Getting Your Life Back: What Recovery Really Looks Like | Marci Hopkins, Part 3Getting Your Life Back: What Recovery Really Looks Like | Marci Hopkins, Part 3
Addiction Talk
Marci Hopkins shares how she rebuilt her life after alcohol addiction using gratitude, spiritual practice and grounding tools to rewire her thinking. The conversation focuses on early recovery, one-day-at-a-time living and reclaiming a sense of worth and possibility.
16:44•25 Sept 2026
Rewiring Your Brain and Staying in the Day with Marci Hopkins
Episode Overview
- Changing thoughts through gratitude, spiritual practice, affirmations and meditation can literally help rewire the brain.
- The first 30 days of sobriety focus on clearing the body of alcohol and starting to face emotions, triggers and cravings.
- Grounding tools, such as box breathing and sensory exercises, are key parts of a recovery toolbox to ride out urges.
- Building a strong foundation in the first year through community, 12-step work and therapy supports long-term sobriety.
- Staying present and living one day at a time helps prevent overwhelm and keeps recovery manageable, moment by moment.
“You are worthy of the beautiful life that is waiting for you on the other side of recovery.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This instalment of Addiction Talk follows Marci Hopkins as she shares what recovery looks like beyond the decision to stop drinking, focusing on the daily work of getting your life back. Marci breaks down the science and the feelings behind change, explaining how "our brains will rewire" through neuroplasticity when you stop pouring alcohol on every emotion and start practising new habits.
She talks about swapping old patterns for gratitude, spiritual connection, affirmations and short, manageable meditation sessions that helped her shift from self‑blame to being able to say out loud, "I love myself" for the first time. You’ll hear her honest take on the first 30 to 90 days of sobriety: clearer skin and better sleep mixed with triggers, cravings and emotions that have been dodged for years.
Marci emphasises grounding techniques, like box breathing and using touch and the senses, as practical tools to ride out the "alarm" in the body without acting on it.
She doesn’t sugar-coat the timeline, calling that first year a period of building a foundation through community support, 12‑step work and therapy, yet she keeps coming back to one message: "It is so worth it." With 11 years of sobriety, she describes her alcohol‑free life as something she wouldn’t trade for anything and stresses the importance of living "one day at a time"—sometimes one minute or even one second at a time.
Marci closes with a powerful reminder for anyone who feels broken or beyond help: "You are capable. You are worthy." For anyone wondering whether recovery is possible or worth the effort, this conversation offers practical ideas, emotional honesty and a nudge to ask: what if your life on the other side of alcohol is far more beautiful than you expect?
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