Few personal comeback stories are as riveting and inspirational as Marti MacGibbon’s. The internationally known author and expert on trauma resolution and addiction has overcome the nightmarish experience of being trafficked to Tokyo, where she was exploited by a Japanese organized crime enterprise. She has triumphed over homelessness, domestic violence and childhood sexual abuse, and has recovered from hard-core drug addiction and severe PTSD.
To transform her life, MacGibbon employed simple, effective strategies that she shares publicly to motivate others to create positive changes in every area of their lives. She is a mental-health professional with five certifications in the behavioral-health field (CADC-II, ACRPS, CAPMS included) who inspires with humor when talking to businesses or medical and mental-health professionals about addiction recovery, empowerment and overcoming adversity. In advocating for victims and survivors, she trains service providers and speaks about eradicating human trafficking, domestic violence and other violence against women.
MacGibbon has spoken at the U.N. World Day Against Trafficking in Persons (2023), the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (2021), the Museum of Tolerance, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, colleges and universities, and even an anti-human trafficking cage-fighting event. She has spoken about mental health and policy advocacy at the White House, the State Department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Office for Victims of Crime. And she has been interviewed by Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur and Glamour magazines; major U.S. broadcast networks; and numerous radio stations.
MacGibbon is a speaker/trainer consultant at the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Center and an expert consultant in human trafficking for the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons and the U.S. Office for Victims of Crime. She is a member of the National Speakers Association, the Behavioral Health Association of Providers, the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals, and the Indiana Counselor’s Association on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. She has served on the board of HEAL Trafficking Inc. and currently serves as president of the Mentari Human Trafficking Survivor Empowerment Program in New York and on the advisory board for Justice at Last in San Francisco.
MacGibbon’s penchant for humor is rooted in her talent as a standup comic. She has traveled the country to perform, appearing at Hollywood Improv, the Comedy Store in Hollywood and other vaunted venues. For nearly a decade, she produced and emceed the Laff-Aholics Standup Comedy Benefit for Recovery, a fundraiser featuring national comedic headliners whose profits (100%) benefited transitional housing facilities in Indianapolis that provide access to addiction and mental-health treatment for the community’s most vulnerable.
The Indiana Addictions Issues Coalition has honored MacGibbon with the Indiana Lifetime Recovery Advocate Award (2015) and the Recovery Advocate of the Year Award (2014) for her outstanding support of recovery and her work to eliminate the stigma surrounding addiction, mental illness and human trafficking.
MacGibbon is author of two award-winning memoirs, Never Give in to Fear: Laughing All the Way Up from Rock Bottom (2010) and Fierce, Funny, and Female: A Journey Through Middle America, the Texas Oil Field, and Standup Comedy (2017). She co-wrote the widely cited article “Human Trafficking, Mental Illness, and Addiction: Avoiding Diagnostic Overshadowing” (2017) and was a contributing author of the textbook Medical Perspectives on Human Trafficking in Adolescents: A Case-Based Guide (2020). The many articles she has written have appeared in more than 150 corporate and trade magazines.
