a challenge. I was allergic to class, played gender college football, did really well in JUCO. Um, still grades were always the thing that would hold me back. But my friend chose me to school called Malone College. Had never been to Ohio before, had never seen snow, but I just knew that I was supposed to go to that school. And so I ended up calling the coach a few weeks later. I was on a scholarship to play football at Malone College in Kenton, Ohio.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

And thank God you were, because guess who was there?

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Come on. I met wifey. I met this beautiful young lady. But before we get to our story, why don't you tell us a little bit about your backstory and what led you up to to going to Malone?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, I mean, I grew up in a super small town. Like all my family lived on the same block. Super, I mean, I have the best memories of childhood, both my parents in the home. And yeah, I mean, I grew up in church. My dad got saved when I was a really, really young girl. And as soon as he got saved, he was like, I'm called to ministry. My dad became a pastor, and I just grew up in the church world. I think um with that comes a lot of expectation and pressure. Um, it's not that anybody taught me to be perfect, but I that's just something that happens when you're in that world. It's just a pressure that you start to feel. You feel the eyes on you, you feel people watching you, and you feel like you have to have it all together all the time. That's something that I carried into my adulthood for sure. Um, that's probably the number one thing I've struggled with my entire life was presenting a certain way where people could look at me and say, like, oh yeah, she's a Christian, so her life looks perfect. I thought those two things went hand in hand.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

Would you say that you're like growing up as a as a young person who grew up in the church, did that idea of perfectionism spill into other areas of your life? Did it spill into athletics? Did it spill into your education? How did that impact you as you were growing up?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah, I I mean, I wanted to do everything right. And I believed like if I walked with God that my life needed to show, um, I guess I would have never said that it needed to be perfect because I know scripture. I know that we're not perfect, that we are humans, um, and we're always gonna fall short. But there's still something. I I I don't know how to pinpoint it. Um, but it's there's just something about growing up in church um and the pressures that you put on yourself um that makes you feel like perfectionism is the way to go. Like you have to give your very, very best. And if you don't fulfill what you set out to accomplish, then you failed. Um obviously I I know better now, um, but that's just that was the reality of of the pressure that I put on myself. Um in athletics, I was like always the hardest worker out there. I might not have always been the best at everything. But they argue were good. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

Freshman year? Didn't you didn't you start as a freshman in uh what sport was it?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

All of them. Like that.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Come on. Let's not talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, a small school. It's not that big of a flex. Um, but in academics, like I had I had um GP, almost perfect GP.

SPEAKER_04 7:02

Top 100 in your class, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Top 100. We didn't even have a hundred kids in our class. Nice. I was actually number three in my class and I was devastated. Like who gets number three in their class and has devastated me?

SPEAKER_03 7:14

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I was heartbroken. Um, but yeah, and then in as we got older in relationships, I always wanted to present like, oh yeah, we've got it all together because I follow God, things are good. I didn't realize that it actually benefits other people to show your vulnerabilities and weaknesses and show how God shines through that and He is our strength. Like it just doesn't add up when you're young. Those are things you learn as you grow into adulthood to show your weakness and to show your vulnerability and to recognize that that's where God shines. Um, but yeah, that that was my struggle as a kid.

SPEAKER_04 7:49

But what's so interesting about your story and my story is we both had spiritual experiences and neither of them were probably the healthiest. I had a spiritual experience about spiritual manipulation. I would remember being told if you don't listen, God's gonna get you. And it was their way of controlling me, and you know, it was terrifying to me because I didn't understand, like, man, why would God get me? I I don't think that I I should be doing what they're telling me to do. And so it really made me not want to go to God for anything because the idea of a God who's so big could just crush me at any moment if I do something he doesn't like.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, you were like scared instead of a healthy fear of the Lord. It was a grave misunderstanding of his power.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

So you ended up going to Malone.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yes, I went to Malone because a Christian school was my only option. That

Meeting At Malone And Early Faith

SPEAKER_01 8:37

was my life.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

When you say your only option, like talk, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

I couldn't go uh well, you know, I was like, oh, big dreams. I want to go live in downtown New York City and go to college. And I remember my parents being like, you need to consider a Christian school. That's really how we're gonna support you in this life. And I was like, okay. So I visited a couple Christian schools and landed at Malone. It's like an hour away from where I grew up. Um, I had a lot of friends who were gonna go there with me. So Malone it was.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

What was your first interaction like, you know, on campus at Malone? What were your first thoughts? I'm sure they were completely different than mine.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, I was a sheltered, I was a sheltered girly. So I didn't go to parties in high school, I didn't do anything, like literally nothing. I was in church every night of the week doing something, a worship practice, prayer meeting, Margaret Hear the Meeting. Leadership meetings, church on Wednesday, church Sunday morning, church Sunday night. I was in the church. And if I wasn't at church, I was at a sports practice or a game. So when I got to Malone, it was like my first taste of freedom. And I just remember getting so excited to be able to like go to Walmart and not have to check in with my parents. Like I can go to Wendy's, I can go get chicken nuggets. Like I don't have to answer to people, but I didn't go crazy. Honestly, like I could have, but I didn't. You know, my parents really, I mean, we're making jokes about being sheltered and and whatnot, but my parents did an incredible job of raising me to know the word, and I wanted to live for the Lord. Like I I had some misunderstandings about my theology, I think, and maybe his love for me and who I had to be. But I knew I knew who God was, and I there was nothing you could do to make me walk away from my relationship with the Lord.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

Shout out to Mama and Papa Brian for training their child up when they're younger the way that they should go, because when they're older, they won't depart from it.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

And uh so you and I, we meet at Malone. So prior to me going to Malone, I had never really had a girlfriend before. I was just kind of on a straight.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Thank God.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

Wish you were my only one. But I I ended up meeting a girl, it didn't work out, and so the summer of 2011, um, I I did well at Malone, get a chance to work out in front of all 32 NFL teams at the NFL Combine. I can remember my my senior year. Um, I was just tearing it up on the football field and I saw this cute little girl. Cute little girl. Cute young woman, sorry. Cute young woman who's 19, young lady, young shorty, shoddy. Uh I saw her, you know, she had face pain. She had a 32.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

No, I didn't. No, let's be clear. I wasn't saying that was no idea who Marcus was. Okay. Everybody, just let's just be real clear. He likes to be like, oh, you were in the stands cheering for me. No, I was cheering for Malone in general. I didn't even know who you were.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Chelsea, did I score touchdowns at Malone?

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I'm sure you did because you were the only one.

SPEAKER_04 11:30

So did I did I score touchdowns at Malone?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

Did you cheer when we scored touchdowns?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

You cheered for me.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

If that's what helps you sleep at night.

SPEAKER_04 11:38

Back to my story. So I saw this, you know, fine little thing with uh with the 32 on her face.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

I've never had a 32 on my face.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Okay. You know, hey, it's I I understand, you know, it's been 14, 15 years. It's you know, it's been a while. I'm sure your memory probably escapes you. But I remember there was actually a particular time where you were walking around with the football looking for me, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

And uh looking for you?

SPEAKER_04 12:04

You and your friends were walking around, you guys had a flat football, and you know, you saw this um handsome, muscular football player standing there and just asking to fill your football up. Remember that?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I do remember that. You had an orange cutoff t-shirt. You know when the boys used to cut their t-shirts all the way down, the whole sleeve off? All the way down so they're the side would hang on. Honestly, it was pretty hot.

SPEAKER_04 12:28

Yeah, and she asked me to full fill the football up, and I was like, oh man, there's something different about her. So we ended up becoming friends that summer. We broke, both broke up with our boyfriend and girlfriend.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, not for each other.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

We weren't really talking or anything yet, but yeah, I just knew that I wanted to be with Chelsea, so I was like, you know what? I needed to end everything so that I can make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah, you for sure did.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

Yeah, I did. I'm not gonna lie. I saw you. I'm like, she's this is the woman of my dreams. And so I knew that she was a pastor's kid. So, and this is this is a true story, yo. I my first time talking to her, I couldn't see her in person because I was trained for the NFL down in Texas. And so I slid into her DM. I don't recommend anyone do that, but I slid into her DM. But if you're gonna slide into someone's direct message, here's what you need to do. I slid into her DM because she had just broke up with her boyfriend, and I just said, Hey girl, I just want you to know I'm praying for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Hook, line, and sinker, embarrassingly enough, it worked.

SPEAKER_04 13:25

14 years later, come on, somebody girlies don't fall for it. Unless he really loves the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Unless he really okay, a boy can't just say I'm praying for you, and you'd be like, Oh my gosh, mom, he's a Christian.

SPEAKER_04 13:38

But I did pray because if you pray, she will stay. And we we started talking. We we kind of you know really got to know each other over that summer. And I don't get drafted into the NFL, and I'm kind of you know broken by that because that was a big part of my identity. Making it to the NFL to get my family out of a bad situation was everything for me, and I didn't succeed in what I what I set out to do, even though I performed, you know, probably the best fullback statistically in the country. So I come back to Malone, still training for the NFL, and you and I we start our journey together.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

We started hanging out and Yeah, we were like inseparable.

SPEAKER_04 14:12

Like we would hang out 2, 3, 4 a.m., just kicking it.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

All hours of the night, just hanging out, getting to know each other, like couldn't stay away from each other.

SPEAKER_04 14:21

Well what it was for me with you, it was you could hold conversation and you had a depthness to you that I hadn't seen before, and you had you really knew the Lord, and I was getting to know God, but like you really had an established relationship with Jesus, and I just looked up to that. I'm like, man, this girl is she's really about that life.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, and you I mean Marcus shares a lot that he didn't really know the Lord deeply in his life, but you presented in a way that I was attracted to the God in you. Like you were pursuing God. We spent all a bunch of our hours spent together. We're either in a prayer room together, at a worship service, we'd read our Bible together, we were just always challenging each other in that way. So you were in a in a great sense really leading me as a moment.

SPEAKER_04 15:10

I was 100% all in for Jesus. Yeah. You know, it's it wasn't until I had encounters later on with God I realized that there was there's you know a depth to God and you can go from glory to glory. But in that moment, I was all in. I was completely sold out. I would wake up in the morning and send devotionals to as many people that I knew just praying for them. And I really wanted to please God with my life. Part of it was because I had a worker mentality and I wanted to produce because sports put me in a position to produce. But being in a relationship with you, I just really wanted it to be the real thing. And so we pursued the Lord together. And I signed my first professional contract playing in the

Engagement, Arena Football, And Injury

SPEAKER_04 15:44

AFL. And uh, I remember right before I leave for my second stint with the San Antonio Towns, this is December of 2013. At this point, I just knew, and like I say this to anybody that might listen to this podcast, fellas, when you find a good one, don't let anything come between you and the one that you're called to be with. Especially if it's stupid friends that don't fully understand what it means to commit or be in a relationship. And the friends that I had at that time, honestly, they they didn't know what they were talking about. And it was an environment that was pretty pretty unhealthy to be a part of. And I had friends that wanted me to be quote unquote all in for Jesus, but didn't understand that really didn't understand relationships in general, and they would try to give me relationship advice, but they weren't in relationships, and so well they were trying let just be super honest.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

We were in a a community of believers around us that believed at the time that being in relationships weren't healthy, and in order to be all in for Jesus, that you needed to cut off all your um personal relationships. So, like the only thing you'd have was a friendship in the Lord, but she couldn't be dating somebody and be all in for Jesus. And they didn't We were the only couple. We were the only couple in our friend group. There were so many toxic things about it. We would show up and they would start preaching against relationships, like obviously ostracizing us and making us feel crazy. And we're like, wait a minute, are we bad for each other? Like, there's this is not relationships are a blessing from the Lord. For sure. Like, there's nothing unbiblical about a relationship where you're pursuing God together. Um, if anything, I was getting closer to the Lord and being challenged to grow because of you.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

When you gave me an ultimatum, honestly, I remember because these friends, they just weren't, they weren't really friends. Let's just call it what it was. And they you gave me an ultimatum. You're like, I'm just done with that group, either it's me or them. And I said say less.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, I did. And I typically would not be a fan of giving people ultimatums, but honestly, at the end of the day, when something isn't aligning with your future and you know that it's not aligning with your future and it's causing discord and disunity, hey, stick up for yourself and you say, This is what I need in order to move forward. Like, I think there's a fear like of being put in some box, like, oh, she's the kind of girl that gives ultimatums. Like, that's a strength. In my opinion, to be strong, to know what your boundary is, block it, to know what your what direction you're moving in for your future, yeah. That's a strength in a woman. So you stand up for what you want, you lay an ultimatum out if you need one.

SPEAKER_04 18:18

And not only having the the ability to say it, but the ability to follow through.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:22

Because you weren't just you weren't just talking, you were really about that life.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

No, I said I said, we need to get in a healthy community that supports us, that loves us, and that believes it that God can do big things in our marriage and our relationship together. And if we can't if you can't do that for the sake of our relationship, then it's over. And we broke up for like two days, and you were like, No, I'm kidding. You came back and you're like, you were right.

SPEAKER_04 18:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

You're right. We need to find healthy community and people who love and support us, and this was not it.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

Well, you were the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and I wasn't gonna let anything take that away from me. And if it meant letting go of a friend group that didn't understand where I was going or who I was called to be with, and it was an easy decision. And so I ended up, I remember I was working a job, I was working a couple different jobs, and I wanted to save up because listen, engagement rings aren't cheap. And so at the time I wanted to save up, so I would work, you know, sometimes 18, 24 hour shifts just to save up, and I had this elaborate plan of how I was um how I wanted to propose, you know, hindsight is 2020, would probably do it differently now. But I remember getting down on a knee asking you to be my wife. And I went to the you know, in North Canton, there was this big XL shirt XL store. I remember I bought this red shirt. First time I I didn't care about fashion at the time, guys. Okay, I I dressed like a bum. But I remember buying this bright red shirt. I don't know why I bought a red shirt, but I bought a bright red shirt and I said, I'm gonna ask her to be my wife, and she said yes. And then, like literally a couple weeks later, I ended up moving down to Texas to play ball. And as I'm playing ball in the Arena Football League for the San Antonio Talents, um, my Dreams were coming true. I'm getting paid to play the game that I love. San Antonio didn't have an NFL team, so we were the NFL team for San Antonio. You and I were preparing for our wedding. Everything is literally was going according to plan. But I I saw something in myself that I'm not afraid to admit today, but those guys on those teams, they wanted it. They really wanted it. And I wanted it, but I don't know if I wanted it quite like them.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

Where they were willing to set you up and injure you off the field in order to get your position. That's how bad they want they wanted it. And I just was trying to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life. And 2014, I get a chance to work out for some NFL teams, and I'm I'm just having a workout of my life. And uh in this workout, just it was going it was going the best

Pain Meds To Addiction: The Descent

SPEAKER_04 20:47

that it could, but I ended up blowing up my shoulder and I got injured. And this is the first time where I didn't know what else to do because through that injury, my career got taken away. And I'm on injured reserve, so I'm getting paid still to be on injured reserve. And I had never, you know, taken drugs before. And so this is the first time I was prescribed pain medication.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

After because you had to have surgery on that shoulder.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

I had torn my rotator cuff, torn my labrum. Um my career was over. And so as I'm taking the medication, it was the first time I could take something that made me feel bad about myself. And I didn't understand the weight of drugs, but I remember when I got injured, everybody in the locker room was asking me for the drugs. They're like, hey, can I get one? Can I get one? I didn't I was like, I don't care here. Take one, take one, take one. I was passing them out. I didn't understand that you shouldn't do that, but I um we get married. Wedding is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Um You're literally still recovering from your shoulder surgery at our wedding.

SPEAKER_04 21:42

Yeah, like surgery scars are still healing.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Like at our wedding day, our photographer was like, Marcus, pick Chelsea up and swing her around. And you're like, I literally cannot. And I was like trying to jump on your shoulder. I was so heartbroken that we couldn't get like this one picture I wanted, but that's just he was literally he had surgery and was still recovering on our wedding day. Legit. And the day after our wedding in Ohio, we packed up a trailer and we moved to Texas to be closer to your football team in hopes that you were still going to be able to recover and potentially play football again one day. So we were kind of isolated in a sense that we left all of our friends and family back home in Ohio and started a brand new life in Texas.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

Talk about that for a second. The significance of going through college. You went through college, you um graduated, and the first thing you do is you move away from home and start a life. You had to be a big girl. Like you had to grow up. Like, talk about the significance of that.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah. Well, my parents raised me very positive. They gave me like the foundations of life. This is how you, this is how you do life. This is how you grow up and become a big girl. Like, unless I was in a sport, I had to work a job. Um, I've been working since I was fresh out of high school. Shout out to Deb. Yeah, I worked at Deb. Anybody remember a store called Deb? Because that was the best place on the planet if you were a teenage girl. RIP. Um, that was my favorite place ever. But, anyways, I worked a job. I knew that that's just part of growing up. Um, I also know that you're gonna take risks, you're gonna step out, you're gonna try new things. Um, and sometimes it might not be forever, but that's okay. You tried new things. Um, and I had a partner in it. So I was excited. I knew that once I got married, like, I'm gonna move away. I'm gonna start a my own family, I'm gonna do my own thing. Um, and I was excited about it. It didn't mean it wasn't difficult, you know, to transition and to process like not having your mom and your sister.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

Yeah, and you didn't get a job right away. You had to you had to figure out what what was life gonna look like. I'm still getting paid and um you're looking for a nursing job. And it took you months to find a job.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

Yeah, when you move, yeah, you know, Malone University has a great nursing program in Ohio. It's really has a great reputation, but picking that degree and then moving all the way to Texas, where they have like UT and Dallas and all these schools down there. Somebody looks at my resume and is like, what's Malone University? Um, how do I know if that's a good nursing degree? Um, so I had a lot to prove moving down there, but I just put my nose to it and applied for like 20 jobs a day until I found the right one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:25

And so we're playing, you know, we're we're living in Texas, things are going great, but I'm still struggling silently. And when did you know that my addiction was starting?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

So you always told me just enough to keep me like in the loop to where, okay, we're married, we're partners in this, but enough to cover your tracks and me ever being able to get upset with you or hold you to the fire. Like I couldn't hold you to any standard because it was like you were being honest enough with me. Um, so I I remember it was probably like a few months after we got married, and I saw your pill bottle, which you were still having regular rehabilitation hours, which is like going in and having therapy, stretching out your shoulder, doing exercises. You need pain medication for that. That's a regular part of healthcare. Like, hey, take your pain medication before your therapy session and then take one after, and it will just help you get through your weeks of rehabilitation. So, being a nurse, I know that, right? So I'm not questioning that you have pill bottles here. Like, you're gonna take those. I know that you need those. Um so yeah, I didn't really question anything. And honestly, you acted completely normal. I think there was a reasonable amount of sadness that I saw you experiencing because your football career, like our whole time relationship, the whole time we were dating, you were pursuing the NFL. Um, and there everything that you did, there was a high likelihood that you were gonna do that. Um so I knew you were sad. Um, but it wasn't it wasn't um visible to me that you were broken. Do you know what I mean? Like there was a sadness, but you seemed fine. Um you didn't talk about it much.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

So Yeah, I was living isolated. I was living in an isolated state where I just didn't know how to communicate something I had never experienced. And I had had moments in my life that were hard and I had gone through loss and you know, a certain degree of suffering, but I had never gone through what I was walking through. And so I didn't know how to talk about it. The only thing I knew to do were to take the medication because it gave me this high, which numbed the pain, which made me forget about how I felt like a failure.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

And unfortunately, you had doctors who would just give it to you whenever you wanted. So that's obviously a huge part of the story and things that people don't always understand. Um, like, well, how were you able to get addicted? Well, for whatever reason, in professional sports, um, doctors do whatever football players want. Um, so all you had to do was go in and say, I need more, even though it's clearly you shouldn't be out yet. Um, and they just fed them to you. That's just a reality of professional sports that nobody talks about. Um, it's disgusting. But it's a reality.

SPEAKER_04 27:15

Fennel Pats, instant release oxycodone, and extended release morphine.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

I was on all three powerful narcotics at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

That's illegal. It's against the law to do that. And you can't mix because obviously you could overdose or die. But there was a glimmer of hope because what I wanted to be more than anything in the midst of my addiction is I wanted to be a dad. And I could just remember my drug addiction got so bad. It got to the point where I would take our money and I would start buying drugs off the streets. And I didn't care anymore because whenever I couldn't get it from my doctor, because I had just got a script, I would go to another doctor, and then when I couldn't get any more, I took our money and I would buy it off the streets. And I got mixed in with the cartel and just different things in Texas that you don't want to you don't want to get mixed

Hyperemesis, Isolation, And Secrets

SPEAKER_04 27:58

in with.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

And I had no idea of any of this because from the time we got married, he was making way more money than me from football.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Injured reserve, they were paying you well. You're making money, you're covering the bills, you're the one who got our lease, like all of these things. So everything was in his hands. I had no reason not to trust you. So I didn't know anything. I did have a job at this point. I was working as a full-time nurse, making great money in Texas, and had no clue that we just were running out of money all the time because you were spending it on drugs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:29

Because I was a good manipulator and I was a good liar and I knew how to hide and I knew how to shield, shield, tell you just enough to appease you, but also keep enough hidden so that I can essentially do what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

I mean, if you told me you were struggling, it was like, hey, I've been on these medications for a long time. Like, I really need to talk to my daughter, my doctor about getting off because I'm feeling myself growing tolerant to it. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's normal. You've been on it for a while, you're still taking it for rehab. So I get it. Let's just tell your doctor. And you would go to a doctor's appointment and you'd be like, Yeah, I told him like he's lowering my doses, like, we're gonna wean off. It's totally fine. And I I just had no reason to question that because you weren't acting any different at the time.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, it's a wild thing to think about. And then, like you said, we got pregnant with Avery.

SPEAKER_04 29:16

So when you got pregnant with Avery, I knew because my I knew my I knew that I was an addict when there was a time I went to a CBS buyerhouse and I had just gone to another drugstore a couple of days before, so they checked their like system and they said, Hey, well, you just got a script filled a couple of days ago, and I would get 90-day scripts. Like I would get a lot of medication. And I remember they had the bottle full of pills, and he put it on the counter, and I had this thought to myself, because I ran out of pills already. I'm going to snatch these pills and run.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Because they said, Hey, you can't I can't actually give you this because you just filled something and you were like, Oh my gosh, I could take this.

SPEAKER_04 29:53

I was like, I am. I had the thought, I am about to snatch these pills and run.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:58

Then it hit me. I went to the to the parking lot and I just began to weep because I realized that I was an addict and it just like hit me full circle that I would do something so crazy to get high. And I remember I called my doctor and I said, Hey, I'm addicted. And you know what they did? They dropped me as a patient.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

When I admitted that I I needed help, they dropped me as a patient.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

And they could have just walked you through um recovery. They could have walked you through weaning off the medication, giving you support, but they don't then they're not gonna get any money doing that with you.

SPEAKER_04 30:31

So I'm I'm now I'm like scrambling, I'm struggling. I had never experienced withdrawals because for a couple years I was high every single day. And so now my body's going through physical withdrawal, the psychological depression from not playing in the NFL, all these things are coming at me at once. And so the only thing I knew was, hey, I'm gonna keep using our money to keep getting high because I'm not about to go through this. Yeah, I'm not gonna feel this pain, and I'm not going to go through this physical these physical symptoms. I'm not gonna have the sweats. It's not happening.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

And so it was like a perfect storm, honestly, for me to not notice any of these things because I got pregnant with Avery and I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, which is extreme nausea and vomiting in pregnancy. Um, and mine wasn't a typical case. Um, it's already very rare to get that bad. You know, women talk about morning sickness all the time, like, oh, we're all sick. Like, this is not regular sickness. We're talking about I was in the hospital for the majority of my pregnancy. And when I wasn't in the hospital, I was in bed with a home health nurse by my bed taking care of me. Um, I was absolutely useless of a human, um, barely keeping myself alive. It's a miracle that Avery was like a full-term baby with, you know, her health intact because hyperemesis is not something I'd w wish on my worst enemy. Um, we're talking about vomiting, not being able to keep water down, vomiting 30 plus times a day to the point where you're not even throwing anything up. It's just blood. You're just busting blood vessels and not to get graphic, but people don't know how serious it is. Um I was a part of a hyperemesis support group, and people often were talking about either their options to terminate their pregnancy because they weren't, they were psychologically not surviving. Um, and there was high risk of birth defects and their babies not being fed um the nutrients that they need to keep growing. And there was one woman who um her mother came on on her behalf who took her own life because she was in such misery. So it's a really, really terrible disease that's super rare, and people don't know the extent of it, but it's a miracle that I and my baby survived those seasons. But I share all of that to explain that's why I had no clue the extent of your addiction during that season. That was you at your worst, and it was me at my worst, and we were like almost living two separate lives. You weren't able to be there for me, I wasn't there for you, I didn't know what you were walking through. I couldn't even speak. I wasn't talking. We weren't sharing, we weren't even sharing a bed. Couldn't be in the same room. If I smelled your cologne, if I smelled your bath soap, like I would go throw up. Um, so it was a quite traumatic season for me as well as for you, and we were doing it alone.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

And the way you said it is just it was the perfect storm, but I knew there was something in me that said, we need to leave this situation because I'm not gonna make it much longer. Because the people that I was getting involved in, and there are many times where I was set up to be robbed, and by the grace of God, it never happened. Just crazy things. And and so I wanted to be a dad. I said, Well, let's go back to Ohio. Let's get around your family. I had a good job, the village network. Let's go figure this life out, figure out what this life looked like outside of football.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

And I didn't want to move back to Ohio though. Like I had the best job in Houston. I was so happy they were like my family. And it again, it was cause I had no idea the extent. I'm like, why do you want to move back to Ohio? Um, and then it was the day that I had Avery. Um, it's crazy. Hypermesis literally disappears from your body the second you give birth to your child. So I delivered

Ohio Move And The Spiral

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Avery. You were there. And then I remember you looking at me and being like, hey, I'm gonna go home and clean the house. You know, my parents were coming into town. And um, but I'll be back really soon. And I didn't really question it. It was like, okay, that makes sense. But you were gone for like eight or nine hours. And it was like the veil was removed from my eyes and the Lord was speaking to me. I could see everything clearly, and all these things that you had told me over the last year and a half of our marriage just started adding up. I was putting the pieces together. I'm like, wait a minute, who leaves the hospital the day their baby was delivered for eight hours? It wasn't adding up. And I was like, wait a minute, the drugs, the addiction, where's our money at? Why has he been stressed about money? All this stuff started adding up. And I was like, wait a minute, I think he's severely addicted to these drugs. And I just saw everything clearly. So the second we had her, we got out of the hospital. I was like, Yeah, in full agreement, let's move back to Ohio. We need help.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

Yeah. So we moved back, and man, I wish I could say the story gets better there, but it actually gets way worse. So we moved back, but I don't have team doctors now. Because up to that moment, I could still get medication on a regular schedule from my doctors. Well, in Ohio, I don't have those same doctors, and I had money, so I would take the money and I would start buying drugs off the streets. And then I realized, well, I'm running out of money, I need to go find another way. So I would go to as many hospitals as I could find. And I don't know what came over me because I didn't do this in Texas. But in Ohio, I went to 38 different doctors for 59 prescriptions in five months.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Just desperate to get drugs.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

I would dislocate my shoulder on command, go into the emergency room and say, hey, I'm I'm in bad pain. Like, you know, I played football, I was a former professional athlete. I would just give them the story, I would lure them in, and they would believe me. And I wouldn't go in there looking like an addict. I would make sure that I was clean and put together, which is just a whole nother level of manipulation.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

And but that that's the first time that I saw you coming home high as well, too. Like again, I could just see everything clearly, and all of a sudden I noticed that you were high. And it's probably part of motherhood too, right? You're just that much more cognizant of who's carrying your baby and who's taking care of your child because I was like, you're not holding Avery like that. Like you can barely keep your head up. Um, it was insane how it felt like in Texas I never noticed, and then in Ohio, I know it got worse for you, but it was just a completely different human. You were physically high in front of me every single day. And I was going insane. I had no clue how to handle this. Yeah, we were waiting for me to my job to start. I did get transferred to a great hospital and I had a great job waiting for me, but it hadn't started yet. So we were living with my family for a couple months, and I was like hiding you. I was trying to get him to always go back in the bedroom, like, I can tell you're high, like this is not okay. And I was trying to make sense of it. I like all that perfectionism came back up, right? And I was like, Well, we can't let anybody know. Like, we're supposed to be this Christian couple who fought for all the right things, who fought for this relationship, who said God was doing big things with our lives, and now you're a drug addict. Like, what is this? Like, how is this my life? Um, and I wasn't ready to tell anybody that like that comes with a lot of shame. It comes with a lot of embarrassment. Should it? No, but that's the reality of the world we live in. Um, I can't tell people that my husband's struggling with drug addiction. Like, I'm a leader. Like, what is this? You know, it's such a strange thing to battle with.

SPEAKER_04 37:53

And at the same time, in my mind, it's like, man, you're a failed professional. Absolutely. You had overcome so much in your life, and you're becoming everything everybody said that you are.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:04

And I I didn't know how to get out of that space because I didn't want to be an addict. It wasn't my dream or goal, and yet I fell into it because I was overprescribed. But then there came a point where I would make decisions to do things I know were wrong, but my addiction led me to doing them.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:19

And I didn't know what else to do. I felt trapped. I felt like no one would fully understand what I was walking through. That if I were to be honest with what I was was what was going on, then people would leave me, they would abandon me.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Yeah. And uh to the point where we ended up having to leave your sister's house because I came home high and Yeah, they found out what was going on, and um, it was really terrible for our relationship at the time. Thank God he's reconciled our relationship now, but fully kicked you out of the house.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

It's emotional. And they they had said, like, you don't have to leave Chelsea, but he has to leave. But I wasn't in the position to leave you yet. And that's what I think a lot of people don't talk about in addiction. And people who are in relationships with people in addiction, like you have to come to that place, like the end of your rope before you intervene.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Um, that person has to feel like they've done everything they can. They're not just and it's not right. You know, you can't just turn your back on somebody in addiction. You have to walk them through as much as you can, but to the point where you're not enabling them. And I had to figure out where that place was on my own accord. Um, so I went with you, we moved into an apartment, I started working my job, and it just got to the point where I couldn't leave for work every day, knowing I was leaving Avery at home with you, not knowing what was going on. There were several times where I would track you and see that you were at pharmacies, you were at hospitals with Avery. And honestly, I still I mean, it's God's hand on Avery's life that she never was taken by CBS.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

I cry still talking about it because it's It was such a real thing. I remember every day what those emotions felt like. But it is truly a miracle that a high person walking around with a baby asking for drugs never got that child. You've gotten pulled over before. You've gotten investigated before. And the fact that Avery was never taken is a miracle. Um and I just couldn't, I couldn't handle it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

There was a couple of times I tried to leave when you would leave the house for a little bit. Like there was one time I was like, I'm packing my stuff up, I'm leaving, I've I've had enough. I we had confronted you about it. Like there were a couple people that we tried to pull in, um, a couple pastors that were friends of ours that we tried to pull in and be honest with. And we were either met with like a lot of confusion and hate, or we were, or Marcus just wasn't ready to face the facts. Um, so there was a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_04 40:57

It was so hard and challenging for me because I knew that I needed help. I knew that I messed up, but I did not know how to overcome it.

SPEAKER_03 41:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

And life without those drugs, addiction is so strong because life without the drugs, it didn't feel like life to me. It felt like death. And so the only thing I wanted to do was continue the thing that made me feel good. Because I had control of my life. I was in control, I was in control of the narrative.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

I it took away the pain.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

It took away the pain.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

The hurt, the loss.

SPEAKER_03 41:31

You were lost.

SPEAKER_04 41:32

Like deep, deep rooted pain.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:37

That it went past football. For sure. We're talking about stuff from when I was born and growing up in an environment where I felt like I was never fully accepted or loved.

Intervention And Rock Bottom

SPEAKER_04 41:48

And it would take those things away.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:50

And you mustered up the courage to do something, and I'd love for you to talk about it. Like what led up to the day of June 16, 2017.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

Yeah. Like I said, there was a there was a day where I said, I knew I've done everything I can. I knew at that point. Like there were times before where people were like, you need to leave, you need to leave. And I was like, no, I haven't done everything I can. Um at that point, I knew I had done everything I could. Um, my daughter wasn't safe. I wasn't safe. You were a different person when you were high those days. Like you started mixing your medications. Like it it truly is a miracle that you didn't overdose, um, that you didn't have a straight-up heart attack, the the amount of medications that you were taking.

SPEAKER_04 42:36

There were times where I would take 50 percocet in one day.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

It's insane. And there was one day where I tried to leave. I was packing stuff up in the car, and thank God you came home in the middle of it, of me packing up my trunk. And you were so high that you couldn't even like, you weren't cognizant enough to recognize what was going on. And I just gave you some, you were like, What are you doing? And I said, Oh, I was just taking some stuff over to a friend's house that we don't need anymore. Um, and you just went inside and fell asleep. And I was like, Oh my gosh. But I remember like that was the scariest day of my life because you were a different person. I was scared of you when you were high. Um, like God only knew what your reactions would be. There were plenty of times before that you had said, You'll never take Avery from me. Um, when I had said, you need to get your life together. This isn't gonna be what our family is. And so I was scared to death. And I realized then that I wasn't gonna be able to do this on my own. Like I really needed help if I was gonna leave and leave safely and not have some crazy scenario happen that I needed help. So I went to our friend's house who knew what was going on. They were some people we had told we were honest about everything that was going on too. I called them and I said, I need help um getting out. And so right after work one day, I went straight to their house and they said, Let's call the police because you had warrants out for your arrest. Like the police knew what you were doing.

SPEAKER_04 44:08

Yeah. So I had warrants because I went to all those different doctors and um I got three phone warrants.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

So yep. Some it raised red flags with the hospital systems, and they were like, Oh, this guy get this guy. Yeah. So I called the police, told them that I was your wife, I know where you were at, and that I wanted to get my daughter out safely. And they're like, let's do it. So three cop cars rolled up and they said, Follow us, we'll get your daughter for you, and um, you can get your stuff and leave, and we'll take Marcus away. And honestly, at that point, I was so fed up with the life that I had that I didn't sign up for, that things that I had put into our marriage and really tried to make this work and tried to get you healthy. Um, but just knowing you weren't there yet. You didn't want it yet, and I can't want it for you. Um, I did everything in my power, but you hadn't done everything in your power. Um, and we were not on the same page. So I it was the hardest day of my life. Um, but it was also the most relief that I had felt in years. Um I pulled up behind the police, I saw you out on the porch, um, they got Avery from you, and you can tell your experience of that. But as soon as they gave her to me, I went inside, I locked the doors, and I started packing up all our stuff, and I've never felt like better about the direction of my future than in that moment because I knew I made the right decision for if I was hopeful for any change to happen, that that was the right thing that I had needed to do.

SPEAKER_04 45:46

I just remember seeing seeing you and the police, and I'm still high. You know, I threw up in the sink, I remember because I took too much medication. I I remember them taking Avery from me, and I didn't fully understand the weight of what was gonna happen. But I remember like it was like the first moment I I came face to face that I I really messed up because I saw how broken you were and how you were crying, and I remember giving you Avery. And then they took me away to jail for the first time, and I sat in this cell and I'm high because I popped some pills before I left. Because I knew I was going to jail, so I said, Well, I'm gonna go to jail high, and I sat inside of this cell and in my mind I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what was going on, I didn't fully understand the weight of what was happening until I get released on bond, I go home and everything's gone. Then it hits me. Then I just want to escape. There there's there was nothing else for me to do in that moment except try to leave this world. And like I said, I she said I was an unsafe person. I I would walk around looking for jealousy, trying to find her. I was so mad that she left me, she took my daughter, and I could not find her anywhere. She would not return any of my calls, she wouldn't pick up. Um, I even threatened to go to her job at in Cleveland. I said, I'll find you. You know, just was a crazy, unsafe lunatic. And, you know, it wasn't until one FaceTime phone call that everything changes for me, but I didn't I didn't want to live. And so I would call her and I would call her and she wouldn't pick up. And so my first father's day I spent by myself. And I just remember walking around can because I don't have a car, I got 10 bucks,

Rehab, Boundaries, And Surrender

SPEAKER_04 47:33

none of the doctors in the area will see me. I can't buy drugs because I don't have any money. And I was just going through crazy withdrawals. And on my first father's day, you finally picked up for one five-minute FaceTime phone call.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

And it was the Lord because that told me to pick up that phone call because you had legit called me hundreds and hundreds of times over the course of that weekend. And I was like, absolutely not. This was my boundary, I'm not doing this anymore, and there's no way you got help that quick. So I know you. Like you were gonna battle this out as long as you could. And for whatever reason, on that Sunday, obviously it's the Lord knowing that you wanted to take your life that day. Um, but I picked up, I didn't put my face on the screen, but I was like, you can look at your daughter. And so I put it in front of Avery's face.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

And as I looked at Avery, I just I saw the future.

SPEAKER_04 48:31

I saw if I got my life together what what I could have. But I remember my friend at the time told me, Sis Marcus, this is you're gonna have to show people, and it's not gonna be a quick thing, it's gonna be a long time. You gotta walk this thing out. And and I told Avery, I said, I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to be in your life. Because I was becoming the dad. I was becoming like my dad. He was absent in my life and I was becoming absent in hers. And so I checked myself into this rehabilitation facility called Teen Challenge.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

It was like one of the scariest things I'd ever done.

SPEAKER_04 49:07

I had never been to rehab, I and I didn't understand the weight of that decision because I I didn't know it was a year-long program, I didn't know it was a faith-based program. And I'm in the program and um I didn't realize I couldn't talk to you. I could only talk to you for 15 minutes a week. And so that was already torture. I couldn't see you guys. I'm in a facility with a bunch of addicts who are struggling and overcoming a variety of addictions, and I'm going through withdrawals. Like it was literally hell for me. I I did not want to be there. But if I wanted something I never had, I had to do something I never done. And so I'm in the program and I'm just kind of trying to figure it out. So four days in is our first family day. So the way that it worked out is every month there were these things called family days where the family could come up for a few hours and visit.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

And I yeah, well, I had received a phone call from the friend who told you about Teen Challenge, and he said he called me and he said, just so you know, I got Marcus checked into Teen Challenge, so he's in rehab, you're safe. I could come out of hiding. I was hiding in a friend's basement for like a week. Um, so I moved back into our apartment and I there was no chance I was going to this family day. Like four days later, what do you but he told me, this guy told me he said this is really beneficial for the guys to see their family and know that like they have something to work towards. So if there's any chance you would consider coming, um, I know you don't want to talk to him yet. If there's any chance you can consider coming, like it will be really beneficial for them to for you guys to come. And I just drug my, I did not want to come. Um, but if they said it's good for them to see their kids, then I was like, I'll do it. So I obviously want you to be healthy, but I didn't have a lot of hope for our marriage. Like I'm a nurse, right? So I was trained and studied on addiction. I knew that even if somebody um gets sober, that the chance of them relapsing is over 90%. Like it's just not it's not a reality and a life that I wanted. Um and so it it was a hard thing for me. But I I showed up with Avery that day on family day.

SPEAKER_04 51:15

I'm four days in, y'all, and I was like, I'm healed, Chelsea. The Lord delivered me.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

I knew that was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_04 51:21

I tried to leave, I put all my clothes in the trash bag, and you know, I went outside right when I saw Chelsea, and I snatched the keys from her. I was like, all right, we're going home. And uh I'll never, I will never to this day forget how strong you were that day. You looked at me and you said, You can go home, but you're not going home with me. Y'all, it hit me. I'm like, oh, I'm about to be in this program for a year.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

A whole year. You ain't coming home with me, buddy. I don't know where you're going.

SPEAKER_04 51:52

A year of my life.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

It was like the strength of the Lord, though. Like, I'm telling you, like, you females, you are stronger than you know. Yes, you are. All you need to do is put a boundary out there, believe in it, know that it's the right thing, and stand by it.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

Don't let him manipulate you. Yeah, don't let him do what he normally does. Because I tried, I tried every trick that worked years prior. I tried them all and none of them worked. You were a completely different person and you stood your ground. And as as you stood your ground, I realized I was going to be there for a year. So I said, I'm gonna be here. I'm about to lock in. Like I'm going to lock in, I'm going to give it my all because God, I'm not here because I want to get off drugs. I'm here because I need a new life. I don't even know who I am. I'm struggling with my identity in you. I don't know what I'm good at. I don't know what I'm supposed to do in this world. And so they would talk about Jesus. I'm like, well, Jesus, if you are who you say you are, then change me. And boy, oh boy, it was a wild ride. Like a wild ride.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Yeah, you were anytime he would call me, like he said once a week, he could call me. Anytime you picked up the phone and called me, first of all, I didn't usually want to be on the phone yet. His his process was I'm with Jesus 24-7. I'm going to therapy. Like you had a therapist there. He was able to get to the root of his traumas. He was doing all this healing work, but I'm at home traumatized by what just happened in our marriage, and I'm working a full-time job and raising a newborn baby. Um, I was stressed and I didn't have a lot of time to process. So my process with the Lord to find healing and forgiveness and all this stuff was much, much slower than yours. Everybody thinks that, like, well, the Lord delivered you and it happened overnight and then they were good. It's like, no, this was a long process of healing and a long journey to get to this place in our marriage.

SPEAKER_04 53:42

So I'm in the program and I'm just kind of reading my Bible all the time and Bible study. I mean, the word of God transformed the way I saw myself. And I had these pivotal moments in the program, and I'll share two of them. One was when I read Ephesians 1.6 for the first time, and I still was striving and trying to build things and do things for God because I had tried to do that before, but it wasn't until I read Ephesians 1.6 where it says, To the praise of the glory of his grace, for which I've made you accepted in the beloved. At that moment, it was a realization, it was a revelation that I was loved and accepted by God, that he saw me. And it wasn't about what I could do for him. It wasn't about, you know, um how effective I could be in ministry. It was that he loved me for who I was. And you wrote me a letter. I would write these letters to people uh in the program, and I got two letters back. A lot of people just wouldn't write me back, which understandably so, uh, wasn't the best person to write back, but you wrote me a letter, and I remember you gave me a scripture, and at the end of the letter it said, Marcus, God loves you for who you are, not who you try to be. Man, that that pierced me. And I realized I was I was really good at putting on the front for so many people. And I was effective and I could fool people enough to keep them just far enough away. And when I read that, I'm like, well, I need to lock in with Jesus, read that scripture, everything in my life completely transformed in a moment.

SPEAKER_03 55:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:06

It was like I realized, wait a minute, are you kidding me? I'm 29 and God loves me. He's for me. Yeah, He doesn't love my sin, He loves me, He is for me. And he was calling me into a relationship with Him that I had never experienced.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

And so I was all in, like Yeah, you were having radical encounters with Jesus, and I'm at home, like just fighting off all the voices in my head, all the voices of people around him, around me telling me how to handle this. Like I had half the world telling me, like, oh, just divorce him. Like he broke your vows, like he's not the husband that he vowed to be. Like you have every right to walk away from him. And honestly, part of me wanted to do that. Part of me expected that that was going to be the reality for our marriage. And then I had this other group of people, you know, like screaming in my ear, like, God hates divorce. Don't you dare leave your husband. And they had no idea the harm that you had caused. Um, so I was just juggling all this stuff. And I remember the Lord telling me one night just to be still. Um, is I felt an extreme amount of pressure to make a decision about what I was gonna do. Like, I needed to decide now. I needed to go get a lawyer, I needed to do this and this and

Identity In Christ And Slow Healing

SPEAKER_01 56:17

this, and I had this checklist of things everybody was telling me to do. And I all of a sudden I just had this peace that I don't have to make this decision right now. Like I can wait and see what the Lord does. Like, there's no pressure to to make a decision anymore. And I just felt a freedom to wait on him. And progressively over several, several, several months, I was like, okay, I can pick up the phone call. Like eventually I was like, I'm actually interested in what he did this week. I'm actually interested in what the Lord's been telling him. And there was just like a love opening up in my heart. And it's funny, I share often when I talk about our story that the world tells us to all it makes me cry.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Gosh darn it. But the world tells us to love until we've been hurt, and I felt God told me to love you as if I had never been hurt, and that's like that takes God to do that. We can't do that in our own power and our own flesh and our own strength. Like it takes the Lord and the Holy Spirit walking with you to be able to do that. And I feel like He was allowing me to do that because everything in me wanted to end our relationship. But over time, and with my surrender of like control of the narrative and like letting go of caring about the perception that everybody had of our marriage and our relationship. The Lord healed my heart and I really was able to love you as if you had never hurt me.

SPEAKER_03 57:55

I just remember I would call you.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

It would be the highlight of my week because I had no touch with the outside world. And I would call you, and oftentimes it would be you explaining to me how much I hurt you and how I messed your life up and forced you being a single mom. But then as the months would go by, they started to get better, and then I would get get a chance to go home. At the six-month mark, I got a chance to go home for three days. At the nine-month mark, three days, and then I I can't remember, it's been so long, but I think I get to go home for one more three, three days at the end, and I just remember coming home and I I had these profound moments with Jesus where I realized why I wasn't him, and then I found Luke 15. And I remember when I called Jacob this, but Luke 15 says, Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near him to hear him, and the Pharisees and scribes complain, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. So he spoke this parable to them saying, What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness to go after the one which is lost until he finds it. And when he is found, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you likewise, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents and over 99 just persons who need no repentance. I'm in rehab, and I read this story, and it was a profound encounter with God where everyone leaves the room, and it was just me and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And as I'm by myself, I hear the voice of God speak to my heart, and he says, Marcus, you were the lost sheep I left the 99 for. Never make ministry about numbers. Every single person has infinite value. I've given you the ministry of reconciliation. He said, Go and win, my children. Then I heard reach one, it stands for reconciling every abandoned child home. The lowest moment of my life in rehab, and yet God spoke to me. But God will always tell us who we are before He tells us. To do, he called me beloved, he called me accepted. It wasn't about what I could do for him, but then he said, Go and win my children because I began to learn how to live from a place of identity and sonship with God.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

Every single day in Rhea, but I say it was the best year of my life. Yeah, every day I was intentional. I would wake up and I would seek the face of Jesus. I would seek his presence and what he wanted me to do. And if there were ways that I needed to die that day, I would look forward to dying all the way to the point where Holy Spirit said, plead guilty to my felonies. I knew that God was with me. I was like, you know what, God, if if I'm going to be a person of integrity, it means pleading guilty and admitting I made these mistakes. And I stood in front of a judge in court, guilty as can be. And I said, Judge, listen, we can just end all the court proceedings now. I want you to know that I did it. That judge looks at me with tears in her eyes, and she completely dropped all the charges and told me to go back to Teen Challenge. So I had to experience God's powerful redemption and his love and his forgiveness and his mercy. And I just knew that if I'm going to be in this program, I'm going to give all of me. Not just some of me. I'm not going to do the bare minimum. I'm going to be all in.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

That's crazy. Rehab this experience for you was like, and for me, that whole year that we were separated and doing life on our own, like the thing that we were most scared of, like facing the consequence of telling people we're dealing with addiction and what is going to happen to our life when we finally did, like what the enemy meant for evil.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

Like God used that year for both of us to be the best year of our lives. The year we both figured out our strength, the strength that we had in the Lord, the year that we both figured out our deep-rooted identity, getting over trauma, like really finding out who we are in the Lord and what God has for us. Like that year was pivotal to both of our lives.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:49

Pivotal. I end up graduating the program. It's the first thing I've ever graduated from in my life. Come on, somebody. And I remember, you know, the whole family being there on my graduation day was the second greatest day of my life. Was one was when I realized I was loved by God, two was when I met you and asked you to be my wife. And three was when I graduated from rehab. It was a glorious celebration. And I remember my 18-month-old little girl Avery running up to me. And we come home and we start this life together. And I don't really know like what God wants me to do. All I know is I'm so happy not to be on drugs. Yeah. Like I found joy in the most mundane things. Like being able to go to a gas station, being able to just do normal things.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:32

Get your daughter dressed in the morning. You were

Graduation, Restoration, And Daily Joy

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

so excited to wake up every day and pick out an outfit for Avery that was like so matchy matchy in like the goofiest way. But it brought you so much joy. You would send me a picture every morning when she woke up of how you dressed Avery that day. And honestly, it's so crazy because the whole year that you were in rehab, I was like, I don't know if he's gonna be able to move home. He's gonna be on drugs forever. Like, I don't know how I'll ever be able to live with this guy again. And literally the second you came home, I had zero concerns for leaving Avery at home alone with you, for what you were gonna be doing it with your time. Like I was working full-time as a nurse still, and I had no concerns because of the way the Lord completely delivered you.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:17

Radically delivered you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

You were a completely different person, no questions asked. This wasn't a typical recovery story. This was not like Marcus is working on his sobriety one day at a time. No, screw that. Marcus was delivered from drugs, a completely new creation in Christ.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:37

Completely new. He transformed me. And I always say I didn't need 12 steps. I need one step called surrender. And I realized that I couldn't fix me. But I surrendered my life to the one who could. And boy, oh boy, did he he transform the way that I even saw myself and saw other people all throughout the program? There would be these encounters where I would have to come face to face with like um either it's bad theology or or or pain or trauma from my past. But I didn't have to face it alone. It was the first time in my life I realized I didn't have to face it alone. I could face it with Jesus. And I was able to overcome it by his power, by his strength. That's why the Bible says, not by might nor by power, but by his strength, says the Lord. And I come home and I I hadn't thought about using drugs since June 16th, since the day you left. And that's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's not the work of Marcus, it's not the work of the program, it's the work of who I met in the program, and his name is Jesus. So if you're listening to this and you're struggling right now with addiction, I'm ready to tell you that there's no one's too far gone.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:45

No one is too far gone. And if you're listening to this and you maybe are married to or in a relationship with somebody that is struggling with addiction, you're strong enough to hold your ground because that might be the very thing that God uses to save their life.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:00

Because I can confidently say, had you not done what you did, I would not be here today.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:04

I would either be in jail or I'll be dead in a hell. Because you decided to put your foot down and stand for something. And it it transformed the trajectory of my life, the trajectory of your life, the trajectory of our ministry. And so I'm home and we're we're just living life, we're doing life. I'm working, you know, I'm a part-time um youth pastor, I'm a volunteer janitor, I'm working at, you know, United Way. I'm just, you know, working.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:29

Putting your nose to the ground because that was my expectations, by the way. Is I was like, you coming home, you're gonna work. You're gonna do all the things that you never did before.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:38

And shout out to Papa Whiteside, my spiritual father, for coming to see me when I was in the program and he's walking with us through this journey. He told me when I graduated, son, you're gonna have to go home and earn the right to be dad, earn the right to be husband.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:48

He's like, Don't you don't just try to puff up your chest and say, This is mine. No, you go there and you serve your family, and she'll willingly give you those keys. And you did that.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:57

And um, I remember I'm working at United Way and in this moment of our ministry, nothing had ever started. We were just living life. Yeah. And we were happy.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

We just had dreams of God using it, like, because our story isn't wasted, and we know that, and that God was gonna use it one day, but we weren't like working towards anything. It was fully like, we're gonna wait on the Lord, and whenever his timing rolls around, we're ready.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:21

Absolutely. So at this moment, I get a call from a principal that wanted me to do a school assembly and hadn't done those before. And I knew that this was the moment that I was to start Reach One. And I I called my job, I said, Hey, you know, on this Friday, I want to, you know, go do this assembly. Um I want to start this organization called Reach One. They looked at me and they said, You cannot do that. You if you do that, you can't work here. Because I was helping raise funds for this organization and they didn't want me to use my mouthpiece and gifts anywhere else except for them. And it was one of those crossroads moments, and I remember being so terrified to call Chelsea and tell her, but I just felt strongly that I was supposed to start Reach One through the school assembly. And I called you and I want you to talk about your response.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

Well, I'm a naturally risk-averse person. Like, we don't take risks, we don't do things that don't make sense. Like, if this doesn't make sense, we're not doing it. Uh that's just how I'm wired. And for whatever reason, you know, obviously I know why now, but all of that was stripped away. And I had the most faith that, no, this is what God was doing. It's time. Go ahead. It doesn't make sense because we're talking about like we're healing our family. We want to have another baby because we want some a beautiful child who's gonna be raised in a loving home to be born, um, a healthy experience this time. You know, we're talking about growing our family. I'm still working as a full-time nurse, and you're like out of rehab, and you're like, I think I need to quit my job. And I'm like, well, all signs for addicts would say that this is like a terrible red flag. Um, but that it wasn't a concern. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:08

You quit your job, like that's that's a sure, sure tell sign that you're gonna

Launching Reach One Against The Odds

SPEAKER_04 1:08:12

either relapse or you're gonna die. That's just the reality.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

Exactly. This is a step in the wrong direction. And I just felt all the peace in the world that nope, this is the Lord opening a door for us to be obedient and it's a risk and it doesn't make sense, but we're supposed to do it. So I was like, go, babe, you go share our story and give kids hope that no matter what they've walked through, that there is hope for their life and they can start over at any moment and reclaim what God has for them. So I was fully supportive.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:43

Once I got that green light, I didn't need anything else. I knew that it was go time, so I quit that job. We start reach one and I didn't know what I was doing. I got on stage for an hour and just screamed how much kids mattered and how God loved them.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

But God used it.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:01

He used it. I still got clips from that first uh from that first message, but God really used it and he breathed on it. And it was about being faithful when the door opened. And it it wasn't like reach one just took off from there. I still worked I had to find other jobs to make sure I could provide for our family, and but I just stayed focused on what God what he called us to do. Even in the midst of hate and in the midst of scrutiny from other people and ridicule and people making fun of us for thinking that we could travel. I was told that I would never be able to travel and speak.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

And we would walk into rooms and people would be like, oh, here's reach one. Like just totally making fun of like the dream that God put on our hearts. Like the honestly, the innocence and purity of us just wanting to share what God did in our lives and for people to make fun of it was devastating.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:52

And I didn't understand why people who were Christian who said they loved us, who were for us, would do those kinds of things. I just didn't understand that. It didn't make sense to me, but I I knew one thing, I'm not going to let anybody deter me from what God said.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

Yeah, we were you weren't gonna get us to be disobedient to what God was saying. We're like, okay, well, I guess the whole world can hate us and misunderstand our intentions and not know our hearts, but I don't care because every single time we shared our story somewhere and somebody's life was touched and they made a different decision, there's nothing you could do to make us stop doing that. Yeah. To see God use to see God use our story and know that everything we went through was not for nothing.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:40

None of it was wasted. All the moments of when I would drive around not wanting to be here anymore, when I would lie, when I would be sitting inside of a hospital bed, knowing that I'm making a mistake, none of that is wasted with Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:56

And it's been an insane journey. We'll talk more about where each one is now, you know, in the future, because that's not our story. Like, you know, God is using it, and he's I mean, we've spoken to hundreds of thousands of students, shared our story at this point, um, thousands of salvations. Like, we couldn't be more grateful. But at the end of the day, our story is how God plucked our marriage out of the mess, and now he uses it for his glory.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:32

We can confidently say all of our lives are for his glory. Everything, everything we do. Um, we ended up having another kid, uh, Dakota. Shout out to Dakota, Sophia, and Avery Grace are two beautiful little girls that are on fire for the Lord, but God redeemed our marriage, God redeemed our family. And more than being ministry people, we get to be a loving family that raises our kids in the ways of God and provide them a healthy environment to ask questions and to grow. And yeah, people ask me all the time, like, are you living your best life? Yes, every single day, because I get to wake up and see my beautiful wife smiling, not afraid of me. I get to see my daughters um growing up into their own unique personalities. And I get to wake up and say this all the time. It's time to give a hell of a hard time. Because, like you just said earlier, what the devil meant for evil, God is turning into using for good. And we'll we'll take on the scrutiny, we'll take on the hate, we'll take on the people misunderstanding our intentions, because if souls are being saved, if people are coming to know Jesus through our story, through the ministry that God has brought through us, then I say it's all worth it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:45

It's all worth it. Amen. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:56

Well that ends this episode of the Reach One Podcast. Thank you guys so much for listening. Please like, subscribe, uh, wherever you listen to podcasts over there. Stay tuned for more incredible interviews coming up.