One Last Hit #9 w/ Marc B. | From Chicago's Murder City to 10 Years Sober

Marc B. was born on the wild west side of Chicago — Murder City, the ghetto, a Puerto Rican neighborhood bordering an African American one — the youngest of four kids whose alcoholic father died of cirrhosis at 46. His stepfather, a Vietnam vet with a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, was a monster behind closed doors. He nearly beat Marc to death multiple times before the age of six. Marc grew up across 12 schools and 4 high schools, always the new kid, always trying to fit in, carrying a head full of trauma he wouldn't understand for decades.

What followed was 17 treatment centers, years of homelessness on the streets of Chicago, crack cocaine, heroin, an engagement ring sold for dope money, a fiancée abandoned with their dog, two violent felonies, and a life lived in abandoned buildings, alleys, and project stairwells — surviving on hundreds of dollars a day running cons on strangers. He was a professional, a decorated executive, a man who could build a team and close a deal — and he was sleeping under cardboard and shooting dope the same week.

The turning point came in a jail cell, facing 6 to 8 years in prison, when a probation officer decided to believe him. Marc walked out the next morning instead of into a penitentiary. He hasn't looked back since May 3, 2011.

Today Marc is a Chief Operating Officer, 15+ years sober, married to the woman who never gave up on him, and the father of a little girl who wins Empathy Awards at her Christian school. He lives in Orlando. He still carries the weight of complex PTSD. And he'll tell you plainly: it's all about willingness — and his arrived right on time.

This is the One Last Hit Podcast.

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Transcript

Introduction — Marc B. & Austin

SPEAKER_00 1:18

What is happening, ladies and gentlemen? My name is Austin, and welcome to the One Last Hit podcast. And once again, you guys are in for a treat. My good buddy Mark B is joining us today. Mark, what's happening, man? How are you doing, buddy?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Hey, Austin. I'm doing great, man. Thanks for having me, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah, yeah. Good to have you. So I've known Mark for God, a couple of years now. I I've heard I've heard pieces of Mark's story. And I know that the uh specimen you see sitting in front of you today was not the same one that was homeless on the streets of Chicago uh a number of years back. So I'm very, very excited to get into your story, bud. So tell me where does it all begin, man? Where did where what did your childhood look like? Where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, absolutely. So um, yeah, born

Born on the West Side of Chicago

SPEAKER_01 2:02

in Chicago. Um, most of my 54 years, uh, 51 years spent there, moved to Orlando three years ago with my family. But yeah, I was born on the west side of Chicago, where everyone here is Chicago, which is an amazing, beautiful city. But yes, we have our our troubled areas like most major metropolitan areas. So I was born uh on the wild, wild west side, as they call it, right, which is murder city uh in the ghetto and a mostly Puerto Rican bordering an African-American neighborhood filled with poverty like us, uh, growing up that way and a lot of gangs and violence and all of that. I spent uh, you know, up to about first grade there. And then we started moving uh to different places, apartments and you know, kind of subpar neighborhoods, you know, lower blue collar to poor. We eventually made our way up to getting to, you know, more mid-level, safer suburban areas. Um, you know, but still there was always riffref that I navigated to. So yeah, born, you know, uh there, and you know, 12 schools, four high schools, youngest of four, and just uh, you know, a lot of calamity early on, right? Just you kind of born into that world.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

So did you say 12 schools?

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Yeah, yeah. So uh we just moved a lot, right? You know, um, you know, I'll wait till you prompt me on the fine family dynamics, but you know, the dynamics dictated.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Go for it, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Oh, yeah, yeah. So so I was the last of four kids, right? So my mother, she fell in love with this, you know, man who courted her, this handsome 16-year-old, you know, boy, teenager. She was 16, fell in love, first love, lost her virginity, got pregnant, and married him. And that was my real father, who has passed of cirrhosis decades ago at 46 years old, got arrested. And he, I don't believe he ever found the solution of any type of sobriety, but obviously. Um, but yeah, my mom was 23 years old, and I was the fourth child to be born. So imagine. And he was yeah, it's you know, crazy. So the stories from her was he was this charming debonair, courting gentleman who uh picked up a picked up a beer at 17 years old. And she says almost immediately in hindsight, he became an alcoholic. He was, you know, he was addicted or dependent on alcohol right away. And and that man drank almost a case of beer daily, you know, through through the next couple, a few decades of his life before he passed from you know cirrhosis and it killed him. But um, she divorced him, you know, when I was one year old, married my stepfather who lived across the street. Um, they were friends of ours, from my family, I guess, because we were neighbors. Uh, my stepfather Marty, she had known him for years through her, you know, through while she was married to my real father and all his kids, we were neighbors. So he came home from Vietnam after two tours in Nam and he took on the responsibility, uh, which he probably shouldn't have of four children. And he married my mother. He became my stepfather. So since I was like one and a half, I grew up with him. And, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, he was a monster, right? He he was extremely controlling. He was emotionally

A Stepfather Who Was a Monster

SPEAKER_01 5:02

unavailable. I lived with him until I was a junior in high school when I moved out, you know, and almost a brawl with him. And uh, you know, extreme physical, emotional abuse from him. He almost killed me like three times, almost bled out by the time I was between three and six, and just bashing my head against banisters and all kinds of, you know, just very severe, sick, um, twisted child abuse and a lot of, and I don't know what happened to him. I don't know, you know, his mother was my godmother, and she was a she was a bilingual Catholic grade school teacher in poverty in the ghetto that loved the Lord, right? And I'm like, well, I know, I know she didn't inflict that on him, you know, because you know, obviously the ripple effect, right? Both of sobriety and grace and and love and good parenting, as well as the abuse and the trauma and and all of that. So I never knew. And I still don't know where, you know, what affected him to such a degree to be so violent, especially toward towards, you know, a young child. And I was the youngest, and he started, you know, beating me at three, and I had three older siblings he really didn't put a hand on. So it was very odd, right? I mean, and he continued that abuse for years. So there was instability emotionally, there was instability in in the house and financially. Um, you know, my mother was a waitress. Uh, she did everything she could to take care of us. We were on and off welfare. He was a strong worker. He's meticulously clean. He, you know, he was a sergeant, like I said, a NAM. Maybe he had agent orange that discolored his personality. You know, I don't know what happened, but um, you know, he he worked for a factory, then he worked for the United States Post Office until he retired, you know. So he he did serve the government, he served his country, uh which I do respect that part about him. You know, nine years as a sergeant, two tours in NAM and decorated with a bronze star and a purple heart. And uh, but he never told me he loved me, one of those deals, right? Never, never gave me the keys, right? Never gave me the map, never showed me how to, you know, make healthy decisions as a young man, uh, never affirmed me. And and that really took its toll, right? So that's why the schools, all the neighborhoods, always trying to fit in with new crowds, you know, and um, you know, the anxious apartness we talk about, being in a big room but feeling uncomfortable and uh all of that. So yeah, childhood had a lot of calamity. You know, I I do believe that, you know, I for me, alcoholic and addict to be extreme. I'm a hopeless variety, right? You know, I'm a late-stage chronic um, you know, alcoholic and drug addict. Uh, and I think if the abuse wasn't there and he was loving and affirming and kind like my mother was, I still would have been that. I just believe that. And, you know, some people buy into the genetic predisposition of alcoholism and drug drug addiction, and some people don't. What I know is, man, my family's riddled with alcoholics. My dad died 40 feet. My dad drank beer, he drank beer to the extent from 16 to 46 to shut his organs down and kill his liver,

What It Felt Like to Be That Little Boy

SPEAKER_01 8:01

just beer. He never touched a just a shot of nothing. Yeah. So, anyways, yeah, I think I would have been that way anyway. So, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

How did it feel? I mean, growing up, so I if I picture, I've got a three-year-old at home. And if I could picture that that poor young boy being somehow physically abused in his home, you know, I can't even imagine the effect that that would have on him. Do you recall what it felt like to be you as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah, you know, great question. And like like you, and I know you you're uh uh a proud and grateful father of a lot of kids in a big family. And I'd have one beautiful angel, my daughter Angelia, who's going to be nine in October. And um and I've thought about it since day one, right, when I was holding her at Northwestern Hospital downtown Chicago on October 11th of 2017, that this gift, this beautiful prize that I never thought that I would have or deserve from what I what I came out of what I went through. But, you know, I went through years of therapy. Uh, I still am a see a psychiatrist. Uh, I was diagnosed years ago with complex PTSD to an acute level. Um, and and I just want to preface this as well for anyone who might be watching this that may have experienced something, some type of deep trauma, might have a, you know, an emotional and mental disorder and a psychological disorder like myself, or or in a relationship with somebody that's afflicted with this, that, you know, for years I used my abuse as a crutch to hate the world and hate everyone. And every everything I did, I excused. If you went through what I went through, you grew up in the streets, the violence, the fighting, the gangs, you grew up in my household, you had that abuse, you would have done this too. And really, what I was doing is I was just excusing my behavior. You know, after I became an adult, I knew right from wrong. And of course, there were certain certain things I could not control often, but there were certainly things that I needed to take responsibility for and change. And through my road through recovery and sobriety and healing and change and unpacking all that, I've been able to

Complex PTSD & Taking Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 10:01

take responsibility for my life, you know, you know, coupled with having a sustained mental illness, you know, and I really do have that. So that's part of my story. But as a little boy, I was frightened, man. I was scared constantly. You know, it was like I was walking around with Lucifer in the house many a day. And I can remember vividly, I remember the beatings vividly. You know, when I say a complex PTSD, same thing as a soldier coming home, waking up in the middle of the night, you know, with a knife in his hand, like he's walking through the jungle in the bush, you know, with the Viet Con, you know, around him. And it's not always that severe, but all the mild, milder, but very damaging emotional, um, the emotional turmoil and the aspects emotionally, I still have, right? Like I still have a head full of trauma. I still, I still have to deal with that, you know. And I would love to say, hey, I've been sober, you know, besides four days, I had a relapse. I've been sober for 15 plus years, right? I entered AA in 2011 and got sober finally,

First Buzz at 10 — When the Noise Stopped

SPEAKER_01 11:01

had a four-day relapse in 15, have been sober since. And my life is incredibly radically changed and transformed through that work. Uh, but the truth about me is in the spirit of transparency, that I suffer greatly emotionally. And any given day I can wake up and that is just activated. Um, and it's hard, it's hard for me to navigate through the world in my head, right? But as a little boy, I was petrified, you know, and and uh and I acted out a lot, you know, quite a quite a few, quite a bit, actually.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

So yeah. No, I I I'm just I was just trying to kind of like picture that in my own mind, like what that looked and felt like. And so I would imagine by the time how old were you when you took your first uh drink or drug? What first time you caught a buzz?

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, we've you know, my my stepfather wasn't an alcoholic, but when he drank, he drank uh VO and he drank to excess and drunkenness. Um and he was a weekend warrior, or he drank, you know, beer, but to an you know, so he would drink on the weekends. Um in our house, my grandparents all drank alcoholics. So I was drinking beer at you know, at three years old, sipping it, all of that. When I caught my first buzz, I was probably around 10 or 11 at my sister, one of my sisters' first weddings, but I was constantly around liquor, every family occasion. We were big drinking family, all of that. So uh, but yeah, I mean, if you asked me what's when's when did you have your first drunk or higher veniberator? It would have been about 10 or 11, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

And and what would happen, like so from the age of 10, when you first discovered, wow, there's a solution to the way that I'm feeling, how does it progress from that point forward?

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Yeah, you know, at that point, I was so young. I I uh you know, throughout my junior high years, we would you know, remarkably so, which we'll get into my story later of the type of alcoholic and addict I am. I didn't get higher drunk um until my mid-teens, you know, it was kind of kind of odd. I think sports, you know, I I did navigate to sports. I played a ton of sports as a kid and through, you know, throughout most of my life. So I think that helped a lot, you know. Um, but yeah, we'd sneak away with a couple beers and you know, marble reds and go to the park and cough and drink the beer, which I hated the taste of it and stuff. So yeah, you know, I just and I I did not know, I did not identify or understand at 10 years old, like, oh, this makes me feel oozy and fun, that this was a solution for me. It didn't correlate. But when it did, you know, hell broke loose, right? When it did, you know, uh, my middle teens, that's when, you know, the light went on, like, oh, I could get a little temporary relief from the way I feel, which I really needed.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah. And so middle teens, was there a was there a catalyst at that time, or was it social pressure that that kind of reintroduced you to drugs and alcohol? Or what was it that really kicked you off?

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Yeah, so typical high school, you know, bouncing around. And I, you know, and you know, freshman year, three sport, let them in, you know, sophomore year, two and a half sports, because I quit you halfway through the season because my coach pissed me off. Here comes, you know, the

High School, Sports, and Losing It All

SPEAKER_01 14:01

emotional, you know, ego, resentment, anger, you know, junior year, um yeah, one sport, and then none my senior year, which is a shame. I was a really good athlete, right? And I had potential to do a lot. Nope. Yeah. And um, but why I'm why I'm uh how that correlates to my drinking and drugging is, you know, I never realized till years later that the increase in alcohol and marijuana decreased my commitment to my sports. And because of the alcohol marijuana, I had consequences, crashing cars, fighting in public, where I had consequences, financial consequences, where I had to get a job in high school to start paying this stuff as well, which I couldn't be committed to a sports, you know, practice and game regimen. So uh, but yeah, you know, when I started drinking in high school, I was crazy. I'm an extremely extroverted, one of the most extroverted people that most people meet. I have that high energy level always had. That is my disposition, I was born with. And imagine that fueled by alcohol, hyper energy, um, you know, you know, throw throw mental illness on there, and I'm wild. So people who love me were like, Borelli's absolutely fucking crazy, and he's Orion. But if he starts swinging, run, because he's gonna throw the whole place up for grabs. And I was that guy, you know. So yeah, but I loved it. I absolutely love being drunk, and you know, I love marijuana, and those were my first two, you know, substances that I just ran with for through the rest of my high school years before I got to the harder stuff.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah, and no, and you know, nobody in high school says, you know, take a few drinks, smoke a couple of doobies, have a good time. And nobody equates to, you know, in my case, it was homeless in Mexico City, in your case, homeless in Chicago, right? Smoking crack, shooting heroin, doing what we do. What what's the progression? Like, how do we get to that point?

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Oh man, you know, it's so hard. There's so much there. I'm really gonna work hard to give you the Cliff Notes version, but chronologically, for it to make sense and kind of tie it together Austin.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

So after high school, uh, you know, remarkably, um, I had a major injury. I severed my left Achilles tendon a month after graduation. I barely graduated, not because I wasn't intelligent enough. I moved out my junior year high school. You know, um, I got no credits, half a junior year. I smoked weed and drank daily, chase girls, and you know, that was when, you know, the rap era and public enemy and easy and all that stuff in the late 90s. So I was in that scene, going to clubs, dancing, house music, all that stuff. And and then I, you know, then I moved back home. I hated it. I moved back home uh my senior year, and I had a transfer school, so you had to get into my fourth high school, and I had to buckle down and focus where I wasn't going to graduate high school. So I did do that. I had ambitions to go back and wrestle again. I had wrestled, you know, varsity my sophomore year, and I skipped junior year because of, you know, the other things I was involved in. But my plan was let's go. And then one drunken night, I crashed a car, you know, 17 years old, drunk as heck, you know, totaled my sister's car, it in a fight, and there it goes. I have to work to pay it off. I can't wrestle that year. And um uh so, anyways, uh I barely graduated high school, but I did graduate. I sever my Tilly's tendant on my left leg, making five bucks an hour at a bar, you know, washing dishes, and that sidelines me for six months in a cast. I don't, you know, I try to go to junior college and I'm going to junior college and night school, and I get my first career position at a computer company downtown Chicago across the street from a Sears Tower, which is really cool. So now I'm in corporate America where I was supposed to be the whole time. You know, that's actually where I was supposed to be because, you know, business uh, you know, just came naturally to me. Um, you know, I I uh so I started working, you know, full-time. I got engaged, that blew up. We were too young, fell in love with another woman, moved downtown Chicago, became independent,

Cocaine, Heartbreak, and the Eight Ball

SPEAKER_01 18:02

working full-time as a computer salesman, and dating a woman. And I was possessively jealous of her. She was beautiful, much older than me, and we were madly in love, and she left me. And this is really key because this is kind of a pattern from my life. And she said to me, she says, you know, it's a shame what they did to you because I want to grow old with you, I want to have a family with you, I'm madly in love with you. We have perfect chemistry interests, but you don't trust me, and you are broken inside, and I can't stay along for this. And she goes, I'm so sorry what you've been through. Um, and it was the right thing for her to do. And I had an anger outburst at work after that computer company three and a half years as a successful computer salesman for an Apple Macintosh company in the in the early 90s, now it's almost mid-90s, and she left me, and I also lost my job. And I was alone in my apartment. I never forgot. I sat there crying by myself in Little Italy, Chicago, and I called the guy and he dropped an eight ball off. And I became immediately, immediately, and I had dabbled with cocaine a lot. And when I first did cocaine, I spent all night doing it. It was in that, it was in that cast at 18 years old when I server my gillies. Some guy brought it out, and I just did lines all night. I loved it. I'm like, my God, I love every narcotic. Everything I've done, I loved. I've absolutely loved every ride. You know, people say, hey, my best day drunk is, you know, worse than my whatever it is, than I, you know, my worst day silver. They did it wrong. That is the most absurd, bullshit thing I've ever heard, man. Before it got bad, it was awesome. I've seen Pink Floyd on mushrooms and the best hydroponic weed, you know, like 94 at Soldier Field Chicago, right? Sitting at the 50-yard line of my beloved Chicago Bears watching. Like, listen, that wasn't me shitting myself, trying to get dope, climbing out the project's window in the ghetto. So, no, my you know, my worst I was not, right? Like,

17 Treatment Centers — In and Out of the Rooms

SPEAKER_01 20:01

I don't know what you did, but let me tell you, I liked almost every ride. And even at the end, when it was, you know, when it was so pathetic and so hopeless, dude. You know, I needed it. I couldn't, I couldn't deal with reality. So um to fast forward, all right. So I I'm now through the mid-90s, you know, I lost a corporate job. I start waiting tables. Excellent waiter, some of the nicest neighborhoods downtown Chicago, really successful, two, three hundred dollars a night. I'm a head waiter and a bartender. This is 95. That's a lot of money, right? Um, so I'm making two, 300 a night. My rent's $575. I'm three months behind on rent. I make that in two nights in the month. You know, I'm behind on rent. I have baggies all over the house. I'm smoking weed, staying up three, four days in a row, grinding it out. And, you know, I enter my first treatment center, first of 17 treatments from 1997 to 2005. I go to 17 treatments and detoxes, inpatient, men's residential, uh, first through benefits, then, you know, I'm walking in the skid row hay market, the lowest of the low. That's where Chicago police are are taking homeless drunks that are defecating themselves and they're dropping them off at the front, right? So I'm I'm riding that that train now uh towards the end. But I really try to get my life together a number of times. And like it says in the big book, he kind of cleans himself up, he kind of builds up a little bit of a future, bright future, and then he tears it all down again. And and that's the hopelessness and the powerless of what I was afflicted with, right? And I I fully comprehended and understood a path to sobriety. I knew tons of people who were sober. I was in and out of the rooms. I probably went to a thousand to 1,500 recovery, you know, meetings, 12-step meetings. And I know people get sober a lot of different ways, but for me, I was going to NA, mostly, mostly AA, NA, and CA. And, you know, I was well versed in it. You know, I was a perfect treatment client. I knew all the things to say and what they were going to break it down. Um, the medical, emotional, you know, aspect of how, you know, how it afflicts us and what the solution was. I never doubted it at all, but I had absolutely zero willingness to really, really get serious and do the work. So what my what what it looked like from 97 to 2005, in in my mind, Austin, that seems like 20 years, but it was a short period of time, but it seems like a couple of decades of my life, man, because it was just this unbelievable calamity, consequence-filled, you know, uh mayhem of life, just completely insane. And I was good in business, right? I was a good recruiter, I'm a great salesman, and you know, you know, uh I never owned my own company, but you know, I've been with my company 14 and a half years as a chief operating officer, you know, extremely successful with them, you know. And uh so what my in the 90s, I went back into sales, I went back into mortgage, I went into the mortgage banking, I went into executive recruiting for a couple of contingent retained uh firms, and I was hired as operation manager, branch manager, building teams under me, struggle. Knocking it out three, six months, right? And just I picking up again, right? Never really being able to put any time together. At times, what I could do is put 30, 45 days, go to a meeting or two a week and kind of live in the rooms and sit my ass in a seat of recovery, but not really do the deep, intense, you know, work on myself emotionally and spiritually through the guidance of a sponsor and the literature and the steps as our pathway to freedom. And therefore, I guess a worse relapse and a worse relapse in another institution, another institution, and going through some relationships and eventually met my current wife, who is a Christian woman who's never smoked a cigarette, seen anybody drink. You know, she's in a completely sheltered, real, wholesome, genuine, uh, organic Christian family who love God and love the world and love people and had absolutely 100% opposite life experience than me. And I meet her and she falls in love with me. And imagine I have a relationship with God. I'm in and

Faith, Church, and Smoking Crack the Same Week

SPEAKER_01 24:01

out of a big evangelical church. I'm doing service periodically at that church. I'm leaving that church and going to the projects and smoking crack. I was afflicted. You know, I was afflicted by something evil. And, you know, I'm by myself, 26 years old at Willow Creek Community Church, you know, 7,000-person beautiful church. And, you know, weeping on stage, getting baptized with no one there but me. Like I was really trying to find a solution. I really wanted to change. And there were so many times I was on my knees crying, weeping to God, like, why won't you help me? You know I'm weak. You know I can't do this. And I don't have the answers why those prayers weren't heard, right? And people can speculate because everyone's certain about what God is. I'm not certain. But what I do know, right? You know, everyone's just an authority and they know everything, right? You know, and I'm like, you know, I don't know. I would like to think, well, I was gonna drag myself through the mud and the muck, and I was gonna gain a life experience that could help some people, right? You know, I was gonna gain a life experience that when I became a dad, I would never put my hands on her, abuse her, or torment her like I was tormented, that I would be a changed man and I that therefore I would have purpose and I just had to go through what I had to go through. Um, but what happened when I met her is I continued this process with my sweet wife, right? Like I'm working as a sales director at a large mortgage banker broker, making good money. We're engaged. This is like 2003, 2004. I'm kind of in and out of AA. I'm, you know, putting 30 days together and picking it up again. We're going to church twice a week. I'm sure I'm serving in a children's ministry and I'm binging on the crack in the projects for three and four days once a month, right? And I'm losing jobs and barely making it. So 2005, I go through two more treatment centers from First Capital, uh, the brokerage firm I'm working for. They put me to hospital, you know. I stole my blue crust blue shield. And you know, I relapsed on both of those after those in a short time. And um, and

Six Years Drunk — The Engagement Ring Goes First

SPEAKER_01 26:02

I remember the day. Uh it was a Friday night. Uh, I took the team that I hired, groomed, mentored, managed, and directed downstairs at we were really swanky, bougie new uh contemporary corporate building along the Chicago River in Chicago. And I went downstairs, I bought a mall of beer and I bought myself one. And I drank that beer, and I had like 30 days, 32 days again for like literally like the 50th time. And um, and I went home and I said, I'm going. She's like, please don't go, I'm going, but I'm not gonna stay in the project something. I'm just gonna cop in the courtyard between the two projects and I'm gonna I'm gonna come home. Uh and I never went back to work. For the next six years, I would stay drunk or high every single day. I took the engagement ring off her finger. I sold it for 20% of what I paid for it. Uh, I used that money within 48 hours on crack cocaine. Um, I sold everything in the house. I cash advanced all our credit cards. I fully bankrupt us. I borrowed and basically stole money because I borrowed with no intention to pay back from everyone I could. And then I found myself probably six months into this mayhem in trouble because now I couldn't get a dime from anything or anybody. So it just hit me one day. I can go on the street, pretend that my uh that I left my locked my keys in the car with my dog and asked somebody for taxi money to get home. And at this time, I'm not that burnt up. And I became a professional con artist to the tune of $100 an hour for the next six years, conservatively, in the tune of probably about $350,000 that I created with my sponsor, my first sponsor, a conservative estimation of what I had taken from society. And I became a thief and robbing people. And uh, you know, and I lived like a like a savage. I was up for three, four, five days, and then I'd pass out. I was, you know, just massively addicted to crack cocaine. Heroin came in the picture. I was overwhelmingly addicted to heroin at that point. So we called on the streets of Chicago double breasted, is when you're addicted to both. So I had the two monsters that I was addicted to. And uh, you know, every day of my life was insane. I literally get up, I would dry shave with the razor. My wife was the makeup artist, so I take makeup and put it on my face. So I didn't look with the, you know, the dope fiend addict I was. I would put a shirt and a tie on, and I would have like a traveling suitcase. And I had a con that literally for years often, for years, I had people give me hundreds of dollars, but there was never a day where I couldn't cost her a couple hundred dollars ever, not one time from 2005 to 2011, where I was finally hopefully arrested for the last time as a homeless dope fiend, you know, living in an abandoned building next to the projects. And I'd been there for a couple of years. So, you know, insane things happened, you know. And what happened is I finally went to homelessness. But my sweet wife, who was my fiance at the time, she stayed in that lifestyle with me for three years, having faith that one day God would change me. Um, and then eventually I walked away from her and dexter, our dog, our Weimariner, who I never

Homeless in Chicago — Abandoned Buildings and Stairwells

SPEAKER_01 29:02

saw again. And I went to the streets and I was okay with that. I went to an abandoned building three doors down from the projects in Murder City on the west side of Chicago in an abandoned garage with dope fiends and hustlers and pimps and prostitutes and needles and syringes and baggies all over. And that's that would become my life for the next two years. I would live, you know, throughout, you know, um, you know, hopping into a homeless shelter, living in alleys, uh, living under cardboard, living in abandoned buildings, sleeping in the first time I went to the projects in 1997, I grew up fighting on the street. You know, I ran with the gang. You know, I was an athlete, but I literally ran with the gang, gangster recycled Chicago. Let me tell you something. Even me going to the projects the first time to contract with my friend who was who got a full ride in Division I wrestling. We wrestled together, Kyle. Um, I'm I was scared, man. Walking to the projects is no joke. It's just like TV, right? I mean, it's no joke. I mean, you the cartel in Mexico, I know your story. Yeah, no joke, right? Like, this is like, listen, you're risking your life. I went from being scared to go there the first time, going there hundreds of times, eventually living sometimes for a week, sleeping in the stairwells, right? With other acts and dope things. So that's the insanity of the transformation of how this thing can take you. So um, so that's that's where I went. That's how it happened. And there's a thousand stories I can tell you about that period from 2005 to 2011. But I literally not for one day besides the the few, you know, the handful of times I was incarcerated for 17 days for 28 days, did I breathe a silver breath? Right. Um it's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

In your story, I'm I'm struck by the faith that your wife had to stick around and to watch you go through all of that, knowing that she's absolutely powerless to do anything about it but pray. Um and now you guys have a family together. Like that is incredible, Mark. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Yes, he had the faith and the willingness that I I never could have. I you know, I would I would have jumped ship. I'm just you know, call me weak, you know, uh selfish, but it's it's it really is incredible, you know, 25 years now together and um got married in 2014. So I guess uh May 3rd was our May 24th, yeah. I guess 12 years of marriage and almost a nine-year-old beautiful girl. And we've been through a lot, man. A lot of life, dude.

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Yeah, no kidding. And so in all of that, 17 treatment centers, homeless, hustling on the streets of Chicago, which by the way, as you were talking, and I've only been to Chicago one time, but I remember when I was living in Mexico thinking I was gonna do a little import-export business. And and I asked him, I said, Well, okay, how can you get like where can I get some kilos in the United States? And they said there were two cities that the cartel could could confirm get kilos in, no problem, and it was Miami and Chicago.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Chicago is a huge, you know, a huge pathway, man, you know, and I mean the heroin of Chicago is, I mean, dude, you go to neighborhoods, and I mean, there's just a neighborhood there's a hundred corners selling heroin, right? Competing against each other. So it's super pure, right? You you really got garbage because hey, the demand's there and the competition's stiff, right? You know, you can't have a shitty pizza place in Brooklyn. You know what I mean? You know, they've been cooking that pizza pie for 140 years, right? Like you're not gonna get away with a dominoes type pizza at Brooklyn. That's how it is in Chicago, but yeah, it's it's it's a it's another world. And, you know, anyone who's watching this, I have to say, because you know how proud I am with Chicago, you know, with my Chicago tattoo is it is one of the world-class, unbelievable, beautiful cities in the world. There's nine million people in the greater metropolitan area. We have our ghetto areas, but besides that, it is fantastic. I miss it dearly. Man, it is just beautiful. And so is New York and Boston and San Francisco. They all have their poverty, they all have their drug addiction and crime, and they all have their

Con Artist, Cab Robberies, and Two Felonies

SPEAKER_01 33:01

ghetto areas and the homeless crisis. But what what a beautiful place. And I'm grateful for that, man. I am so grateful. As a successful man today, as I sit here um talking to you, and I needed this very much, man. I've been my my my my program, my spiritual program for my recovery and my development, continued development of my life has been anemic. I have not been doing nearly as much as I I once did, and I've been selfish taking time with my family, going on vacation every other week because I work remotely and I can grab a laptop and go. Um so this is really good for my soul to remember where I came from. You know, it just filled me up already, just remembering the torment. I mean, there's a thousand stories, dude. And I know you have them and other people, but I live like a savage, man. I went months being on shower, months, you know, and guns put to my head, robbing people. I eventually started robbing cab drivers and a couple violently, you know, two felonies incarcerated, facing, you know, six to eight years in prison, and somehow, by the grace of God, changed the judge's mind. And he told me I was going. He says, it's not a matter of if, but it's how long. I'll see you in 45 days, and threw my file down. He was disgusted with me. And I went back and and they asked me the day before my court date when I was locked up. And they said, you know, tell us about all of this. And I said, I did every crime. I've done so many more. You know, I've been through 17 treatments and detoxes. I've tried to get sober and recover for years. I'm hopeless. I've lost everything in my life. I haven't seen my family for almost six years. Uh, I left my fiance, this beautiful Christian woman behind. And I said, you know, I said, maybe if I go to prison, maybe I could, you know, do three to six years or three to four years on, because it's two for one in the prison penal system in Illinois. So if I get six to eight years, I do three to four years in prison and kind of rebuild my life and have hope. But at that point, I wanted to die every day for real. Like when people say they want to die, but I never wanted to kill myself. It's really interesting. And I never put my finger on it. I want to die every single day. I live in torment and hell alone. I'm not homeless for two years, dude. Like I'm walking down the street and there's a piece of cardboard. I remember this next to a dry cleaner, and I just lay down in a dirt field in a manual lot and full of cardboard and pass out for 48 hours. Woke up, I had spider bites, infection. It was crazy. I live like that, right? So that life, and then I dry up, I detox for six weeks, I put 30 pounds on, and three and a half months later, they're like, hey, we're gonna sentence you today. And I'm like, okay. You know, I had hope. I was praying. I I was, you know, I was going to meetings in jail, and um and I said, okay, you know, I'm alive somehow, and I'm willing to rebuild my life. I'm willing to not ask anyone for help. I'm willing to not bullshit or negotiate any terms with anyone. And that's how I got sober. That's how I recovered. As I accepted nothing from anyone, I shut my fucking mouth and I got busy and got to work. I didn't look for praise, for affirmation. I wasn't screaming, I'm sober. Look at me. All that went away, dude. I put my nose to the grindstone. I got busy and I was sincere and I stopped lying and bullshitting people, and I never stole the thing again in my life. I was a felon thief who was robbing people for years. And since May 3rd of 2011, hopefully my last thing, you know, uh, you know, jail date or incarceration or arrest date. I, you know, I've definitely had defects and have made mistakes, right? And some that I'm not proud of. Uh, but I'm not the same man who walked in and I've radically transformed a lot of that stuff through help and faith and you know, spiritual work and action. But, you know, the one thing I am, I'm I won't say proud because I don't like hearing that sometimes, but I was given the willingness and the ability somehow to not be a thief anymore. And man, that's good, you know. Now I've stole some peace of mind from my wife because I can still be an unsober dick and selfish, you know, you know, and impatient, which I was yesterday to an extreme level, I order immense. And uh um, but yeah, I didn't have to be that guy anymore. Man, what a relief. I could earn my life, right? You know, yeah.

Jail, Detox, and a Judge Who Changed His Mind

SPEAKER_00 37:01

And I'm I'm curious, as somebody who wanted to get sober, now maybe not maybe earnestly wanted to get sober, but but didn't have quite the willingness to do the work. What was your turning point? Like, what did it look like when you actually went down the path? And and this is probably this is before the four-day relapse, because I think you genuinely wanted sobriety prior to that and just had a relapse, am I correct?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, when we look like what changed, right? Um well, I mean, everything was burnt down to answer three years, right? And and then I came to in jail, went through my detox, which was six weeks. It was it was brutal. Started to get some semblance of reality. The fog was lifting, and I found myself facing jail time, serious prison time, and uh, and it was okay with that. And um and it took me about six weeks. If they would have let me out anytime within the first six weeks, I was plotting. I'm like, once I go back to my abandoned place, my abandoned home in the abandonion we call them in Chicago, um, all my stuff's probably gonna be gone. I'm gonna have to recoup all, you know, the dress calls to go hustle and be a con artist, and and I'm planning it. I'm planning exactly how long does it take me for six weeks, you know, every day. How long is it gonna take me to get there, to get get an outfit, get dressed, hit the streets, start my hustle, get money, and get dope. It's exactly what I was planning for six weeks. But I had a court date six weeks in, and I heard his response, and I knew I was going to prison, and I had a shift that night. And I'm not a religious guy. I used to be, but I'm not. I'm a spiritual man for sure, but not I have no interest in religion in any capacity whatsoever. And that's my choice, and I can freely speak that. And I am completely okay with how anyone else believes. If they're atheist, agnostic, the Allah, Buddha, I don't care, you know. Um, but when it comes to my faith at that time, that what really worked for me was more of a religious dedication. So I got my Bible at that time, which I don't do anymore. And uh I read, I meditated, I prayed over it, and it it did affect me. I did have a spiritual, you know, transformation, a beginning of one in jail. And I knew that I was gonna stay sober in my mind, for me. Like I knew that I was gonna pursue sobriety. I wasn't arrogant enough to say I can stay sober. No, no, don't get me wrong. I was scared to relapse, but I had a confidence that I could do it. I had a confidence that I can get a really I had tons of practical, tangible AA experience and knowledge, mostly from other people that I've been in a relationship with for years. People who still loved me, saw me come in and out, and they were sober for years. And, you know, my spiritual mentor, who I met in '99, and he saw me go through five of those 17 treatments. And he he sponsored me for years later, right? You know, when I finally got sober. And uh, he's still in my life today, older gentleman, you know, probably at the end of his life. But, you know, I knew these people, I knew the truth, and that there was a solution that that made sense. So um, you know, what happened for me is when I was let go, which was crazy. So they interviewed me the night before my court hearing, Austin, and they asked me, they say, I can make a recommendation about where we put you, what penitentiary, you know, what level, if there is a recovery program within that where you can go to meetings, uh, but you're a two-time felon, and one of us, you know, an aggravated robbery of a cab driver, so you could be a meeting or max. And he's like, But I want to give you the opportunity to share with me your perspective and tell me answer some of these questions that'll help my evaluation. I think he was trying to say, he probably looked, I mean, let's just be realistic, right? He probably looked at, okay, here's a guy who doesn't look like the life he was living. And after I cleaned up, I didn't. I didn't look like some hardened criminal dope fiend after two, you know, after three and a half months. I put 30 pounds on, I got my weight back. I'm doing push-ups and working out in jail. And and I could I could speak articulately and communicate with him. And I told him exactly what I told you. I didn't like like like Denzel in Flight, I could not lie. Remember, he asked the question, were you drunk? And he just and I was, and I didn't even have any, I didn't have any problems answering it. But just like that, I told him the truth, the unfiltered, 100% honest truth about who I was, what I was, where I came from. And I said, Hey, if this will do good for my life, that I might be able to rebuild a life and do some good in the world. I fully accept that the ramifications for my actions. I am guilty and I've done more, a lot more that you don't know of. And I and he's like, tell me about your past. And I told him about Lynette. I told him about our bright future. I told him about the career, the up and down. You know, just you know, some years ago, I was this guy ready to get married to this beautiful person with a beautiful dog and a little home and hope. And I just, you know, I'm sick and I've been through a lot, you know. And he was the Southside Chicago Irish guy. I was a Westside Italian American

Released — The Moment Everything Shifted

SPEAKER_01 42:02

guy. And, you know, and I didn't know what his take would be, but he pre-he said, I really appreciate you being so candid with me. And he goes, and I really hope that you have a life someday. I do, you know, I'm gonna make my recommendation. He didn't tell me what it was. I went to court the next day. I'm definitely going to prison, it's just a matter of how long. And after like four and a half hours in a cell, waiting for, you know, the judge and uh my public defender, he came back and said, They're releasing you in the morning. If you sneeze the wrong way for the next two years, you're going to prison for eight years, no good time. Right. And I just sat there. I just didn't know what to do. And then eventually I just jumped up in the air and it felt I never had a good vertical as an athlete. I'm and I swear to God, I think I might have touched the ceiling of that cell. And the very next day, they dropped me off at A Safe Haven, a four-month program that I could not work. I had to be a rigorous program, really no movement at all besides going to meetings and getting like social security card and stuff like that. And I surrendered and I was a fully surrendered person. You know, I prayed daily, I followed directions. You know, the first consequence I got of that program was I lied to them to tell them I had to go to the Social Security office to fill out some more paperwork for my Social Security card because I didn't have a I didn't have a birth certificate of state ID or Social Security card on my person for six years, right? Um, so I had to get all that stuff, right? And um and I lied to them when I went to a meeting. Well, one of the staff members there goes to that morning meeting in Evanston, Illinois, right by Northwestern University. And he saw me there, I unbeknownst to me, and I got back, like, where were you? I'm like, I was at the meeting. They said, you know what, Mark? Let me tell you something. We've had thousands of men come in and out of this program over the years. Never one time has one lied to us about this. I'm like, about what? They're like, You were at an AA meeting at the Evanston Club this morning, and one of our faculty members saw you there. Two date, we commend you because you truly have a desire to stay sober. There's no doubt about it. Nobody's fucking lying here to go to the Social Security office for their car and go into a meeting. So obviously, you want sobriety. We get that. But this is a safe havens program, it's not Mark's program. So you do have a consequence. And they locked me down for a week, but they smirked and they're like, but good job. And you know what they meant. They knew they had a guy there out of the 45 men, who knows? I don't know anybody else who got sober. You know, I keep it, I kept track of a lot of the guys for a couple years, but most of them went back to prison, never heard from them again. But I had a desire, right? Um, and then yeah, man, and then they transferred me after that four months. Uh, you know, I had a probation officer I reported to. I could not leave the state. I had very restricted, but I was able to get a job and I did. And I remember in December of nine of 2011, you know, four or five months, five months sober, um, you know, I was able to finally get a sponsor, which I did immediately and started working steps and I got my first job as a bill collector. I have the pay stuff here. Do you know in two weeks how much I made? I made $217 in two weeks take home pay as a bill collector. Right. So now, as as a a C level executive of a company, for you know, I've been with there 14 years. I, you know, I've been

First Job, No Car, Stress-Free for the First Time

SPEAKER_01 45:02

A COO for 11, that keeps me humble, man. It keeps me on the right track. But you know what? What was a sign of, you know, Austin? I was really like, listen, I didn't have a car for the first five years of my sobriety. I lived very simple. And let me tell you something. I was stress-free, dude. The light went on. I got busy. I got busy in programs, drive to being a service. And another thing that happened to me is I was, and this maybe this contributed to my relapse four and a half years in, but my story was extremely compelling. Right. And I'm not the only one with a story like that. But if there was ever a description of a life that should have been over or just was hopeless and just had no chance of recovery, I had one, I had one of those stories. So I started used to speak as the keynote speaker, a lot of gellas. I started doing that. Um I got on the board of directors of the same shelter I used to visit, which houses 400 men and women.

Board of Directors of the Same Shelter He Haunted

SPEAKER_01 46:02

I'm like the only white guy all black in the hood, man, in the ghetto. And uh they one of the directors there was in program, listened to my story, and says, Hey, the block you're describing by the projects. You ever go to Franciscan Health Mary and Joseph shelter? I'm like, dude, I was in another for years. They kept kicking me out for stealing food. And eventually he's like, oh my God, you know, I'm one of the senior case managers there. So then the then all these that ran by Franciscan Catholics. So all these 60, 70, 80-year-olds have been, you know, on the board of directors, a doctor, a lawyer. They all interview me and they're like, hey, we want you to consider being on the board of directors of the state, operated in multiple shelters and outreach centers throughout Chicago. And then here I am, a couple of years sober as a board of director with some really credential critiques, prestigious people. Um, and then my story, you know, got a little bit more known. I was interviewed a couple of times, all this stuff. So it started to take off, right? And and I started to live this life of resilience and recovery and transformation. And um, and it was pretty good. But it did affect my ego too, I think. You know, in hindsight, I think that might have led to um some things between my fourth and fifth year, what I picked up again for a short period of time. And uh, but it was all something I had to learn. But why my life changed is I've never I've known people who were as surrendered to as me. And I think what I'm afflicted with, as sick as I am, to the level, to the extreme of uh of my chronic addiction to uh substances. Uh if I did not possess that willingness for whatever reason it came to me at that time that was different than before, uh, I think I had no chance whatsoever to stay sober and to rebuild a life that I never had. Uh so it's all about willingness in action, obviously. But yeah, I had it. You know, it just came and it was beautiful, man. It was beautiful because I knew I was fucked every single time, and I knew that every time I try to get somewhere sober early on, there was no way that I was going to be able to do this forever. And then when I

Fatherhood and What Sobriety Made Possible

SPEAKER_01 48:01

finally had everything taken away and I got you know, put back into life, there was a newfound willingness that was, you know, probably divinely inspired, you know, that gave me the willingness to build this life with a lot of help and but a lot of effort on my own part, right?

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Wow. I I'm curious, and and maybe this can segue us into the end here. You know, one thing that I never had anticipated was the incredible effect that my children would have on me, or or the the learning to be a father would have on me. And I know, you know, you you're just in love with your your wife and your daughter. And I'm I'm curious how that has come to play in your your recovery being a dad.

SPEAKER_01 48:45

Yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful you asked that. So I could turn the phone around, but I'll spare you, and you'll see literally dozens and dozens of things with my daughter all over my office. And and I don't compare myself to other people at all, Austin, in this way, not in sobriety, not as a citizen in the world or not as a family member. I could be a way better husband. I'm a very, you know, I'm afflicted with something that's severe. It makes me, you know, unapproachable at times. It shuts me down emotionally. Um, I still can have impatience and anger issues. And just being honest, I could be a better husband, but I'm a good provider. I take care of these girls, I keep them safe, I protect them, I provide a really wonderful life for them. But I'm required to do more as a husband. I've really been thinking uh deep about that. That my my my wife deserves a more emotionally available human being. And and I have to get I have to probably get some help around there and unpack that again, right? Because why wouldn't I be? She is as loving and as kind of, she literally is like Bambi. She is one of the most softest, kindest. She has none of the calamities from resentments, judgments, you know, nothing like that. She's happy, man. She wakes up happy every day. I'm like, how in the hell could somebody be so perfectly adjusted to life? Like, this is bullshit. You know, but you know, it's like I think I think a lot of me shutting down is I feel guilty because I'm just not nearly like that on a regular basis. And and I'm not I'm not a complete break. I laugh a lot. I'm one of the most jovial people. But when it comes to my daughter, when it comes to this beautiful soul that I have such a great privilege, man, I mean, when I have felt hopeless through the years, and I have, man, you know, I have felt emotionally hopeless, you know, you know, butt naked, sober and clean. I can look in her eyes and find hope every time. I mean, sincerely. And we are so close, you know. We we she tells me she loves me. I tell her I love her multiple times a day. We have special daddy-daughter snuggling time every morning. I've been gifted. I work remotely 100% of the time. So she has woken up with me, she has gone to sleep with me and her mother. Um, I've driven her to school 97.8% of her school days uh through her years in school. I chaperone. I'm always with her. And I mean, she begs me not to go to meetings, she begs me not to go to the gym. Daddy, just tell them that your daughter needed you so you couldn't make it today. You know, to be yeah, dude. She's hardcore. She's gonna be in, I think she's gonna be in uh hardcore business development because she can negotiate, but it is one of the most beautiful gifts I've ever had is to be a parent and not produce the trauma, the harm, and the scars in her that I experience. So, you know, it's just such a beautiful thing. And I love all children. I do. And I think that, you know, and I'm not gonna get there at all, but you know, as as a as an emotionally and kind of a socially liberal type person, where that comes from, Austin, for me, is because I've I've been abused severely, dude. I almost died. I remember coming to you and just blood in my eyes at three years old, right? They had a they had to give me a transfusion or put blood in me. I almost butt out. And you know, when you go through shit like that and you have people telling you you're a piece of shit, you'll never amount to nothing, never give you affirmation or love, and you grow up like that, I have a tremendous amount of empathy for people who have made bad decisions like you and me. Like I'm not trying to burn someone at, you know, on a state because they they made bad. How could they do that? Well, how self-righteous would it be for me, right? So, you know, when it comes to loving my daughter and when it comes to seeing the world and my worldview, you know, it's real important for me to remember who I am and what I am and what I have done and the havoc I have caused and where I come from. So I have a lot of empathy and compassion for everyone. That's why I desperately, you know, actually mean deeply love all children, right? I just do because there's these innocent, impressionable, you know, um fragile little souls bouncing around the world. And you see it, man. I I was at uh Quattica last week, you know, close up with this, and I saw this 40-year-old, 35-year-old mom with a couple of kids, and she's like, get over here, and she's screaming. And then she's like, she goes, and it hits them. And you know, and not to like

His Daughter’s Empathy Award

SPEAKER_01 53:01

extreme child abuse, but I wouldn't, I can't even imagine spanking my daughter. I would never, ever not spank my daughter. I don't believe in it. And the effect it had on me was visceral. And the next thought afterwards is like, hey, how you know, I hope they can find a path to health. Um and the next thought is how beautiful that I am uh an adult survivor of extreme abuse. And uh and that is not my daughter's experience, you know, that that experience has been transformed into something beautiful and loving. And she's a an amazing. And let me let me just say this. I just want to get this out, brag a little bit. My daughter got the empathetic award, the empathy award in in first grade from her Christian school. And then this this year she got the problem solver award. And um, and her teachers have said she fills up our hope and our love, love, love bucket

Austin’s Closing — A Miracle and His Family Too

SPEAKER_01 54:02

every day. She is as kind and as sweet and as obedient and honest little kid that we could ever want. What a gift that you have given us to let her be a part of our school. And that's her experience, right? And that's what getting sober has done, man, and it's affected them, and that's what it's about, right? It's about that.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

That game of goose moments, Mark. That was so good, buddy. Dude, man, you know, I was laying, I was laying down to go to sleep, trying to think of who do I, who do I want to have on here? And I don't your name just popped in my head, man. And I'm so glad that we got an opportunity to do this, bud. Uh, you're you're you are a miracle, and and your family is too. And I really appreciate you sharing that with us. And do me a favor, stick around after I hit the end button so we can chat just for a second. All right. For anyone that's listening, dude, Mark, thank you so much, buddy. For anyone that's listening on uh Apple Podcasts or Spotify, do us a favor, leave a rating, leave a I don't know if you can leave a comment. I don't know, do do whatever you do on those podcast platforms. That's the best way that you could support us. My name's Austin. We're gonna get out of here. Talk to you soon.