Editorial: One year later, Craig Marx death serves as reminder for those who need help

By Brandi Makuski

It was just a few weeks after settling in at the Metro Wire in December 2021 when Stevens Point police conducted a welfare check on our new sports reporter, and assistant editor, Craig Marx, at his apartment on the east side of the city.

Within just a few months, Marx would be dead.

Craig Jeffrey “CJ” Marx, who was from Antigo, lost his battle with liver disease on Feb. 27, 2022 at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was just 36 years old.

It’s a death that we still mourn, as does his family. A few months before moving to Stevens Point, Marx called me to say, “I’m in,” and relocated to Stevens Point after “being out of the news game for too long,” as he put it, and was “just itching to get back into the action.”

There was never any question about hiring Marx. He understood what it took to be a true news reporter. He knew the right questions to ask. He knew it was long hours, little time for a social life, and eating many of his meals on-the-go. But it ran in his blood, so he really was “all in,” and had been for a long time.

This reporter worked with Marx at another local news company from 2015 to 2017 (which is like 10 years in the news business). He was well-liked by all, and immediately. He’d cut his teeth as a cub at the Antigo Daily Journal, and ultimately became one hell of a reporter before taking the editorship at the Antigo Times.

An avid writer and bartender, Craig was a well-known fixture on the Antigo, and for a short time, the Stevens Point, sports scenes. He’d just begun building relationships with local coaches in Portage Co. when he fell ill.

But as many reporters before him, Craig developed a drinking problem. After police called him an ambulance, he was almost immediately transported from St. Michael’s Hospital in Stevens Point to a specialized facility in Milwaukee. While awaiting a liver transplant there, his organs began to fail. And we lost a great shining star who would’ve gone very far in the news business, and eventually, in his life’s goals, which included finishing his book.

If his death could serve a purpose, it’s to remind us all, in the midst of a mental health crisis and increasing opioid and fentanyl overdose deaths sweeping the nation, that alcoholism is still very much a problem. It can happen to anyone regardless of their upbringing or present circumstances.

From his hospital bed days before he died, Craig told me he didn’t realize how bad his problem was. He also expressed his determination in proving to his doctors that he was worth the risk of a transplant, and his desire to get healthy and get back to work. Sadly, it didn’t end that way, and that was the last time I spoke with him.

We’d encourage anyone with a drinking problem to reach out for help. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and your friends and family will be so grateful you did.