Mission for Marcus aims to impart a message of hope
BETHLEHEM — When Mark and Teresa Kaplan described their son, Marcus, his love of sports sprang to mind first. Marcus’s life is sketched out with family memories: how he admired his siblings’ accomplishments — a brother in what the Kaplans called ‘“a typical Bethlehem home” — and how he pushed himself with boundless enthusiasm into the world of athletics.
“He was just sports, sports, sports,” remembered Teresa Kaplan, the co-founder of the non-profit Mission for Marcus. He was in the National Honor Society and avidly pursued sports in college. However, when he tore his ACL, it was a significant injury that affected his ability to play sports.
Teresa believes this was the catalyst for a depressive spiral that sent him on a years-long journey with a substance abuse disorder.
“The injury put him in such a depression because I believe his identity was in sports,” she said.
Marcus passed away due to an accidental fentanyl overdose in April 2019. He had been clean for a significant period of time, but then had a “slipback,” which is common in substance use disorders if one doesn’t get continuous care.
“That’s why what we have been doing is sharing his story in the hopes that it will help other people and other families,” said Teresa. “You do not have to hide from this. So many other families are going through this, and it is the worst feeling in the world to think that you’re going through it alone.”
After Marcus passed away, the Delmar Rotary Foundation approached the Kaplans to ask them if they wanted to do a golf tournament in his memory. They agreed, wanting to pay tribute to Marcus’s love of golfing with his father, Mark Kaplan, and also to raise awareness about substance use disorders.
The golf tournament is now an annual summertime tradition, with the 5th Annual Mission For Marcus Memorial Golf Tournament to be held June 24 at Normanside Country Club. The foundation supports Mission for Marcus in continuing to raise funds to further education.
Mission for Marcus works closely with local organizations that are also furthering the education work, such as the Addiction Care Center, the National Alliance of Mental Health and the Herren Project. While Mission for Marcus provides support for all ages, they focus on schools for their annual Awareness Day, a crucial aspect of their work.
Upcoming is Mission for Marcus’s annual Awareness Day at Bethlehem Central High School on May 22. The event hosts a national speaker, with Stephen Hill returning to conduct a day-long program at the school on May 17.
Last year, Hill, a recovery coach, public speaker and criminal defense attorney, spoke to more than 1,400 students on Awareness Day at Bethlehem High School.
“They [the Kaplans] were the first to stand up and give me a hug after the presentation ended,” said Hill. “It was a great day, a memorable day.’”
When they visit the school, Mission for Marcus hands out colorful socks to the students (a tribute to Marcus because he loved colorful socks), and have the students answer trivia. Mission for Marcus has found the students to be extremely receptive and responsive.
“It was amazing. They were so engaging,” said Mark. “The kids look forward to Awareness Day now. We’re hopeful. You can only help one person at a time. But this way, we feel like we’re reaching the whole school that goes to these events.”
Educational language cards are provided for students because “language matters.”
“How you talk about people who have a substance use disorder matters. Instead of calling them an ‘addict’, they’re somebody with a substance use disorder. Just small things like that,” said Mark. “People have to feel like you’re not going to judge them; you’re going to love them. … Anybody who suffers with an addiction, the one thing they want to know is that they’re loved and that people have faith in them.”
He said that people often don’t think addiction is treatable, but it is.
“It’s not a social failure or moral shortcoming,” he said. “It’s a disease that affects the whole family. Those are some of the things that I think are really important, and words matter. How you talk to people, what you call them, just adds to the stigma.”
Mission for Marcus aims to take a proactive approach to increasing awareness of the dangers of stigma, whether externally or self-inflicted.
“The really scary statistic about that is that because of that self-stigma, only one in 10 people who have a diagnosis of substance use disorder seek professional help,” said Teresa. “So nine out of 10 people don’t even seek help; they just live with their disorder.”
She knows firsthand how Marcus struggled with self-stigma and believes the intensity of it made it difficult for him to get help toward the end of his life.
“I know that he just felt like such a failure,” said Teresa. “He would try and try and try. He always said, after a relapse, ‘I hate to start all over again.’ That’s the self-stigma that we’re talking about.”
“Stigma keeps people in the shadows,” said Mark. “That’s exactly why we’re teaching people that it is a disease, that it needs to be treated as a disease, and that it’s not a moral failing. It’s really all about stigma awareness and education.”
To further this education, Mission for Marcus’s goal is to encourage the expansion of these proactive programs to schools across the region. Locally, the Addiction Care Center hosts a national program called An Apple A Day, and this program was piloted at Elsmere Elementary School.
For the program, there was no discussion of substances at all. The conversation centered on the importance of self-esteem and ways to build up the students’ self-esteem.
The Kaplans said Marcus suffered from low self-esteem. He used to stutter, and he was teased for it. A corrosive sense of low self-esteem hid underneath the surface of what the Kaplan family remembered as an “all-American boy.”
“What we’re trying to really work on is their self-worth, their self-esteem, and letting kids know that it’s OK to be different,” said Teresa.
“We have to start getting our kids to believe that they don’t have to be like somebody else,” said Mark. “That who they are is good enough; that they should be comfortable in their own skin. That’s why we have to be proactive.”
Mission for Marcus defines this proactive education as the crux of the main message they are trying to communicate to the community.
“That’s the pebble in the water that we’re trying to do,” said Mark. “We’re the pebble. We’re hoping that the ripples will just kind of keep getting bigger, bigger, and bigger.”
The ripple from their loss continues to feed into their message of hope. It’s a message of hope that Marcus himself was able to experience briefly in his own life.
“Marcus, at the time that he died, was living out on his own with his girlfriend, and he had a good job. He had a dog. He at least had a portion of the life that I think he wanted before he passed,” said Teresa. “Because up until that point, I don’t think he could ever foresee himself having that. Recovery is possible. I think that’s the hope.”
She recounted how, when she and her husband attended a group meeting for families of alcoholics, Marcus asked whether they mentioned him during the session. When they said no, he wondered whether his parents were ashamed of him.
“And I said, ‘No’,” remembered Teresa. “‘But it’s not my story to tell.’”
She recalled his reply: “‘Mom, if it will help one other person, share my story.’”
For more information, visit shatterproof.org, samhsa.gov, birdease.com/2024InMemoryofMarcusKaplan, and oasas.ny.gov. The Addiction Care Center of Albany offers family navigators who triage the individual needs of each person or family: 518-465-5470 and theacca.net/family-support.
This story was featured on page 1 of the February 21, 2024 edition of The Spotlight