McCarthy relocated with his wife Carol to the Smokey Point neighborhood of Arlington, Washington approximately 35 miles north of Seattle, Washington in 2003 and they eventually purchased a home nearby. He became involved with the Seattle Slam Poetry and Seattle Spoken Word poetry communities and was invited to be one of the main-stage performers at the Washington Poets Association Burning Word Festival on Whidbey Island (Washington)in April 2006. That was also the year he started the Evergreen Invitational Poetry Slam which was held at the Evergreen Unitarian Church in Marysville, Washington (2006 through 2012). In October 2007 he was asked to perform one of his best-known poems; "Drunks" at the Costa Brava AA Convention held in Spain (they flew him there). In 2010 and 2011, he taught performance workshops for the MFA in poetry program at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire. He remained active in the poetry community giving performances through November 2012. As he battled against cancer (since 2011)he prepared the manuscript for a collection of poetry and short prose pieces called Drunks and other poems of Recovery which was published posthumously by Write Bloody Publishing in 2013.