Mark Farley: From Addiction to Transformation

We sat down with Mark Farley, a pastor, recovery champion, and co-founder of the Sugar & Carb Addicts Anonymous (SCAA), for an intimate and honest conversation about addiction, recovery, and transformation. Mark's recovery journey is nothing short of remarkable; he's conquered alcohol addiction, defeated sugar and carb addiction, and lost an incredible 120 pounds in the process. But his journey is more than just a personal triumph—it's an inspiring testament to resilience, community, faith, and the power of a personalized, sustainable path to recovery.

We delve into Mark's struggle with food addiction and how he found freedom through a 12-step program. He sheds light on the importance of a balanced diet, viewing addiction as a serious issue, and the significant role of community and connection in overcoming addiction. Mark's story is a fascinating exploration of recovery, from recognizing and accepting addiction, to finding and embracing a path to recovery, to ultimately transforming his life.

Our conversation also touches on Mark's spiritual awakening, his work with various recovery-focused organizations, and his dedication to helping others. He shares how his experiences led him to establish a nonprofit, Faith Through Works, providing practical help for those in need. If you've ever battled addiction or are in the midst of recovery, Mark's story serves as a poignant reminder that it's never too late to change, that you're not alone, and that recovery is not just possible—it's attainable. Tune in for an episode that's as enlightening as it is inspirational.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the Kicks Sugar Coat podcast. Join me each week as I interview experts who will share the science of sugar, sugar addiction and different approaches to recovery. We hope to empower you with the information and inspiration, insights and strategies you need to break up with sugar and fall in love with healthy, whole foods so you can prevent and reverse chronic disease, lose weight, boost your mood and energy. Feel free to go to my website for details on my coaching programs and to access free resources KicksSugarCoachcom. Hello everybody and welcome to the Kicks Sugar Summit.

Speaker 1: 0:43

I have with me today Mark Farley and Mark. There's a really long and interesting bio here, so bear with me and it might not even be in linear order. But Mark is a pastor of a nonprofit and he says he's not like the kind of pastor that's up on the pulpit on Sunday. He's out with his you know, rolled up his sleeves. He's in the community working with people, as he say, who are hurt, who are hopeless and who are helpless. He has a nonprofit organization called Faith Through Works and there's three different arms of it. So he has a furniture bank, which is really cool. He coordinates with furniture companies to get furniture to people who are homeless right, but also coming out of recovery and are just trying to get their feet underneath him, if I'm not mistaken right, and need some support to get up and going. Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 1:32

Absolutely. What we like to say, florence, is we're in the hand up business, not the handout game. So anybody that we can identify through their social worker that's doing something to support themselves and escape the homeless situation, we're going to come alongside them and help them.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Nice and another arm is called oh, and this one's really incredible. It's called Backpack for Kids and he's the co-founder of that nonprofit and he's co-founded it with a 13 year old, and this is not that we'll go there, but it's a really cool story about how we found this absolute remarkable 13 year old to support her to create this nonprofit that's now standing on its own and she's a sophomore in university and and it supports kids going back to school with backpacks and school supplies and even food right.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yeah, we did hear that, and clothing and all that kind of stuff, and this was what's six, seven years ago now yeah, incredible.

Speaker 1: 2:28

It's running on its own. What's that young woman's name? Just, do you mind sharing, or is that confidential?

Speaker 1: 2:32

We're just going to call her Katie, katie, katie you go, katie and his third nonprofit is called Hope for the Homeless and every Sunday he feeds 300 people and even beyond that. So, first and foremost, mark clearly has a helper's heart and he's a pastor and he does that. He also has been walking the path of recovery for over 30 years. First of all, he unhooked from alcohol, so he's been clean and sober for 30 years through AA, and then, later on down the road, he realized, oh gosh, I'm also sugar and carb addicted bad carb addicted. He was very overweight. He's lost 120 pounds since November 2017.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Recently, he had a second bout of cancer where he had to be on some medications and steroids, which kind of bumped his weight up again, but he's, you know, it's moving back down again. So, but he's walking this journey, he's walking his talk, and that led him to be inspired to open something called SCAA, which is another 12 step program dedicated to helping people who identify with being sugar addicts or food addicts. It's right on the back of the screen there SCAA sugar and carb addicts anonymous, and it has experienced significant growth since he opened his doors. Was it like three years ago now?

Speaker 2: 3:54

We opened in 2018, in May. So okay, four years now.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Four years. Four years so we said over 4,000 people come through his zoom rooms and they've got solid 900 people that are there getting recovery. They have 22 meetings a week and he's a very interesting and WhatsApp group that's 24 seven, so remarkable amounts of support. Their focus is which is unique amongst the 12 step programs for food addiction, sugar addiction recovery they don't have a recommended food plan. They know everyone's bio individual. Their focus is on walking the steps, the spiritual transformation that then leads to the physical and mental lifting of the obsession around addiction. Let me see oh, he's the author of seven books and he's got a new book coming out. A lot of them are motivational and inspirational and spiritual, really helping us stay above the water, because it's really easy to get drowning in fear and for all of us to have life challenges come and feel like they're going to take us under. And he just helps us stay up and stay connected and remember that we don't have to do life alone and there's people here and there's a higher power. So welcome Mark.

Speaker 2: 5:08

Thanks, lawrence, it's good to be here.

Speaker 1: 5:11

So what are we starting? You know I've shared some of your story. Why don't we just share a bit more about your story of, yeah, your path of recovery through sugar and bad carb addiction?

Speaker 2: 5:23

Sure, I'd be glad to so, like most people. You name the food program I've done it. You name the 12 step group or the recovery food group I've done it and I failed. Was it because their battery Bad recovery programs? No, was it because the food programs are bad? No, I just had no willingness because of my ignorance. I didn't know that I had this disease.

Speaker 2: 5:50

The best, probably 15, some odd, maybe almost 20 years ago, I did the Atkins diet, but I was always hungry and always cranky and always angry. So you know, I look good, but I didn't feel good. So, long story short, as I started getting older, in my 40s and 50s, the weight kept piling on and as that kept happening, my mobility started going down hill, and trying to run the nonprofits, trying to do street ministry, was getting harder and harder. So on November the 26th 2017, I was preparing to go do a funeral. I had put on the third suit that year my wife had bought me and one more time, the suit didn't fit and I couldn't blame the dry cleaners. So I had that moment of clarity. As I looked in the mirror, I became very, very sad, lawrence, not at what I was seeing in the mirror, but I finally had that revelation that the family I was trying to help had to see me like this, and my poor wife and poor daughter that loved me so much had to see me like this all the time. So I made a firm resolution that evening after the funeral to do something. So that night I consulted the great book of Google and I found my personal friend, mentor, savior Bitten Johnson. Didn't know anything about Bitten, but within an hour she emailed me back and we started talking and she said Mark, do you understand you're as addicted to sugar and the bad carbs as you were to your drugs and alcohol, and that I had never thought about that. Florence and Bitten suggested that I needed to work the steps, much like I did getting sober off the meth and off the alcohol years ago. So I thought well, I can do this. So she introduced me to another gentleman here in Southwest United States that was trying to start a 12 step program and so I started working with him. Like the other programs I've been in, they had rules and I was having a hard time adhering to the rules. Like you know, it's a long story short.

Speaker 2: 8:08

After six months of this program, even though the weight was coming off. Even though the absence was staying, I was still miserable. So I talked to Bitten. I said I need to do something else and she said why don't you start your own? And that's where sugar and carb addicts anonymous came from.

Speaker 2: 8:25

I beloved Amelia, the English nurse, and my beloved April M up in Minnesota and Sarah over on San Francisco Bay. They took a chance and followed me and we started and by golly that first year we maybe had six people come into our fellowship. We were doing three meetings a week and we thought we were doing something, but we were staying abstinent. So what I built SCN was I didn't want to weigh in major and the other program demanded that way of measuring. Here's the problem, florence. I'm a former drug addict, so whenever I see scales I get goosebumps, because I used to weigh and measure my meth before I sold it. Okay. So bringing a scale around means not a good thing, okay, it brings back all that euphoric fake recall. So anyway, I just don't like to weigh and measure. I don't like to do three phone calls a day. I live on text messaging, I live on face-to-face stuff and other things like that. So the rules are bothering me. Not that the rules were bad. They help millions of people. Don't get me wrong, but this is why we started SCA. So sugar and cryobags. I'm gonna start it off with just this. We're gonna work the steps. There's so many food professionals out there. There's so many medical professionals out there. We don't need to take a stand on telling people how to feed themselves, fuel themselves or find what they're looking for. All we need to focus on is working the 12 steps and having that spiritual experience. So that's how we started and we maintained that.

Speaker 2: 10:04

The pandemic hit, as we all know and I don't know how else to explain it. But we started exploding and we started growing and the growth has been healthy. The growth has been good. We've hit some bumps along the road, but for the most part, when I've had the board of directors and my picket fence of friends and my accountability partners put Mark's pride and ego in check, we stay healthy. So that's what I love about this program. We, like I said earlier, like you shared, we've got almost 22 meetings a week. Now we meet daily. The WhatsApp chat took on a life of its own and because we have people all around the world that are part of our fellowship now virtually, which is actually a fact 24, 7, 365,. There's something on the WhatsApp chat that you can reach out to and again, we keep that a closed room until you're in the fellowship because we like to keep our members safe and we stay Zoom now. I'm pretty sure in the next couple of years we'll start having on the ground meetings because as we've grown now we're seeing several people living in the same communities and I'm just kind of waiting until God kind of directs them or puts it on their hearts to start the on the ground meetings. But right now the Zoom meetings are closed.

Speaker 2: 11:25

You can go to our website, scaclub, and you fill out a little interest form. I'm the guy that emails you back right away and I just say how'd you hear about us? What's going on? Do you want to be sugar and bad carb free? You don't have to be both. Just tell me a little story and then the people will reply and do that and I'll reply back to them with the meeting links and just asking their promise not to publish any of the links or any of our data. And so far, so good. We've had a couple of hiccups along the way where people have tried doing that, but other than that we've been well. But the good thing about our fellowship is we've got people from all walks of life. People that are just sugar addicted, people that are just carb addicted, people that are anorexic Doesn't matter to us, we're gonna love on you and we're gonna help you. It's just you just need to have a desire to be sugar and or bad carb free. That's all we ask and that's how the fellowship's grown.

Speaker 1: 12:23

Oh, amazing. So I wanna pull at this a little bit because this is the first time I've actually heard that you struggled with other food addiction. 12 step programs I did too, and I just happened to my. Very well, I was in an OA in my twenties and it was a room full of people in their fifties that were very overweight and I just didn't fit Because I never yes, I had a weight issue in my from the age of 13 to about 20. And I was very big. I was about a hundred at the height. The biggest number I can recall ever seeing was around 175. And I'm around 125, 130 now. So it was a lot.

Speaker 1: 13:00

But in my twenties I read the sugar blues and I started to eat better and I started pulling back on sugar and I started gluten I had figured out was causing me migraine, so I was starting to not eat bread and pasta. So my diet was changing. I was naturally starting to pull out the refined carbohydrates and I took up running and I was. So the two combined and my weight fell off and I've been at the same weight for really 30 years now. So that wasn't my issue when I went to OA, which was in my mid to late twenties I was looking for relief from binge eating. I was looking for permanent relief from my obsession with sugar, because I knew that it triggered migraines. I knew it was part of my acne problem. I knew that it made me feel bad. I knew that it was part of my depression and suicidal thoughts. I knew it but I wasn't able to be consistently. It was like on and off long stretches and all this relapse. There was no internet back then. There were no books on it, there were no programs that I knew of, but there was OA. So I got into OA and I realized pretty quickly I don't think I fit here. I'm not overweight, I'm not 50. What the hell am I gonna do? So, really, I had Janine Roth. I read her books, which was kind of a form of intuitive eating, like if you're hungry, eat whatever you want, eat when, stop when you're full, you know, and over time your body will naturally just sort of sort itself out. Well, that never really happened for me. I never stopped wanting M&Ms for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I was kind of out there floundering on my own.

Speaker 1: 14:31

Fast forward, when I was 38, I saw an ad in my local newspaper for a 12-step program on food addiction. I was blown away. I almost fell onto the floor Like what? There's like a group for this, so I called them. The very first person I ever spoke to. His name was Ron. I'll never forget him. I will die with gratitude and love in my heart for that man. He's like you're one of us. You've got this. Come to a meeting.

Speaker 1: 14:55

But I went into the one that was the most strict, the most strict in the whole planet. Like it was like if you didn't finish your lunch because something you got interrupted at work or something it's too bad, that's a break back at day one. Like it was brutal and you almost couldn't even sneeze without asking permission. I got abstinent, mark. I got clean and sober, squeaky clean. Oh hell, yes, I did, and I did my three calls and I did all my knees. I did all my meeting. I did everything I was asked and I was profoundly grateful that I was sugar and flour free. I was abstinent, I had peace around food.

Speaker 1: 15:32

But I felt that shit crazy, like I just did. I felt like I'd come into a different kind of prison and I feel horrible saying that because so many people helped me. It was such a beautiful, incredible program. But I just felt like, oh my God, I can't handle the idea. For the rest of my life I have to do three calls a day and three meetings a week and I'll never, ever have a Wednesday night off again because my sponsor will drop me if I don't go to my Wednesday night meeting. On and on and on. I thought surely there's a way, surely there's gotta be a way that I can feel free. I can be sugar free and feel free. And so I went in and out of various different 12 step programs. Like all of them, I cycle through four or five of them different sponsors, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 16:18

And the piece that has been really tricky for me and I really wanna pick your brain around this, because you might have some wisdom that I think will really be helpful for people Seems to me that there's times in my life when weighing and measuring is a gift and it brings an extraordinary level of peace at the end of the day. And then there's times in my life where I just feel like that's a goddamn diaper and I want it off. You know what I mean. Like I just like I can do this and that you know what I mean, and so I get so confused about does it have to be forever?

Speaker 1: 16:49

And that process of learning? Can I trust myself? Can I take the training wheels off? What rules can I do I have to adopt for life? Which ones can I relax around? And it's a difficult process of figuring out how much you can stand on your own without totally going off the deep end. And it sounds like you've created a place for those of us who have those experiences out of other 12 step programs or other recovery programs to come in and flex a little and experiment and come to our own truth and be supported with that. How does that work Like? Tell me a bit more about that.

Speaker 2: 17:24

Sure, I'll be glad to. Yeah, it's, I don't. I don't do rules very well, florence, and that's the problem. And, like I said, all the programs you described, I failed, all those miserably being an addict in recovery. Don't tell me and don't give me rules because I will rebel. But what we do in SCAA is this what you use to fuel your body will be different from what I use. What triggers you will be very different from what triggers me and what used to piss me off to high health and all these other food programs.

Speaker 2: 18:02

I can't talk about my craving for Reese's Cups oh my God, he said food. I can't talk about my lust for popcorn oh my God, he's talking food again. You know what, if I can't get it out and make it numb and make it to where I can actually live with it, like I do in my four step, then I'm lying to myself. That's how I think. So that's what we do here in sugar and carb acts anonymous. But what I love about it is and one of our members, he likes fruit and he's a very healthy man, he's not obese at all, but he's got other medical problems and he has to watch his carbs. He has to watch other, not real sugars and so, but the point is we laugh about it. I can't eat his fruit because that triggers me. He can't have my. I have a hazelnut sugar free syrup that goes in my morning coffee. He can't have that because it triggers him. So we laugh about that as friends, rather than saying, oh, you're both are not abstinence, you both need to start over. No, no, no, no. It's how we learn. We learn what works for us and we accept that and tolerate that. And that's what happens in our fellowship Now, just like the OAs, where I still have.

Speaker 2: 19:17

We have a lot of people that come here that aren't serious, and that's fine. God love them. Maybe we'll get it someday. We have a lot of people that come here and gain weight because they keep trying this and trying that and all these external forces. But what really works for us and what's worked for me more than anything else, is when I start associating any motion with a food. That's my disease. Talking Food for me should be like putting gas in my car I'm just fueling my body. When I can have a system of fueling my body that I don't have to get all rigid about, but know what I need to have and a little bit of how much and how long and how often. Then I don't have emotions attached and that's how I know I'm in my zone and that's how I do it.

Speaker 2: 20:01

Does that work for everybody? No, we have a lot of folks here that need the weigh-in measure, that need to be accountable, that need to send their meal plans up, and that's fine, not a problem. I used to card manager when I came into the program. I still use that on the assessment form that we send out that we suggest that people can try that because it helps people understand what's good, what's bad and what needs to be kind of maybe experimented with. But for the most part, florence, what we see here in our system is no one food program, no one way to eat. You don't have to be keto, you don't have to be paleo, you don't have to be this, that the other. You don't need to eat three meals a day. We don't go there. We just ask you to work your steps, work with your sponsor, work with your accountability partners and find a fuel system that works for you, and that's how we do it.

Speaker 1: 20:50

Incredible and amazing. Thanks, mark, and I love that people can. It almost sounds like OA, but there's still the understanding that what we're talking about here is an addiction. The sugar and bad carbohydrates are addictive, whereas OA doesn't go there, so it's kind of like an. It's kind of like an OA nuanced, isn't it? It's really cool that way, and I feel that for many people in the early days of recovery, I was served by a given a food plan three meals, no snacks.

Speaker 1: 21:18

Make sure they're balanced. If you've got protein, florence, yes, good, you got to see right, it was really helpful. It was like training wheels came on my bicycle and it kept me from falling and wobbling and, you know, crashing, and it was really deeply stabilizing. But at a certain point I feel that for some of us anyways, and maybe for many of us, there's a point where there's a desire to sort of get those training wheels off and to try and see if we can ride the bike working with our own truth, our own inner sense of like.

Speaker 1: 21:52

I don't want to eat this meal, I'm not hungry for lunch and I can skip a meal without feeling like I have to explain it to my sponsor and my sponsor thinking my addicts been flared up and I'm trying to get control of my but you know what I mean Like I can move more into a partnership, into more of a flow with my body, and it's hard to do that well as addicts. Food I'm very hard to do, but at a certain point many of us want to and there isn't a lot of support around. I feel that's almost like advanced recovery. I feel like I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Speaker 2: 22:25

Yeah, it's, and we see this. A lot of the newcomers want to get absent right away, and then they throw in the caffeine, they throw in the whatever, the whatever, the whatever, the whatever. And I was taught one addiction a year when I got sober years ago. So I gave up the drugs and the alcohol, obviously. Then I gave up the cigarettes down the road, and that's how I did it. But I see a lot of folks do that, and then I don't comment on it, I don't judge them.

Speaker 2: 22:51

People will have to, like you said, seek their own truth. But what we've learned in this fellowship is we've got sponsors here and accountability partners that will work meal plans with you if you want to. We've got sponsors and accountability partners here that'll help you learn how to weigh in major if you want to do that. And so that's what we've learned by being a no judgment zone and by being just a you're welcome here zone. People now are more relaxed to come in and just be themselves as they are where they are right now, rather than trying to be this internet person that their profile shows them to be. You know what I mean? Nobody looks like their picture right, but that's what we're seeing here. Do we still screw up? Yes, do we still fall down? Cause we're human and, as you know, being a professional, food is something we can't live on and, no matter what we do, we're always going to be around food.

Speaker 2: 23:45

One of my favorite stories to tell is being a pastor. You go to all kinds of church events cause you have to, and they're always walking up to you with the plate of cookies or the tray of goodies. Or, as Amelia told me, my beloved Amelia, that that's a plate of crack. Mark, don't touch the crack right, stay off the crack, it's a drug. So I didn't want to go into this long explanation of why I'm in food addicts and why I started this, and so I just it came out. You know what they? I never used me, or my wife, or my program, they, I love they. If ever find them in there, I'm going to thank them.

Speaker 2: 24:22

But I tell them they found out I'm allergic to sugar and that stops these folks dead in their tracks and I say, yeah, I break out. And so they start imagining. You can only imagine oh, does he swell up, does he have red welts? What happens? I don't know. I'm not going to tell them, I'm going to break out and binge. I must play to cookies and stop at the convenience store on my home and buy it up. Three bags of cookies no, I'm not going to go there.

Speaker 2: 24:45

But doing that and sharing that with the group that helps people understand that we're never, ever cured. I still get cravings, I still get attacked by my disease, those hunger pains that actually lies. I've learned by working my four step that the hunger pains are lies. I'm not going to starve to death. I'm too healthy of a person. So when my hunger pain comes up I have to figure out what it is. And working those steps I learn the triggers.

Speaker 2: 25:14

When I'm high emotion either pride or anger or some kind of high energy I crave sugar. When I'm low emotion fear, hurt feelings, low self-esteem or just plain scared I crave my comfort foods, the bad carbs. My four step taught me that we do a life and we do a four step a little bit different than they do in AA and all the other A's, but it works. What I'm going with this is once I understood my triggers, now I understand how to handle the cravings. When people in our fellowship hear that, they understand that, yes, I can get better, but no, I'm never cured. I'm always going to battle this, but the good thing is it's no longer a battle for me. It's just part of my life, just like brushing my teeth or shaving every day. I do my program every day and if I do, I have a good day. That's how we do that there.

Speaker 1: 26:09

I really love that. I love that. I love how, for us addicts, it's a blessing if we do the recovery well, because every craving is a cry. It's a cry out. I need something. I need some love, attention. When our energies are low, when our thoughts are negative, there's something I need we can slow down and tune in and use kind words. Sweetheart, what do you need? We don't know. We don't need to go buy cookies, but what do you need? Who gets to have these wonderful, clear reminders or clear signals? It's the ultimate red flashing light. You need some attention. You're running low on something. Your pleasure tank is low, your sleep is low, your connection is low, you're whatever. You've been triggered. It's time to do some negative thought reframing. Have you ever heard of the book called Breathing Underwater by Father Richard Rohr?

Speaker 2: 27:04

No, I know Richard Rohr, but I've not seen his book. It is.

Speaker 1: 27:09

It is my Francis. The media presents the unabridged recording. Just trying to play. I was looking up the title to make sure I had his name right. It is my all-time favorite 12-step related. It's up there. It's like top five. I think you're going to love it and I'm glad to say it on this recording in case anybody else is really a reader.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Yeah, I love his work, but his book is called Breathing Underwater and I think it is the most brilliant spiritual take on the 12 steps, absolutely breathtaking, and it's not even all that big a book. So, anyways, a suggestion for you and anybody else who's listening to this and is keen to explore the power of the 12 steps to do the deeper healing, recovery work, to support us as we walk the path of recovery from our addictions, because usually we have more than one Mark. What do you want to say about your own spiritual I'm not the word transformation. What do they say in the talk? Spiritual experience? That's what they say right In the 12 steps.

Speaker 2: 28:18

Yeah, I'm glad to share that. Yeah, I've had several. When my first came this way I was 30 years ago. I was thrown in jail again for my 12th DUI Wow. And behind that DUI was some drug charges and some some pretty serious felonies that were coming out of that. You are a badass, mark. Oh yeah, I was a bad guy. I was a crankster gangster. That's what I was doing. I was doing a lot of that and selling a lot of that. But as I was getting ready for my court appearance, I look in that piece of tin that serves as your jailhouse mirror and I had that first epiphany. I didn't realize who I was looking at in that mirror. So I said the only prayer I knew at the time. God held me and went on about my day. I went to court and my high priced public defender forgot to show up. So back to jail I went.

Speaker 2: 29:16

My cellmate, nate, kept telling me about these stupid AA meetings, but this time he said they give you a copy and donuts if you stay. So I went and short of say meeting I've ever been to this man. They come in from the outside, they're not inmates. He was about five foot four maybe, stood up on the table. He says you, sons of bitches, keep doing what you're doing. You're going to keep getting what you're getting. That's all I heard. Next thing another meeting's over and he's standing back on the table holding a big book about Klaustinama, saying maybe you guys got the balls to do it. Walk up here and ask me, I'll give you this book. So I did it the jailhouse way. I waited, everybody left and I got that book, started reading it, started seeing some things that made sense.

Speaker 2: 29:59

Two weeks go by back to court prosecutor for just to show up. So it's going to be six more weeks. But that's when the miracles started happening for us. I started going to all the AA meetings that could. I started going to this thing called Overcomeers Outreach. It's a Bible study that people from the outside bring into jail. And here the miracles started.

Speaker 2: 30:19

I actually started owning the fact that I was an alcoholic and accepting the fact that I deserve consequences for my behaviors and actions, and I knew that I needed to go to prison to serve my time. So I became ready. For the first time in my life, I stopped blaming others. Six weeks go by, different judge on the bench and he holds up. I'll get teary here because every time he holds up a letter written on my behalf by an anonymous member of Alkloxanomas asking that I be giving you a chance at a program. So the judge stopped the proceedings. He said Mr Farley, you've got 30 seconds. You can get on the bus to San Quentin prison, where I would like to send you, or you can get on the bus to the Salvation Army in Sacramento. What's your choice? That's when I knew I had a God, florence.

Speaker 1: 31:09

I never looked back.

Speaker 2: 31:10

Wow, I got to Sacramento Salvation Army. Alan and Big John and the guys that ran the program said we're going to love you, you're going to love yourself. And I've never looked back. I got involved there at the Salvation Army. They brought me on as an employee, as a can opener. I like to tell people I wasn't a chef. I started working the homeless shelter. They found me a scholarship to go back to college.

Speaker 2: 31:32

I became a drug and alcohol counselor and met my beloved wife at 27 years in recovery. She's my rock and we moved to Southern California and after I drug and alcohol recovery business and we got very successful and so that all happened. And then I had the second spiritual experience. So I started lusting for money as the business grew and that about wrecked my marriage. We were separated for five years because all I cared about was money and, long story short, I was going to buy an outpatient program because we were that big and I with a lawyer. They recommended and we signed the business away without knowing it and so, yeah, we lost everything. That's when my wife and I separated.

Speaker 2: 32:28

I got an invited Christmas time out to where her parents were and we were taking the quads one night to go deliver meals on wheels, and I took the quad that I normally didn't take and for the first time in my life, I told my little three-year-old daughter at the time she couldn't ride with me, made her cry. I got on the ATV and it was a change-driven thing, a class-driven thing, and the chain grabbed me by my jeans and drug me a quarter mile across rock and I was in a coma and they had to lifeline me by helicopter to a hospital. And that's where my second spiritual awakening came. I was in a coma for five days. My wife was on the phone with my mother. They were trying to make arrangements for what nursing home to send me because the hospital personnel told them I wasn't going to wake up. God wished true to my ear for Florence. She said I'm going to wake you up and I want you to do two things the rest of your life. I want you to be the best husband you can be and the best father you can be. If you'll do that, I'll take care of the rest. And he woke me up.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Now, for the next six months, florence I couldn't see Walker talk very well at all, but I knew it was going to be okay. I got a job with a pretty major telecommunications company working in their call center. Never done that in my life, but after watching a heroine at an SOD and getting people sober for all the years I did, people complaining about their bills on the phone was just a laugh to me. So I got very successful at that. They promoted me and we moved from California to here in Arizona to build a call center for them. My career was off and running. My marriage got put back together and that's when the sugar addiction started taking off. I didn't realize it at the time, but that's when it took off. So that's been the two spiritual experiences in my life.

Speaker 2: 34:06

About 2012, 10 years ago, the people at the church I go to came to me so we need you to be a pastor. I thought you had to go to school like a divinity school. I didn't know anything about it. They go. No, you're doing outreach. You're helping so many people with your 12-step and with your nonprofit. You need to start spreading the gospel with what you're doing.

Speaker 2: 34:24

So I went through a three-year training program and became an ordained pastor. That's what I do now. I help the hopeless, the hurting, and that's what we do we gave some credit to. I helped start those two nonprofits you talked about when we first started. But I have an actual arm in my website called LTVR Marketing let the blessings roll. Marketing. I help people start nonprofits. That's what I do now. Do I charge you money? No, but if you start making money, you're going to help me out because I'm helping you out. That's how we do things, but that's what I've been doing. That's my ministry now is helping people realize their dreams, realize their goals.

Speaker 2: 35:02

Then last year, as I came out of this next bell with the cancer, some friends started talking to me and they said you don't realize what you're doing, but you're helping a lot of people. I said, oh, thank you, you need to become a life coach. I don't know what the hell is a life coach. Then my friend sent me down, one of my buddies in AA. He says, dude, he goes start 12 step in the norm. He's in charge of him for it. And so, florence, that's what I do now for Big Bucks. I'm a life coach and I charge people money and I help them. I do from a Christian point of view because I'm a pastor, but the point is, more often than not I wind up helping people have a spiritual awakening, more than becoming a millionaire, but what I've seen, though, is well, they had that spiritual awakening and actually put their goals aligned with where their spirit needs to be. Not only does the money follow, but the success and the happiness does too, so that's what I've been doing. That's the spiritual ally of my life today.

Speaker 1: 36:01

That's what I do.

Speaker 2: 36:02

I'm 60 years old, I keep trying to retire. I'm on my third attempt to retire now, but I keep getting all these offers to work. So I keep working, so we're good.

Speaker 1: 36:11

We're good, we're good. When you were in your coma, did you have any of your death experience?

Speaker 2: 36:17

No, I don't remember anything except God whispering in my ear. I'm gonna wake you up. That's all I remember.

Speaker 1: 36:22

I was just curious. I've had one myself and I've known many, many people who've had them and they're remarkable and I wasn't sure if it was just yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:31

I'm a lucky guy. I got one thought only at the time, so I'm pretty sure that was going on, but I was just out. But I don't deny him. I've heard people have shared their stories with me and it's amazing, amazing stories.

Speaker 1: 36:44

Amazing. Yeah, they're incredible experiences. Yeah, amazing. So cool, gosh. I feel like I could talk to you all day, mark. I'm like where do I go from here? Well, why don't you make a connection? Why don't we explore a little bit more, cause they don't often get to do this. It's very, very precious for me to talk about the spiritual part of recovery and this spiritual awakening part. Like I know you're a Christian pastor, but all 12 steps say oh my gosh, whatever higher power, whatever faith, whatever denomination I don't care if you're a Buddhist or Bahá'í, or you know what I mean or nothing, you know. You can even be an agnostic and find a higher power that makes sense to you, even if it's just group conscience. So talk to us. Is there anything more you'd want to say?

Speaker 2: 37:34

about the moral of spirituality. Yeah, it's. You don't need my conception of God. My hope is you find your own conception of a higher power.

Speaker 2: 37:46

I've sponsored atheists. I've sponsored people that worship trees you name the religion. Over 30 years I've sponsored them. But the point is we have to come to an understanding, aka a belief in something outside of ourselves that can help restore our society. So no, I'm not gonna thumb you on the head with a Bible. I'm not gonna thumb you on the head saying need to be in church, but I am gonna thumb you on the head with love, saying you need to find something outside of yourself so that you can start learning that you're not the center of the universe. And I think once people do that through the steps, that's when the spiritual awakening starts happening.

Speaker 2: 38:28

But that's what we do and we're very cautious. I mean again, we have no rules in SCAA, but I'm not in there preaching every week. When I go to my meetings I don't do that. We use the big book Mount Clocks, thomas. So in those passages we talk about God but, as we learned in the meetings, god's good early direction for those that get a little nervous about that stuff. So that's what we do. We don't want people to feel like they have to have a church and have to be baptized and have to go out of stuff. No, no, no. That's not what it's about. It's coming to the realization that you're not showing higher power and you need some help outside of yourself. That's what it is.

Speaker 1: 39:04

And really it seems to me addiction recovery is a journey away from fear, self-reliance, isolation, dysfunctional coping strategies, into the true self that's naturally connected to a source that makes sense to them and it gets resourced and it's nurturing and it's powerful and it's clear and all those qualities. And so we're strengthening the true self and we're dialing down the addict brain or the oh, there's so many different words for it flash in spirit. There's mind and ego in the course of miracles. It's love versus fear or mind versus ego. There's true self versus false self, there's adult versus adult child, like, oh my gosh, right, all of the same sort of dichotomies, but we're moving from a wounded adult child state into one that's whole and resourced and feels supported and loved and nurtured and connected from within and from higher resources, including other people. Yeah, that's what I've noticed.

Speaker 2: 39:59

I love that there's so many different ways to get connected, and that's what I've noticed. I love the two things I love seeing from people working in their steps. First off, that spiritual awakening where they finally get that inner peace starting inside themselves and their natural inclination to want to help others, because most of us I mean I'm talking for myself, but most folks that I've been around I'm so self-centered when I get here I could care less about you because I'm trying to survive. So that's the first thing I love seeing. And the next thing I love seeing after people have that spiritual awakening is they then start building their lives back up, not only with the spiritual aspect, but they also understand that they're a part of something bigger and they're here to help and serve others. And watching that service component take off, not only in the 12-step world but just in their life, and watching the inner peace grow and see their successes come not only financially but emotionally, relationally, you start seeing your life come together as it should, holistically, when you do that. And then the last thing I love about it is people uncover and discover and discard things as they work the steps.

Speaker 2: 41:19

And this is where I love having folks like you around us, because when they uncover something that they've kept in that black, dark recess of their mind all those years, that's not really related to a sugar and carb addiction per se. We can then say let's get you in touch with Florence, let's get you in touch with Bitten, let's get you in touch with Molly or Clarissa and all the. We've got so many professional folks referring people into our 12-step group. It's just nice having that partnership, because people do uncover some pretty ugly things at times when they work the steps, and it's nice being able to tell them we're not the end of all be all, we're not going to be that for you, but we do have people that can help. That's what I love about having the therapeutic community and the medical community around us.

Speaker 1: 42:07

Amazing, really, really cool, Mark. Is there any final words you'd like to share on the topic of sugar, sugar addiction, sugar addiction recovery?

Speaker 2: 42:18

The one thing I love and I laugh because I go back to when the big book was written, back in the 30s. Dr Silkworth was the poor doctor that they were in the doctor opinion and he was basically seen by his companions and his peers as a crackpot. So I know that today our Bitten's, our Florence's and all of our other medical professionals are seen as crackpots because you're calling sugar a drug. But thank God you are, because it is the marketing, the commercials, the walks in any store today, the branding. It's all driven to make us hungry and make us desire it and that's just wrong. But we're not, as a society, able to see that yet.

Speaker 2: 43:00

So I thank God you guys are here for us and if people want to check us out, florence, please come at SCAAclub and again, you're going to fill out a form and I'm going to email you back right away and we're going to just talk a little bit via email and then, if you can agree to come in there and be anonymous, we're going to get you in our meetings. But come check us out. That's all I want to say. You don't have to, you don't have to sign up for Amway, we don't. We don't make you get a tattoo. Okay, and we're not going to make you call and ask us when you need to go to the bathroom, okay, no, we just want you to come check us out. That's my final words, scaaclub.

Speaker 1: 43:37

Thank you, mark. Thank you for your time, for your story, for starting this organization, for all the work you do with the, the hurting, the homeless and the helpless, much appreciated. Thanks, florence.

Speaker 2: 43:48

God bless you.

Speaker 1: 43:49

Thanks everybody for tuning in. Thanks for tuning in this week. If you would like more interviews, more information and more inspiration on how to break up with sugar, go to my YouTube channel Kicksugar Coach or my website KicksugarCoachcom. See you next week.