A Couple's Story of Addiction, Redemption, and a New Mission
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, John and Ashley Marsh once stood on the edge of collapse. Addiction, infidelity, and financial ruin had left their marriage shattered and their lives without direction. John was preparing to end it all when an unexpected moment of faith interrupted his plans. That turning point marked the beginning of a long journey of recovery and forgiveness. Together, the couple rebuilt what was broken and discovered a calling bigger than themselves. Today, they live out that calling by restoring abandoned buildings and bringing life back to forgotten neighborhoods.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:19.1 | And we continue here with our American stories, and we love telling stories of redemption, |
| 0:25.7 | stories to give you hope amidst your own daily struggles and the noise that's out there each |
| 0:31.1 | and every day in the news. Joey Cortez brings us one of these stories, the story of John |
| 0:36.8 | and Ashley Marsh. |
| 0:38.3 | I was on a trail and a track that I couldn't get off of. |
| 0:43.3 | I was just in this, I felt I was in a tug of war and I was the rope. |
| 0:47.3 | This pain and suffering just got so great. |
| 0:50.3 | I started fantasizing about killing myself, so I figured out where you got this old house with this huge attic fan. |
| 0:55.0 | I'm going to pull the attic fan out. |
| 0:57.0 | Set up a huge pulley up in the attic and set up where I could have it where I knew it wouldn't break. |
| 1:02.0 | And I got it all set up where I could hang myself out of that hole. |
| 1:05.0 | Our single knives were 14 foot. |
| 1:07.0 | So I never hit the floor. |
| 1:09.0 | It's going to work. |
| 1:10.0 | And I went up there to hang myself and had no reservations. |
| 1:16.0 | John was born in Albany, Georgia, the parents that were 14 and 17 years old. |
| 1:22.4 | He was put up for adoption and taken in by an incredibly loving family. |
| 1:27.1 | As a kid, he made good grades and listened to his parents until... |
| 1:32.3 | I rebelled. |
| 1:34.3 | You know, rebellion's interesting. |
| 1:35.3 | It takes you further than you want to go and cost you more than you want to pay. |
... |
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