They’re All Good Days Now

Once lost to alcohol and drugs, Mark found humility and happiness through Christ.

Mark Laverriere was the life of the party when he drank alcohol. After a few drinks, he was funny and engaging, and his shyness disappeared. He felt good about himself and had a false sense of ego and pride. Even talking to women came easy. 

Today, however, Mark says, “Alcohol gave me all those things that I thought I was missing, but then it took from me everything that I needed—family, friends, happiness.” Sitting in The Salvation Army’s Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) in Portland, Maine, where he is the resident manager, he continued, “I didn’t like my life when I was sober. I didn’t like how I felt about myself. Alcohol and drugs were a solution to that. They were an escape.” 

Mark, who grew up in nearby Biddeford, began experimenting with alcohol at 13 and later sank to using heroin. All the while, he was able to maintain a job, mostly because he owned his own drywall hanging company. He married his high school sweetheart, but once that marriage failed, he buried himself deep in alcohol and drugs. 

In late 2021, Mark was on suicide watch at a local hospital when a nurse suggested he try The Salvation Army’s ARC program. The six to nine months to complete the program seemed drastic, “but a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of my life,” Mark says. He arrived in January 2022 with virtually no religious faith. 

“I didn’t want to come here, but I was willing to give it a try and it was one of the greatest decisions I ever made,” Mark says. “God gave me the gift of humility and desperation that allowed me to walk through those front doors. 

“I held on to those gifts of humility and desperation, and that kept me hungry this time. This place gave me opportunities that I didn’t have out there. It took the distractions away for me and I was able to just focus on myself and allowed me to build a relationship with God.” 

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

—2 CORINTHIANS 5:17

Mark, 45, began working through the ARC program (he wrote 750 pages about his life) and attending chapel, where he became a believer in Jesus Christ. The change “almost happened instantly” and he found freedom, thanks to the staff, counselors, and Envoy Stephen Taylor, the ARC’s former administrator. 

“When that man puts his hand on you and prays over you, you feel it,” Mark says. “He has such a spiritual vibe and a servant’s heart. I don’t think there’s one time I didn’t tear up when he prayed over me. 

“Once I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, this whole 30 months of sobriety, I have not had one bad day. I truly feel free, but I have to work at it every day.” 

Now, instead of a bottle, Mark cracks open a Bible and starts his days on his knees in prayer. 

“I feel good about myself now,” he says. “I hated looking at myself when I was out there. Now I’m proud of myself and how far I’ve come. I worked my butt off in here.” 

Since graduating from the program in September 2022 and becoming the resident manager, living at the ARC, Mark says, “I don’t want to go anywhere else.” 

He sees a lot of himself in the men who come in, and he often reaches out to help them if he can. 

“I always want to be around people trying to get sober,” he says. “I want to have a positive impact on as many people as I can. All I did my whole life was take. Now that I’m on this different way of living, it’s time to give back daily as much as I can.” 

The big change from his past attempts to turn his life around—which always ended in failure—is that Mark now puts Christ first in all he does. 

“Christ is everything to me,” Mark says. “He’s my Siri, He’s my Google, and my GPS through life. I lived my life in [spiritual] darkness and in dark places. Now I choose to live my life in the light of God’s grace, and I truly feel that grace working in me every day.”