Marci Cagen: Healing and TransformationMarci Cagen: Healing and Transformation
Recovery On-Air
Guest Marci Cagen shares her journey from early addiction, using while pregnant and violent relationships to long-term recovery, spiritual growth and service. The conversation also introduces CARE, a project supporting pregnant women using substances and educating medical professionals about addiction.
1:02:20•3 Apr 2026
From Addiction and Shame to CARE and Sound Healing with Marci Cagen
Episode Overview
- An internal emotional bottom can be more decisive than any external crisis, even when outward circumstances look “not that bad”.
- Showing up to meetings and following simple suggestions, like 90 meetings in 90 days, can create enough structure to stabilise early recovery.
- Non-judgemental responses from sponsors and peers can relieve immense shame and keep someone connected to recovery.
- Pregnant women using substances need safe, truly anonymous spaces and informed, compassionate care rather than threats and stigma.
- Spiritual practices, service, and creative outlets such as yoga and sound healing can help turn past pain into meaningful purpose in long-term recovery.
“I was too chicken to kill myself, and I was too chicken to live.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? Recovery On-Air brings that question to life as host Kristen Day chats with long-time sober guest Marci Cagen about addiction, motherhood, spirituality and finding a new way to live.
The conversation starts with Marci’s chaotic childhood, early drinking at 11, and a terrifying overdose at 14 where a hospital nurse warned, “If you don’t stop doing what you’re doing, you’re going to meet some [angels] really soon.” From there, Marci talks honestly about meth becoming her drug of choice, violent relationships and the crushing double life of pretending everything was fine while falling apart inside.
Things get especially raw as she shares using while pregnant, the shame of feeling her unborn baby “high as could be” and a labour nurse threatening that her child would be taken if he was born “dirty”. She links those memories to why she carries so much compassion for other women in similar situations. For anyone who’s ever felt “too chicken to kill myself and too chicken to live”, Marci’s turning point will hit hard.
She describes an internal bottom where she simply could not live one more second the way she was, dragging herself to a Cocaine Anonymous meeting and clinging to the suggestion of 90 meetings in 90 days. A sponsor’s simple, non-judgemental response when she admitted she’d been drinking becomes a pivotal moment of grace.
The episode also highlights the new CARE initiative (Community, Awareness, Recovery, Education), which creates a safe, anonymous space for pregnant women using substances, and trains medical staff to respond with understanding rather than shame. Now nearly three decades sober, married to a fellow person in recovery and working with energy healing, yoga and sound bowls, Marci shows how pain can be turned into service.
If you’re wondering whether recovery can really change your life from the inside out, this conversation might be exactly what you need today.
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