Finding Your Way: One Man's Search for Sanity, Sobriety and Success

By Dr. David Marley

Find your why, and you'll find your way.

At the heart of Dave Marley's book is a simple premise: Finding your way doesn't mean you always know where you're going. It's learning how to find your way back to what's important. FINDING YOUR WAY is a fascinating examination and eye-opening perspective on finding you

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pearhouse Press, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737788416

Dr. David Marley

DAVE MARLEY is a prolific and accomplished businessman, evidenced by him building a multimillion-dollar business from the ground up, which was named small business of the year by Greater Winston-Salem, Inc. in 2017. He built Marley Drug on the foundation that if you serve people, the financial rewards will follow. His experience, awards, and accolades are numerous. He is most honored by being awarded the Walking The Talk award from Pharmacy Development Services, the Perseverance Award from the University of Buffalo, and the Piedmont Business Ethics award. Dave graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Buffalo. He received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a member of the American Pharmacists Association and the North Carolina Association of Pharmacists. The impetus for writing FINDING YOUR WAY came from a friend who challenged him to write the book believing that God had a purpose and that Dave needed to share how he made good out of all the chaos. Dave was born in Philadelphia, raised in upstate New York, and resides in North Carolina. He is a devoted father of two boys and a loving husband to his wife, Elizabeth. When he isn't consulting, writing, or speaking to groups, he can be found playing hockey at a rink or fishing off the coast of North Carolina.

Book preview

I grew up with the story of my adoption told to me almost every night before I fell asleep. There I was, painting the living room ceiling while your mother held the ladder, my dad would start. When we got the call that Catholic Charities in Utica had a 1½-year-old who needed a home right away.

They added more details as I grew older, woven somewhere between my dad sitting on the end of my bed and my mother tidying the remains of my day until they turned off the bedside lamp. I’d been in foster care, they told me, with a family who had planned to adopt me until the father suffered some health issues and, sadly, couldn’t continue the process. The way my parents told the story, adopting me and my other siblings were strokes of good fortune.

Later, my older brother, Joe, told me more about my actual adoption. I don’t have a memory of being in court, but he remembers going to the courthouse just as strongly as he remembers no longer being the youngest when our parents brought me home. My best day wasn’t his; my mother told me that within the first few hours of my arrival, Joe stuck out his foot and tripped me as I walked past him. Unfortunately, our relationship never got much better, and he took advantage of every opportunity to mess with me.

Adopted kids usually struggle with belonging, wondering if their place in their new family is secure and if their adoptive parents were truly their mom and dad. Not me.

Family is not defined by our genes; it is built and maintained through love.

Family is not defined by our genes; it is built and maintained through love. If I ever doubted how wanted I was, I only needed to remind myself that my parents adopted me knowing I had multiple surgeries and lengthy recoveries ahead of me to repair my cleft palate. The hospital remains the main character in my earliest memories, even though I was so young that I was in the pediatric ward during those first surgeries. There were four cribs in my room, each holding a baby or toddler in recovery, all of us crying when the hospital rules stated that our parents couldn’t stay with us overnight. When I replay that time in my mind, I see my mother’s devastated face, my dad reassuring her as they disappeared into the hallway, and the terror I felt when the door closed behind them.

I didn’t know anything about cleft palates, and I didn’t know about painful surgeries until I experienced a few of them. The first closed the soft palate on the top of my mouth. When I woke up, they’d put splints on my arms to keep me from ripping out the stitches. These memories are tinged with the smell of antiseptic, that nothing scent of sterile environments, but most of all, masking tape, which they used to tape the splints to my arms. To this day, I still can’t stand that smell.

I patiently endured surgery after surgery, endless orthodontia, and medical exams, and even my arrogant surgeon, who’d inspect my face closely at every checkup. Oh, I do such beautiful work, he’d tell everyone in the room. I never liked him since he’d snipped something under my tongue—releasing my tongue tie without warning when I was young.

I didn’t know what I was living was hard. I didn’t think to complain. I guess I didn’t know any other life. All I knew was that there’d be a present waiting for me every time I came home from a hospital visit. And, man, I loved coming home.

I grew up in a neighborhood in Upstate New York, overflowing with kids, house after house telling the same middle-class story. Ours was a two-story with a basement and an unfinished attic. The first floor had a kitchen, a TV room and a family room, and a fancy-to-me wallpapered dining room with stiff-backed chairs that reminded me to sit up straight and behave. There were three bedrooms upstairs, and one small bathroom with a big enough sink for two kids to brush their teeth at a time. We had no more than a quarter-acre lot with a back yard just big enough for an above-ground swimming pool, but it still felt like a forest preserve to me.

I couldn’t have dreamed of a better place to grow up. It was exactly as you’d expect. Waking up to the sound of Dad walking down the hall, knowing I had at least another hour of sleep before I had to get ready for school. Someone pounding on the bathroom door with a panicked Don’t use all the hot water! or Are you almost done? Exploring the dark, dusty attic between old photo boxes and old family heirlooms looking for hidden Christmas gifts. Searching for a snack in the buttercup yellow fridge, my mother’s exasperated voice gently admonishing us to Close the door! You’re letting out all the cold air! Crowding around the kitchen table, hoping to get a scoop of the mashed potatoes before they lost their steam. Me hiding the yellow wax beans beneath a cloud of mashed potatoes, feeding them to the dog, or patiently waiting until my mom got fed up and took my plate away. All of us huddled on the brown plaid couch or splayed out on the carpet in front of the television, paying rapt attention to the latest episodes of M*A*S*H and The Waltons.

It was perfect in my memories.

The best part of my post-surgery recoveries was the day my mom decided I’d healed enough to go outside and play. As safe and nurturing as the inside of my house was, the neighborhood was a wild adventure that always held the potential of danger. And, man, I’ve always loved danger.

My older siblings and I were among the youngest in the neighborhood, so we started off our street life watching the other kids play from afar until we got old enough to join them. We made up games on the fly, and none of them required much more than a dive into garbage bins for some old cans, a few sticks, and maybe a couple of rocks. My favorite was a twist on the traditional Hide and Seek and Kick the Can, but I also loved playing baseball on the Montgomery Street Playground. The playground was where all the neighborhoods converged. It had everything: a large kiddie pool, monkey bars, swings sets, basketball, tennis, and a small baseball diamond.

Sometimes looking back, I wish I could rewind to those days and press pause.

Sometimes looking back, I wish I could rewind to those days and press pause. Our games went on for hours, interrupted only when one of the moms yelled from their front porch for their kids to come home for lunch. There was always someone waiting to rotate in and take their place, a benefit of having more than 40 kids in the homes around us. And no matter how close the score or how competitive our games, we all ran home when the streetlamps lit up the dusty purple evening sky, calling out goodbyes and promising each other we’d kick their butt when we were back on the lot the next day.

I was pretty obsessed with the older kids, and thought everything they did was cool as heck. I’d see them up in the trees, behind playhouses, and behind houses trying to hide their cigarette smoke from their parents, drinking beer in the alleyway behind their houses, and a few even played in a garage band. The older kids in town always seemed to live life on the edge, and it was hardly shocking when they wrecked or flipped their cars or even fell to their death off Foxes Falls. They were wild, but they were also free—something I absolutely craved.

I stayed close to home until I was old enough to be given a taste of that freedom. After dinner in the summertime, I’d hop on my bike and take off. I was now allowed to go farther, explore more. My only rule was to be back home when the streetlamps came on, which was the same rule everyone in the neighborhood followed. During this time, I’d blaze down dirt roads, feeling the glorious first edges of independence as parents watched me zip by.

As memorable as summer was, wintertime had its own allure, from snow forts and sledding to snowball fights and snowballs thrown at passing cars. We’d all gather at the big hill by the hospital, perfect for sledding even though it ran perpendicular to Main Street, the busiest road in town. At the bottom of the hill was a drop-off and then another large snowbank that stopped us from sliding into traffic. Hopefully.

Like everything back in the day, it was fine. Yeah, it might be a bit dangerous, but most of the parents seemed to be of the mindset that you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Accidents happened, and no one was to blame. That’s just how it was in the ’70s.

Once, I took that hill at my fastest speed to date—much faster than anyone needed to sled—and sailed over the drop-off and through that snowbank, skidding right out onto Main Street and coasting under a moving car. My timing was perfect; the car never even slowed, and the driver never knew they drove right over me!

Do you think I learned my lesson? I most certainly did, if that lesson was If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room and Live every day as if it’s your last because one day you’ll be right.

Why live on the edge when you can jump off it?

I picked myself up, waved to the other open-mouthed drivers who’d witnessed my Evel Knievel stunt, grabbed my sled, and ran back up the hill to do it again.

It was the best time of my life. Mom stayed at home with us until we were in high school, so she was always there when we needed her. Dad was a social worker who left early in the morning to catch a long commute, walking back through the door around 5:30 or 6:00. He was a kind man who loved his routine, so we always knew what to expect from him. He drank one Manhattan before dinner and one Manhattan after dinner. He was steady, kind, supportive, and loving, no matter the circumstance. He rarely raised his voice and made me feel cared for even when I was being rebellious…maybe even stupid.

I still feel fortunate that my parents dropped the paintbrush that day and came to get me.

The whole neighborhood knew that us Marley kids were adopted. Inevitably, some kid would taunt, Well, you’re adopted. Your parents didn’t want you! But I learned very early the one comeback that stopped the teasing in its tracks: "Your parents were stuck with you. Mine got to pick me."

There was honestly no better satisfaction than the other kid’s face in those moments.

That feeling of pride was present throughout my entire childhood. My parents chose me. Despite my early medical issues and all the hassles and expenses I brought with me, they still chose me. They’ve always been my parents, and I never questioned my place in the family. (Joe, on the other hand, questioned it daily.)

I’ve never stopped wondering.

At the age of 40, after my father’s death in 2006, my mom handed me a folder and said, Your dad always wanted to give you this, but we were afraid of what you’d do with it.

I held onto the folder and didn’t open it right away. I sat with it, projecting all my life’s unanswered questions onto it. I wondered about my biological parents. In adoptions that took place in the 1960s and before, adoption agencies didn’t take significant health histories; genetics wasn’t yet a thing. Secrecy was the name of the game, and that continues today. While some states have loosened up some secrecy laws, I still have no idea who my birth parents are. I was left to wonder about significant things. For example, was my cleft palate genetic? This was a major concern of mine when my wife, Elizabeth, was pregnant with both kids. I could hardly breathe during each of their neonatal ultrasounds. Thankfully, neither showed evidence of cleft palates or any other birth defects. It wasn’t until the genetics service 23andMe became available that I was able to get answers to some of the questions I had. But I still want to know more. Were my family members addicts, too? Was I born with a predisposition for substance abuse? Was it in my blood from birth? Or was my attraction to drugs simply a by-product of the insecurities I felt later in life? And, if so, was the addict gene already there, just waiting to be activated? I’d give anything to know if I was the result of nurture or nature, or the perfect storm of both. Yet, I still held onto that folder knowing it may not contain all the answers, but it did contain something. And I worried that opening it was a betrayal of my dad.

My fear of the unknown was replaced by