Second Chances: Mark B. Hubble's Journey from Murder to Redemption

Confronting Addiction's Consequences

At that point in time, my addiction was so severe that I would have rather been dead than to give up that bag of drugs, and he was basically going to have to kill me. So we got into a shootout and was facing that charge. I knew that if I was found guilty of that charge, my hopes and dreams for my future were going to be decimated, and I just said I didn't do it. I made them prove it.

I was sitting in the courtroom listening to these screams, and it's only the screams that a mother who lost her only son can feel. I just wanted to reach out; I just wanted to hug her and tell her I'm sorry. I didn't want any of that to happen if they decided to give me life with the possibility of parole.

Reflecting on the Parole Hearing

Can you just draw us into those few moments? What did that feel like? What was the first thing that kind of went through your head once that hit? It’s been 15 years, and I didn't know who was going to show up. There were going to be a lot of people that were showing up to your parole hearing next month.

You know, I was just like my heart sunk because it’s like I have made all these positive changes in my life. I follow God now, and now at least all of these emotions and fears and anxieties just start to creep in. When the parole hearing began, there were at least 40 or 50 people that came in for the thing. It was the family side. There were three people on the parole board sitting in front of me. I can't look behind me; I'm facing the parole board. Everybody's behind me. The CEO said, "Do not look behind you. Do not look at the victim's family. Do not look at your family." He said, "You just look at the parole board, and we say that it's time for you to get up and go, it's time for you to get up and go."

The Weight of the Courtroom

So, okay, the parole board said, "Is there anybody from the victim's side that would like to speak?" I heard these feet shuffling to this podium where there was a microphone.

Well, Mark, thanks for jumping on today, man. I’m super excited to chat with you; it’s been a long time since we spoke. We've had it before in the past. I think you came up to Teen Challenge a long time ago, and we have a mutual friend, Rob Reynolds. Man, you’ve got a powerful story, and I’m just excited to get on here and have a chance to chat with you. But first, man, how are you doing? How's life?

I'm doing great. It seems like every day gets better than the previous one, and I think that's what faith and recovery are all about. Even during the challenges and the adversity that we're inevitably going to face as people, in general, I can look at it through the eyes of someone who is truly blessed and grateful to even be alive.

Early Life and Influences

I heard they say all the time one of those antidote quotes are out there, right? My worst day sober is better than my best day in addiction, right? And that’s the truth. I love those little images; they pop up all the time. But yeah, man, on rebuilding life after addiction, right? You came on the show; I think we’ve been connected for a while. A long time ago, I believe when I was doing the written blogs, you submitted your written blog for my blog a long time ago with your story in it.

So you’ve got a history. You’ve been through some stuff. And I mean today, right, Dr. Mark Hubble. I mean, you’ve got a doctorate degree and all that stuff, but it didn’t just happen overnight. You’ve been through some stuff before getting there, so man, I’d love to hear just a little bit of your backstory—kind of, why are you on a podcast called Rebuilding Life After Addiction? You just talked about your recovery a second ago, and bring maybe the audience into a little bit of your journey, man.

Well, I started off life moving around a lot. My dad was in bridge construction, so by the time I got to ninth grade, that was my ninth different school. I was the professional new kid, so I wanted to fit in, and I always tried to associate myself with what I considered the cool crowd—the tough kids. I played sports; I excelled at basketball, football, and baseball. By my senior year of high school, which was in Manassas, Virginia, I was the captain of the football team, captain of the basketball team, straight A student. But there was another side to me, and that was the side that the teachers, the coaches, and the general public didn't see, but my close personal friends did see that side of me.

The Dark Side of Addiction

It was a dark side. I was an atheist; I didn't believe in God, and I only believed in whatever made me feel good. So I would go to parties, drink alcohol, and smoke marijuana. That was kind of a constant thing. I graduated high school with a lot of opportunities, one of them being I was being actively recruited by West Point Military Academy because of my grades, acumen and IQ, and my leadership abilities. I won an award from the U.S. Army Reserve, which recognizes academic excellence and leadership excellence.

Through being a captain of the football and basketball teams, I got some letters to play basketball and football at some small colleges—they're not D1 schools or anything like that, right? But it was a decision; I could play in football, I played defensive back, free safety, kick return, punt return; I got some speed, and I like to hit people. That was one of my ways of letting out my stress and frustration. My father was an alcoholic and worked all day. Every evening he would eat dinner and then just drink himself into passing out. My mom and I would sometimes have to help him get up the stairs to put him in bed, and then five-thirty the next morning he was doing it again.

Navigating Family Dynamics and Choices

I didn’t really have much of a relationship with him, and I always thought that if I got good enough at sports, my dad would be impressed. I was trying to gain his acceptance and love, and I thought, "Well, he was a great athlete; if I become a great athlete, he'll come to see my games." I can literally count on one hand the number of games over my entire childhood—hundreds and hundreds of games over three different sports—that he actually showed up to because, like I said, he's an alcoholic.

So I realized that trying to gain his acceptance was losing sight of who I really was and coping with that. You know, like I like to hit people, and that was one of my things. When West Point was recruiting me, I started to think about, you know, do I really want that to be my college experience? That I’m getting up at 5 a.m., doing cadence drills and being yelled at? Because I know that I've read stories about how cadets' freshman years are really, really rough, and I just didn’t want to have to put up with that. I knew that it was going to get in the way of my drinking and using drugs and trying to hook up with girls.

So I basically declined West Point and I went to a small college in West Virginia. They're all pretty much the same. I could have walked onto the football team probably, but I just said, I’m devoting this time to just me. I’ll get my grades; I’ll party all the time—no accountability, no parents, no sports that I have to be sober for to play well. And that life led me to trying harder drugs, and I eventually got hooked on cocaine.

The Downward Spiral

By my senior year, I was in the downward spiral of a serious cocaine addiction. I lost about 40 pounds, and it’s a much more expensive drug, so to start selling to support my habit. And harder drugs put me in more dangerous situations. I came back from a trip one night, and I was doing my usual thing where I was going to different customers' houses and weighing the drugs out and selling it to them. One of my customers, who I've been dealing with for quite a while, and I thought we were pretty good friends, got it in his mind that he was going to rob me at gunpoint for my drugs and money.

At that point in time, my addiction was so severe that I would have rather been dead than to give up that bag of drugs, and he was basically going to have to kill me. So we got into a shootout, and unfortunately, he died, and I was left with a huge mess to clean up. I tried to cope with it, and over the next four months, my life just got worse and worse. Every time the door knocked, every time the phone rang, I was paranoid. I thought that was the police; they had discovered something and were coming to arrest me. So there was no peace in living that life.

Eventually, the truth caught up, and in September of 2000, I was arrested and charged with the crime of murder, extradited to West Virginia, and I wouldn't see freedom again for another 16 years. So that's what led up to my addiction leading to some very, very severe consequences.

Understanding Family Impact

Yeah, so going back to your father, you mentioned his struggle with alcoholism and kind of watching that growing up. From people that I've talked to throughout the years, there seems to be one or two extremes. You have the kids that see the alcoholism, and they’re like, “I’m just never touching that,” and it becomes a motivator to never go down that road. But then there’s the opposite, where it’s like this repeating pattern. You see it, and then we end up doing it, right?

You know, for you, like what—I know you said identity and acceptance—after seeing that kind of growing up, what was the mindset when you started drinking and you started using? Did you think that you weren’t going to become like that, or were you thinking that this is just destiny, so I'm just going to copy the patterns that I’m seeing in my home anyways?

I think he normalized it because he worked and provided for the family, and he wasn't abusive; he wasn't violent; he didn't beat me or anything like that. It was more distance, and I don’t want to go as far as to say neglect because I respected the man, and he was a man who should be respected. He was a great leader in the household and with the men that he worked with. He was a project manager for bridge construction, so he started from the bottom all the way from a laborer.

This is when I was growing up. We lived in some pretty impoverished neighborhoods because he knew we weren’t going to be there for more than a year. Once the bridge was done, we were going to have to pack up and move to a new place, so why not just find the cheapest place and live there? Like I said, I grew up in some pretty rough areas, and that kind of environment, everything seemed to be normal. It was normal to see people smoking marijuana. It was normal to see people drinking all the time.

I think that's why I kind of followed that path and that pattern, whereas my sister—like you said—was the extreme opposite. She saw a problem and she vowed that she wasn't going to subject herself to being that way, and she's an elementary school teacher, by the way. My major in college was secondary education; my plan was to be a high school history teacher and coach sports. That was the plan. Obviously with felony murder, I am no longer qualified to work in the public school system, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t help people and talk to kids.

The Consequences of Choices

That’s one of the parts of my testimony you’ll hear about later, but that was the pattern. So, you mentioned, it was normalized. You saw it not only in your dad, and you mentioned your dad functioned, right? He was doing everything else well—taking care of the family, providing—and so it’s like, “Well, it’s not that big of a deal; it seems to be maintaining,” right?

I’m sure in your mind, just like anybody else, there was never this logical conclusion that the drinking on the weekends was going to lead up to you facing a murder rap, right? And so, dad’s doing alright; he’s drinking; it’s fine; I’ll be alright too. And so let's talk about that charge, though. I mean, you ended up facing down some serious prison time. You said 16 years; you didn’t see freedom.

So tell us what that journey was like, man, when you ended up at the courthouse. I don't know; did you plead guilty? What did that feel like? You know that moment when you realized that your freedom was getting ready to be taken away from you for a substantial amount of time?

I played the denial game; like I said, I was living a double life. Being arrested and charged with that, of course, everybody was shocked except for the people who knew me really well. I was facing that charge and I knew that if I was found guilty of that charge that my hopes and dreams for my future were going to be decimated and I just said I didn't do it; make them prove it.

There were some people that came forward and testified that I had confessed to the crime, which I actually did to the next two guys at the house I went to after it happened. I said, "You're not going to believe what just happened!" I'd been dealing with these guys for four or five years, and they're like, "Wow, man, that's crazy!" So later on, a few months later, their house got raided by the DEA, and their lawyers said, "You're about to do some serious bedtime unless you can either roll over on a kingpin or you know something major that the police don't know." They said, "Well, we know about this unsolved murder that happened a few months back. We know who did it."

Facing Guilt and Consequences

So that got the ball rolling. During the trial, the victim's mother got on the stand, and apparently, she had been talking to him before he tried to rob me on the phone, and he said he was going to call her back. Well, they hung up; our situation occurred; he didn't call back. So she tried calling him, and she said, "You know, whoever knocked on his door is the one who killed him." Things started to line up, and the jury believed that was the case with the other witnesses.

When the victim's mother got off the stand, she had an emotional breakdown of epic proportions, where she was crying and screaming. It was echoing throughout the courtroom. They had to remove the jury because it was such a cataclysmic event, and they had to call the hospital ambulance to come out and take her to the hospital because she was hyperventilating; she couldn't breathe. I was sitting in the courtroom listening to these screams, and it's only the screams that a mother who lost her only son can feel.

I just wanted to reach out; I just wanted to hug her and tell her I’m sorry; I didn’t want any of that to happen. But I had to sit there and take it because I couldn't just openly confess yes, it was me, but it was self-defense; nobody’s trying to hear that, you know? So I didn’t want to come clean at all, even if it meant I was going to do less time. I still knew I was going to do some time, and I didn’t want to have to face any time, and that was my position.

The jury found me guilty, and they had two options to give me life without parole or life with the possibility of parole. I guess they figured, well, I’m a college kid; maybe I have a chance to change. It was shown in court that he was also involved in drugs and living that lifestyle as well, and then once they decided, they decided to give me life with the possibility of parole. So I knew that I was going to have to serve at least 15 years in the state of West Virginia before I even had the opportunity to see the parole board.

Life Sentenced to Prison

I fell into a deep depression after that, and of course, I’m in jail getting ready to go to prison, supermax prison in West Virginia, and I'm like, well, I got to start adapting to this lifestyle, so I started living the hardcore convict lifestyle. From that point on, I was just doing whatever I felt like doing and trying to fit in with—like I was back in school again—trying to fit in with the tough guys, the cool guys. I was lifting weights, playing cards; I was running gambling operations, no thought of changing whatsoever.

I knew I had a problem, kind of, but I was always like, well, I could have quit drugs and alcohol anytime I wanted to; I just didn’t want to. Because of that, I was offered drugs and alcohol while I was inside, but because it was such a small amount and because I'm such a severe addict and alcoholic, I turned it down basically because I'm like, “Well, you're offering me a cup of some kind of jailhouse wine; if there’s not a barrel behind that cup, then I can’t get drunk every day all day long; then I’m not going to drink that first cup.”

So there was no thought of becoming sober; I was just like what they would consider a dry drunk. You know, white-knuckling it—just not doing it. From that point on, I ran into some problems. I got into some fights. I got some write-ups, went to solitary confinement on a few occasions.

The last time I went to solitary confinement was in 2005. I got a write-up because they had done a urine sample test in the prison, and I was clean, but I just couldn’t go in the cup. I don't know what it was; like my bladder, something was not working properly. I was trying to go, and just nothing was coming out, and there’s a time limit, and if you can’t go within that time limit, they just give you a class one write-up as if you are dirty.

I had to do 60 days for that, but because of that write-up, and it was related to drugs because it was a drug test, I was recommended to take a treatment program inside the prison. There’s a year-long substance abuse treatment program, which I tried to fight tooth and nail, but the parole board is like they sent this letter and recommended I take this program. So I had to do what the parole board says; they're my only way out.

Encountering Faith and Recovery

During the course of taking that program, I started to open my mind up. When you mentioned the sentencing, how much time did they give you? After like when you initially got sentenced, what did that look like? I just wanted to make sure I have context for in the next couple of questions.

Well, the sentence was life with parole, and that means that I have to serve a minimum of 15 years before I have a chance to see the parole board. There’s no discharge date; it’s not like after 30 years they have to let me go or anything like that. It’s a complete life sentence, so it’s all determined by the parole board whether they think I’m fit to re-enter society.

So I had gotten in some trouble, and because of that, I was recommended to take this drug and alcohol treatment program. I was just going to jump through the hoops, but while I was in that program, I started hearing people talking about their addiction and their lifestyle, and it was really hitting home. I said, "Okay, I'm going to give this a shot."

A Turning Point in Life

I was able to describe that for a second though. What that felt like, like just the—I’m imagining being in the courtroom. You mentioned earlier, you’re in this place in denial, right? Trying to fight through this. Like my best course of action is just to, you know, act like it didn’t happen rather than taking ownership of it. And there was a lot going on.

You mentioned the story of the mom and the emotions of all of that, and I mean, you said you wanted to go up and give her a big hug. So of course there’s something going on in your heart on the inside, I would imagine at that point, because you’re just dealing with all of this. And then to get to the end of the trial and have the judge drop that sentence of life without parole, I mean, can you just draw a sentence of those few moments? You know, for just like what did that feel like?

What was the first thing that kind of went through your head once that hit? Because that’s a big deal, right? I mean facing that down, and I know how to tell you. You love it, you know, but complete detachment would probably be the best way to describe that. I completely detached from reality; I was in utter shock, and I was having a hard time swallowing that hill of truth that I was not going to see freedom for at least another 15 years.

Seeing that far ahead was impossible for me, so I just, like I said, I sunk into a deep depression; I started living the convict lifestyle, and that led up to that treatment program. I started to work the 12 steps, and I'm like, wow, seven out of these 12 steps refer to God. How am I supposed to work these?

How Faith Made a Difference

A friend of mine named Christopher Davis said, "Don’t worry about God; God’s doing just fine. You just keep doing the best you can working these steps, and eventually, you’ll be contacted." Yeah, and I was like, what do you mean, contacted? Yeah, he’s like, "God’s gonna contact you."

He said, "I saw a vision of you up on the stage, you’re preaching," and I just laughed. I said, "There’s no way!" I was like I don’t believe in God, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be a preacher. It was just like all these impossible scenarios that were not gonna happen in my mind at that point in time.

Then I was contacted; I had a powerful spiritual encounter in myself in 2009, and I mean it was so powerful. It was a Christ encounter; that’s the only way I can describe it. I went from totally being an atheist to the next day totally believing.

A Defining Moment

How did that encounter materialize? You mentioned you’re hearing things from different people; your buddy said, "Don’t worry, God’s gonna contact you." But what did that look like in the prison cell, man? You know, when you had that encounter with the Lord.

All right, I’ll break it down. I was very sick; I had what was not known at that time but was the H1N1 flu, and that was sweeping across the country in 2008-2009. Apparently, a staff member visited or brought it in, and I was so sick I probably lost about 10 pounds in three days; couldn’t keep anything down, didn’t want to eat anything.

I asked to go to medical, but you got to fill out a request form, and it takes a while. I lay down in my cell on the bunk, which is about, you know, two and a half feet off the ground. I went to sleep, and when I did, at some point, I was surrounded by this mist, and there was a hand reaching out to me through the mist, but I couldn’t see whose hand it was.

I got scared, and I was like, "Is in my dead? Is this God? Is this Jesus?" And so I turned around to run away from the hand, and when I did, I came to, and I was faced down on the floor in my cell. I started gasping for air as if I had flatlined or something, and when I started gasping for air, I started hyperventilating. Eventually, after a few minutes, I was able to catch my breath and breathe normally.

What I had taken away from that experience was that maybe I did flatline; maybe I did crossover or was in some type of limbo area. All I could remember was that hand reaching out to me. It was like I wasn’t afraid; it was like a hand of love—like, "Here, take my hand; you’re struggling right now. I love you."

Finding Hope and Purpose

When I turned, it was like, "Here’s your second chance; here’s your chance to do this life thing over and to have it with this new lens that you’re looking through—that God is real, that God exists, and He loves you." He doesn’t want to punish you. I get people all these times like, "God hates me," this and that. I’m like, “No! He loves you like a father loves you.”

It’s like, but when you do wrong, He’s not going to be happy about it, and you need to face consequences. How else do you learn unless you face consequences? I’m looking around me—I’m facing the most serious consequences you can face. I’m separated from the world, and here I am in this extremely negative, harsh environment, and yet I had this part of my heart that had been closed off for so long was now open.

I was open to receiving; I was open to receiving anything good and not trying to block it off or set up walls, which I had done to protect myself. Now it was like, "God, I’m here; whatever you want, whatever you need from me, I’m here; I will do whatever you want me to do."

Transformative Changes

That’s when I believe that the calling had taken place. I went to medical; of course, they had to take me to the medical unit because of everything that happened. The CEO looked at me and said, "I’ve seen visions." I was like, "No, it was just like…." Yeah, people could call on hallucination or whatever. I know what I know, and right—that's good enough for me.

They took me to medical; they gave me fluids; they were looking at my vital signs, and they were like, "I’m surprised you’re even alive." I was like, "I think I might have flatlined." That’s it, from what happened. They said, "It’s a very good possibility because this flu has been killing strong young healthy people."

After that, it was like, where's the church? Where's the Bible study? I’m reading a Bible. That journey took me to further my education, and I said, "Well, since I can't complete college and be a teacher, I can at least learn more about the Word of God." So I'm going to take these courses. They have these correspondence Bible study courses.

There was an actual college about Revelation Message Bible College that offers scholarships to inmates. So I completed that; they took my transfer credits from college, and then I completed that degree. Then they said, "We’re so impressed with your work that we think you’d be a good candidate for our seminary, Jacksonville Theological Seminary, where you can further your education, you get a master’s degree, and if you complete that, then next in line’s the doctorate."

Embracing the Path Forward

Over the next five years, I was able to complete all that, submit my thesis, and get the doctorate in the field of ministry. I see Christopher Davis, and he said, "Hey, remember when you said that you weren't going to be a preacher?" Look at you now!

That was it! That was like, that’s what I want to do; I want to share the message; I want to share the news. Take us into some of that inner work, right? Because you have this experience with the Lord; you hear the call, and I mean you start responding in obedience. Right, God speaks to you in the cell, you know, through this incredible God experience.

I love that how you said it’s the love of God that draws us in. Scripture says it’s the goodness of God, right, that leads people to repentance. I think there’s a lot of that; we think that, you know, God’s just sitting up there waiting, you know, like the angry care with the magnifying glass waiting to burn us out, you know, as soon as you make a mistake.

The reality is that He doesn’t have to do that because our natural consequences of sin, I mean, they’re pretty good discipline all of their own. God does love us and wants to draw us back in, you know? There’s a verse in scripture that said God disciplines those He loves, and I always say, "Well, God must have loved me a lot."

Reflections on Inner Work

I have a sense of humor about it, and that’s one thing that I was able to maintain was to have a sense of humor and to maintain a positive attitude in a negative place. While I thought, “Well, maybe I’m going to lose the respect of some of my peers because I’m going this Christian path,” it was actually the opposite. It seemed like they respected me even more that I was willing to walk this walk inside that place without concern about what other people think about me.

At that point in time, I’m like, I don’t care what anybody thinks about me; God’s opinion is the only one that I’m concerned with right now, and I’m trying to please Him and doing things to please Him. Fast forward, the inner work was reading scripture every day; I was attending the support groups; I was talking about things; I was opening up.

One of the steps, step four talks about going back in your past and seeing where the pain was coming from. You know, why did I want to drink to begin with? Why did I want to use drugs to begin with? What was so wrong with my reality that I wanted to escape it? It was at that point that I came to the realization that it was early childhood trauma and social anxiety that was a result of that trauma and me trying to relax and calm my nerves around people.

I’m not very comfortable around people. I still have feelings to this day, but I can override those feelings and let my faith take over and be strong in those moments instead of just avoiding crowds, parties, or people. I just, it’s like I bite my lip and I jump in and swim now instead of running away and hiding.

Navigating Memory and Recovery

What is it with the Lord constantly calling introverts to ministry? I had no idea, but it's like I never had a problem getting up in front of a group of people and speaking because there’s no personal interaction in that. It’s like, give me a thousand people; I will speak—no nerves, no problem—where other people are terrified to do that, but they’ll go up to a stranger and just strike up a conversation with them.

I’m like, how do you do that? I feel like—and that’s the childhood trauma; that’s the early childhood stuff. I felt like I was bothering people; I felt like I was an annoyance, and I didn’t want to intrude on somebody else’s personal space or in their life. I didn’t want to get intimate with anybody. That’s how I did you get there mentally, right? Because I know sometimes the memories and stuff from the past, they’re hard to recall and hard to identify.

What kind of sparked all this off, right? And so you said you got to that place of childhood trauma, and I mean, was that something like the Lord revealed to you through the Word, or just kind of looking through your past and unpacking things? How did you get there to realize that was what was causing you to ultimately turn to alcohol?

It was a combination of a lot of things. The spiritual guidance was there to allow me to go back and really examine my childhood from the perspective of an adult. A rational adult mind kids are great observers, but they’re lousy interpreters. You know, like, if mom and dad are having an argument about paying for my league football, then as a kid I think I’m the reason, right? So I go to mom and dad and say, “You know what? I think I’m going to take this season off. I really don’t want to play football this fall.”

I’m like 12 years old; I really want to play football. Are you sure? Are you sure? Yeah, yeah. Well, they had no idea I heard that fight that they were having about, you know, an argument for money. I was like, I don’t want to be a burden on them. It had nothing to do with me personally; it was their stuff; it was their issues between each other and how they’re budgeting their money and their finances.

I felt like I was the cause. You know, my parents got divorced; I felt like in some way I was a reason for that. And earlier on, you know, the ways that they disciplined me caused me to believe that I was annoying, that I was hyperactive, and dad wants to rest and relax when he gets home from work. I want to play, and I didn’t know how to, you know, be calm in those moments.

Breaking Down Walls of Fear

So the way they disciplined me made me realize, and think that, oh, well, I must just be this annoying hyperactive person, and people don’t want to be around. That was the case at all; it was just they were doing the best they could with what they had. And yeah, that was their method of trying to, you know, teach me and discipline me.

Like I said, it was no physical abuse or anything like that, but it was something that was stuck. I was like, you know, it makes so much sense that because I have that false belief, it leads to this feeling, and it leads to me acting in this way. So being around people, the only way I could kind of calm my nerves and socialize was to drink to escape from my current reality, enter into a new reality where, hey, all my inhibitions are gone, I feel great, hey, what’s going on?

I can’t sustain that for the rest of my life; I can’t just constantly just be throwing shots back if I got a meeting at work or something or if I gotta be around other people. No, I mean something has to change, but it was through finding the root causes of my addiction and where it stemmed from instead of just trying to deal with the symptoms after they occur and just, “Oh, I shouldn’t do that, I shouldn’t do that.” Well, why did I do it to begin with? And that’s a big question.

So I got to that realization and that acceptance, and that could be painful, right? Starting to dig into that stuff, and I think that’s why a lot of people avoid it, right? Because talking about it with somebody else is the next part to confessing that and to relieve myself of that burden of that pain and allow somebody else in, which I was always like, I don’t trust anybody.

You know, after seeing what I have with my parents, I just didn’t believe the institution of marriage was even real; I just thought it was just people just pretending. And I didn’t really feel that love in my heart for anybody else; it was always like “If you make me feel good, then I guess I love you.” Yeah, if you look at me, then I guess I should be your boyfriend or—you know, it’s just one of those things where it was so superficial and so shallow. There was no real substance to it, and then, like I said, I got further along, and to the point where I was actually going to see the parole board.

The Emotional Encounter

Okay, I was going to say about that; this was a huge thing because it’s been 15 years. I didn’t know who was going to show up, but I had gone to this ministry, Chyrous Ministry thing that they had every Monday night. That’s a group of men that come in, and they play music, we sing songs. We split off into groups; we talk about, you know, how’s Christ working in your life? Has there been any time where you’ve struggled to show Christ's love to somebody? Things like that.

One of the outside volunteers, he said, "Your name is Mark, right?" I said, “Yeah.” He said, "Is it Mark Hubble?" I was like, “Yeah.” He was like, "Oh," and I was like, "What?" He said, "There’s going to be a lot of people that are showing up to your parole hearing next month," and I was just like, “My heart sunk,” because it’s like I have made all these positive changes in my life; I’m following God now.

Now at least all of these emotions and these fears and anxiety just start to creep in. When the parole hearing began, there were at least 40 or 50 people that came in for the thing, and I had about 10 people on my side. It was so lopsided, and there were three people on the parole board sitting in front of me. I can't look behind me; I'm facing the parole board; everybody's behind me. The CEO said, “Do not look behind you, do not look at the victim's family, do not look at your family.”

He said, “You just look at the parole board, and when we say that it’s time for you to get up and go, it’s time for you to get up and go.” So, okay, the parole board said, “Is there anybody from the victim's side that would like to speak?” and I heard these feet shuffling to this podium where there was a microphone.

A Moment of Forgiveness

And lo and behold, it was the victim's mother, the same one who was screaming in the courtroom. Working the steps, we talk about making amends; I could not reach out to this person and write a letter. It was against the rules; it was against the law for me to contact the victim's family in any way. So in my mind, I was like, I would if I could, but I can't, and making those amends just seemed to come to a head in this moment because when she got her chance to speak, she said, “Mark, I just want you to know something,” and here I was bracing for the worst. “Oh my god, she’s going to say bury him under the prison, don’t ever loan him out!”

She said, “Mark, I just want you to know that I forgive you,” and I’m telling you, the floodgates of tears just opened up. I started bawling. I mean, I was just shaking; I was bawling so hard and crying so hard because of that relief, of that built-up thinking! She’s going to say something, and then it’s like this God-shining moment where forgiveness is shown.

I don’t even remember anything after that really, you know? The parole board said there were other people that spoke, and the parole board said, “Is there anything you’d like to say?” and they have an opportunity to give me more time or let me go. I said, “You can give me 10 more years as long as I have her forgiveness; I will do it gladly.”

I said, “I know that I deserve to be punished for what I’ve done, and I’m willing to accept that punishment, whatever it is. But I am not that man anymore. But I know that I still envelop this body, and this body has to be somewhere. If you think that it needs to be here, that’s fine; if not, that’s fine.” I was like what having her forgiveness is all that I need for the rest of my life.

Navigating Parole and Relationships

I said, “I feel like I’m free right now.” That haunted you up to that point, I mean, what, you know, I wrote a letter to her. I wrote a letter because that was something that I was advised to do. It’s like, well, if you can’t make amends and you can’t reach out, at least write the letter; write what you would say if you had the opportunity to speak to this woman.

I did, and I wrote that letter, and then after the hearing, they decided that they weren’t going to let me go. They said, “You lied; you pled not guilty; you caused the state and the taxpayers a lot of money. Letting you out first time up—we’re not going to do that; take another year to think about this and really feel this experience.” I said, “Thank you very much; I will.” Then the next year, the victim's mother was sitting with my family.

Unbelievable! Asking for them to release me; she said, “This young man has changed, and he needs to be out here sharing his faith with other people.”

Building New Connections

So how did the relationship build between your family and the victim's mother outside of prison to cause that? Yeah, and that's another crazy story. My mom, after the parole hearing, when I’m like, my mom’s crying—there’s this locker area where people put their personal belongings before they go into the prison, and my mom’s crying, and she’s taking her stuff out of her locker, and she looks over, and she sees the victim's mother taking her stuff out of her locker.

My mom says she just dropped her head because, you know, shame and just not knowing really how to respond. She said that woman walked over to her, just put her things down, and just gave my mom a big bear hug, and they just stood there and cried. My mom said for the next five minutes. And she said, "We’ll do anything for our babies."

Her and my mom got to be good friends. She’s a believer, right? The victim's mother; she’s a very strong believer. Also, her brother, who was the victim's uncle—I did not know this until I went down to visit the Calvary Chapel Newport News Church. He had invited me to visit there, and I did not know this until I went to visit, but he had wrote a letter on my behalf between 2015 and 2016, that next parole hearing, saying that he believes that I have changed and that it’s opened his heart up to see the change that has occurred in me, and he believes that I should be released.

So, you know, all those things factored into me actually being paroled in 2016. When you talk about rebuilding life after addiction, mine started while I was in a prison setting. I know guys, they go to jail, they go to prison; they say, “When I get out, I’ll do this. When I get out, but in here I got to be this way.”

Embracing Sobriety

I’m like, "No, you don’t; you can start developing good habits right here, right now, no matter what your circumstances are." You can start right here and right now. And that’s what I did. I was trying to live a free person’s life while I was inside. I was saying no to anything that was against the rules. I don’t care if the rule is stupid or not; I don’t care if it’s a petty thing. I was like, “I’m going to follow the rules because that’s what I need to do.”

And it was my idea. The recovery part says this: My idea to remain sober for the rest of my life. Last Friday, I picked up my 23-year chip in the program, Alcoholics Anonymous; the day I got arrested, in September 29th of the year 2000 to September 2023, 23 years had passed since I had used drugs or alcohol in any way, shape.

That’s awesome, man. Praise God! That’s awesome, man. Congrats to that! That is no easy feat. And so did you get out the next year? You said they released you in 2016 in October. I had to wait 30 days; it’s crazy. They grant you parole, and then you have to spend another 30 days in prison while they get all the paperwork in order and they notify the state of Virginia because I was prolonged back to my home state.

It’s like I got 30 days; I’m in there like every day was just like the longest day ever because I know that there’s going to be that day that I’m going to walk out of there. I’m waiting for somebody to do something stupid. I can’t imagine feeling just. I showed respect at all times while I was in there in every aspect of my life, from my running wild days to my, you know, new faith Christian days.

Living Out a Calling

So I was not concerned about anybody trying to do anything crazy to cause me to lose my parole. You know, to me, it was—it was basically like guys were really, really rooting for me and when I got out, the first 30 days, I got everything in line. I said, "You know, I know what my calling is—to spread the message of faith and recovery."

So many opportunities have opened for me to do that because it’s such a broad calling. I’m not confined to one particular way to spread the message of faith and recovery, and I can tell you about some of the things that I’m doing currently with my life.

The Journey Forward

What steps have you say, and what does that look like? You know, in pursuing that calling, right? What is Mark doing now to continue to fulfill that calling that was spoken on you way back, right? 2005, 2006, 2009 is when I got saved, okay? So 2009, God gives you this call to ministry, and so now, fast forward 2023, how is that materialized?

I’ll basically break down the next month for you of my life. If you want to know more detail about how those things came to be, then I’ll be more than happy to tell you, but there is one story that I do have to tell that takes a few minutes about one area of my life.

Okay, so, you know, I was going to be a teacher and coach sports—that was my original dream. I know that coaching sports is off the table because who’s going to allow me to coach kids with a felony murder record, all right? So this last night, I was facilitating a recovery-based workshop at the Loudness Arena of the House in Leesburg, Virginia.

It's a 10-part workshop series that I facilitate. I came up with the material, of course, I had to use references for the material, but I came up with the material in the format, and I’ve been doing that since August of this year. I go in; it’s from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Thursday nights on a schedule. I do 10 workshops; this is the next series of five. Last night's workshop was called No Safe Bets: The Hidden Dangers of Gambling.

I know that a lot of people, after they get clean and sober, they want that thrill, that excitement, and gambling is one of those easily accessible things that people do. Now I see guys on their phone all the time with FanDuel like, “Oh, I’m going to take so-and-so tonight in the game.” I’m like, "I wish you knew what the odds really were!"

Facilitating Change

At the workshop, I tell people what the odds really are and how it’s so stacked against them that it’s better to just save your money and spend it wisely and save it than to try to gamble on sports, casino games, or lottery. So that was last night. This weekend, Sunday morning, I’ll be preaching at the Connecting Point Community Church in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

The woman who is one of the leaders in that church—pretty much the face of the church, Peggy Williams—her son actually was in jail with me in the year 2000 and 2001, and we got to know each other. She used to send me—because he said, “Mom, this is a really nice guy,” send him a letter every now and then. He didn’t get too much mail, so she sent me these things, and they were always Christian scriptures and passages, and I want to be Christian at the time, but it was just a nice gesture.

I was respectful, and I was like, “Thank you very much for doing that.” When I got out, that was the first place that I was able to preach is Connecting Point. Her and her brother, Willie Owens, are there; they’re the leaders of that church, and it was just like a surreal experience because it’s like, wow! We connected so long ago, and now here we are connecting again under different circumstances.

Stepping into Leadership

What did that feel like stepping into the pit for the first time? Like I was completely and totally ready, and I know what people think is like I was nervous; I was scared; I was ready because you got to know that I’ve been preparing for that moment for the past seven or eight years to be in that position and to fulfill that area of my calling. So I’ll be there this Sunday from 10 a.m. to noon.

The following day, I’m driving from Clarksburg to Huntington, West Virginia, which has a huge recovery community—a faith-based recovery community down there, a life house program, a unit life program. There’s also this place I’m going to on Monday morning called the Chilean Circle of Care, and it’s a men’s treatment center, which was started by a guy that I was in prison with—William Berkeley; he’s the director there.

So he got with somebody; they opened up this place, and they’re helping men—a lot of people have alcohol or drug abuse history and some have a jail prison history. So I’m going there on Monday morning, and I’m going to do kind of like a guest instructor for a recovery-related class based on addiction and, you know, my story is always going to have a spiritual side to it.

That's right, absolutely! Another way I’m spreading, you know, fulfilling that calling. Then later on that day at five o’clock, I’m going to the newness of life house, and I’m going to be like a guest speaker and talk to them. Then at seven p.m. that night, I’m going to the Norway Avenue Church of Christ, which is the host church for the movement church—the movement livestream, and it was started by a man named Rocky Meadows, who I also had been touring when I was inside.

He opened up one house, and now he’s got like 30 houses and a huge recovery community—tries state recovery, something like that. I’m going to be preaching a message Monday night at seven o’clock on the movement live stream; anybody can get on and watch that. So that’s the next four days.

Then I will be starting up as a middle school basketball coach for the fifth season for the Northern Virginia Homeschool Athletic Association. This will be my fifth season as the middle school boys' basketball head coach for these kids ages 12 to 14 who are Christian homeschooled kids.

Coaching and Community Engagement

This is the quick story I want to share about that. There’s a kid in my church, and he gave me an invitation to attend his graduation party—me and my wife. Then he sent me a message: “Hey, graduation party is this weekend; I hope to see you there,” and he’s a big kid too, so I was like, "He must play football or something."

So I go to his house; my wife has to talk me into going to his house because I’m like, "Man, I was like—I already just don’t fit in with a bunch of church people and Christian people." I hate to say that, you know, but I just—the anxiety creeps up, you know, in the feelings to creep up. It’s like if I had a choice, I would choose to just not go, but my wife—her love for me so much—she said, "No, we gotta go."

She’s like, "It’s Seth; you know we gotta go," and so I said, "Okay." So I go in there, and there are these real tall guys, and they got all these blue shirts that say Centurions on them. I knew that Seth had played football, and he played basketball too, but I thought it was for an actual real high school. I didn’t know that he was homeschooled. So I started talking to the coaches, and the basketball coach said, "Yeah, we’re having a basketball camp next week, and our speaker was coming from New York, and he’s not able to make it. We heard that you do guest speaking."

I said, "Yeah, I do a guest speaking," and I said, "I play basketball, so I can relate my basketball experience to my faith and speak to the kids at this camp. Is that okay?" It’s on Saturday, and I said, "Well, I have a request." They said, "Yeah." I said, "Would it be possible if I could be a coach, instructor at the camp, shooting instructor, ball handling instructor?" They’re like, "Yeah, we definitely need all the help we can get."

So I showed up, and I was doing the ball handling and shooting instructing all throughout the week, and then I delivered a message about being a great teammate. I didn’t tell anything about my past and what I had gone through as far as my prison and we’re strictly focused on being a great teammate, how to be a great teammate and how, you know, God can allow us to be great teammates on and off the court and great people.

After that, the other coaches got together and they said, "Would you be interested in coaching our basketball team this year?" I said, "Yeah, but I gotta tell you something.” So I told about my past, and they said, "Well, we still want you to apply to an interview for the position." I’m like, "Well, I don’t want to waste anybody’s time if it’s going to be a hard no based on my past."

They were like, "No, we’re a private Christian organization, and we decide who is allowed to be in this organization or not." I said, "Well, if we do this, then, you know, I’ll do the interview." I did the interview; they wanted to have me on; they said, "Which level do you want to coach?" I said, "I want to start at the lowest level; I want to start middle school; I want to build a great foundation for them."

Inspiring Young Athletes

So the transition to your levels will be easier; you don’t have to teach them how to play basketball anymore; I’ve already taken care of that. So they said we’re going to hire you as our basketball coach, and I said, "Well, we need to talk to the parents first. I want you to get all the parents in a room, and I said I’m going to share my story, and I did."

I shared my story with the parents, and I said, "If any one of you wants to withdraw your sons from this program based on my past, don’t; I will leave. I’ll leave right now." I said, "Don’t deny your kid that opportunity because of me," and I said, "Does anybody have any questions for me, comments, concerns? Well, one guy raised his hand, and he said, "Mark, the fact that you’re willing to give up something you love so much and are so passionate about so one of these not one of these kids misses out makes me want you to coach my son even more."

“That’s integrity; that’s what real leadership is about; that’s what real love is about.” He said, "If we’re Christians and we can’t forgive, then are we really Christians?" The other parents just basically said they want you here, and we’re willing to see what happened in your past is in your past, and you were no longer that person.

You had your Paul experience; you had your Damascus road experience, and from that point on, you’ve been doing great things in your life. This is something, Justin, that I stopped praying about. I stopped praying about me asking to be a coach because I thought it was such an unbelievable impossible thing to happen that I didn’t even pray for it anymore, and look how God blessed me!

Look how God blessed me. But I took a team; they had not won a game the previous year; they were 0 and 12, and they had not won a game. So I took over, and I was like, oh, it can only go up from here. The last year’s coach—not to knock him; I’m just saying I can’t do any worse, and we ended up having a winning record.

A New Path Ahead

The coaches were just blown away—they were like, "I cannot believe that you guys have a winning record!" We played some amazing games, but it was so—to your standards. Hope the Commanders too—I don’t know about the Commanders, but I know that having this opportunity, that’s another way that I can reach out and fulfill my calling—the spreading of the message of faith and recovery is talking to those kids and talking to those kids that were the same age I was when I was so impressionable and needed those strong role models in my life.

I get to be that strong role model, and at some point during the season, I do open up and talk about, you know, consequences they can get choices.

Words of Wisdom for Others

So, because I imagine at this moment right, the individual that may come across and is in that place where they want sobriety, but they’re, you know, they’re still kind of fighting with doing that inner work. They’re still living in the prison even though they may not be behind bars, but they’re free but not really. What is, I mean, if you—I know there’s a lot, right? If there’s one thing that you learned about doing that inner work, and that journey to get started, what would that be?

To not fear what you’re going to find out. I think a lot of people in addiction are living in fear, and they’re trying so hard not to relive and revisit those painful parts of their past that avoidance is not taking care of the problem. Avoidance is ignoring the problem even though the problem exists, and then pretending like if I just put this in my system, I’m not going to forget about that. I can just forget about everything and forget about those problems. I can stand on the beach, and I can turn my back to the ocean and I can pretend like the tide’s not going to come in all day long, but eventually, my feet are going to start to get wet, and eventually, I’m going to be enveloped, and eventually, I’m going to drown.

I don’t want to see people drown anymore; I don’t want to see people drown because they’re avoiding what source that the pain is coming from. They’re avoiding that source, and I would always say just to not fear what you’re going to find out. First, before you get better, you’re going to have to go through some pain in order to relive it and to process it, then to accept it, and to move on from that point. Alright, I know everybody’s got a past, but I always say that the true source of addiction comes from something that’s happened to us in the past or something that we’ve done in the past that we’re trying to mask or trying to cover up.