TownHall II’s Integrated Health Service’s third annual community picnic recognizing the non-profit organization and individuals’ efforts at recovery was celebrated with a performance from local musician Marc Lee Shannon last Thursday at Hometown Bank’s Plaza in downtown Kent.
“Marc Lee Shannon is such an advocate for individuals in recovery. He has not just a very powerful story but the way he delivers it is so impactful that you can’t help but be motivated,” Chief Executive Officer Tamera Hunter told The Weekly Villager. “Every time he comes out, it is just really wonderful for him to share his love with us and his music.”
Shannon, a longtime lead guitarist with the Michael Stanley Band, delivered an impactful performance with his new band, “My Other Brothers”. He also added commentary about his personal struggles with addiction.
According to Shannon, Thursday officially marked 10 years, 10 months and 1 day since he became sober. He described his first experience with alcohol when he was only 14-years-old, when his cousin introduced him to first drink.
“There are three things I remember about that first drink: what it tasted like going down, what it tasted like coming back up and waking up on a cold bathroom floor,” Shannon said. “I was a blackout drinker from the first moment.”
He added that although there was evidence to suggest that alcohol had a destructive influence on his life, he was not prepared to listen to anyone who warned him that he had a problem.
Shannon polled several members of the audience on how long it had been since they last used drugs or had a drink, which was from only one month to over a year of sobriety. He found an audience member, Leola Davis, who had been sober for 18 months.
Davies spoke of how her personal trauma led to her becoming an addict and also noted how difficult it had been for her to quit, entering and leaving recovery several times throughout her life.
“On March 16, 2024, I went to Alcoholics Anonymous for the first time and worked the program and I got sober,” Davies said. “Now I am sponsoring and running a meeting.”
Shannon informed the audience about how he had to learn the hard way about how severe his addiction was. He talked about finally committing himself to become sober, which occurred on June 2, 2014 when he officially entered a detox center.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen. I knew that the one thing that all of us know – our universal truth,” he noted. “We just wanted the suffering to end.”
Shannon said that his first few days of recovery were the most challenging, recalling the room was spinning as he went into withdrawal and how his body reacted as he purged himself from drugs and alcohol. He noted that after a while, each day was better than the last one.
After leaving the detox center, Shannon has maintained his sobriety.
According to him, his recovery resembles a pencil, as a pencil has to be sharpened each time it is used, which is exactly how Shannon would describe his recovery.
“It means I have to care for my body, my mental and social health,” he noted.
Shannon added that like an eraser, he can erase mistakes by turning them into hard lessons learned and uses those experiences to rewrite the ending to his personal story. He acknowledged that it is impossible to go back and change the things he has done but always sees it as an opportunity to start over and not make the same mistakes twice.
He took the opportunity to also laud TownHall II for its work in recovery and addiction.
“It is organizations like this and all of the people that work here,” he said. “It is people like you that have helped people like me be here today. Thank you for helping me stay sober.”
Shannon said that had he not achieved sobriety, he would never have married his wife and he would never have understood how to love himself if he allowed his addiction to consume his life.
He described how each morning he wakes up happy because when he wakes up, he is not sick and knows what he did the night before. He also highlighted his work in recovery as a certified peer recovery supporter and a County of Summit ADM Board Member.
“I have friends behind me who play music with me and support my sobriety and my insanity through recovery,” he said. “More than anything I try to be a good listener in the community.”
Following Shannon’s speech and performance, several other individuals in recovery shared their personal stories about how addiction plagued them and how they strived to finally become sober. Some of them had just started their road to recovery while others had maintained sobriety for several decades.
“I think it is rewarding for the agency as a whole,” Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Brosien told The Weekly Villager. “That speaks volumes in the things that they said about TownHall II being supportive and being a place where they actually found help.”
