The Secret to Finding Yourself After Addiction: Shocking 10-Year Sobriety Journey w/Marci Hopkins

Join me for an inspiring episode with Marci Hopkins, that reveals the transformative journeys of women in recovery, showcasing their battles with addiction and the strength they've found to reclaim their lives. We dive deep into the fascinating realm of neurofeedback therapy—a cutting-edge tool that allows individuals to train their brains from the comfort of their homes. 

This episode features personal stories of triumph over trauma, emphasizing the importance of self-discovery and community support in building confidence.

As our guest candidly share their journeys, they illuminate how past experiences shaped their identities and create a roadmap for healing and personal growth. By integrating helpful routines, gratitude practices, and emotional awareness, women can shift their narrative toward one of empowerment and possibility. 

We also touch upon the physiological changes women face during perimenopause, exploring how these transitions can affect their relationship with alcohol and overall well-being.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking clarity, hope, and community on their recovery journey. Tune in, get inspired, and remember, you're not alone. Please subscribe and share this episode with someone who might benefit from these conversations!

Find Marci at https://wakeupwithmarci.com/
Instagram @wake_up_with_marci/

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Confident Sober Women
• 13:27 Meet Shelby John: A Journey of Sobriety
• 50:24 Understanding Your Brain During Recovery
• 58:53 Introduction to Remote Neurofeedback Therapy
• 2:01:05 Healing from Trauma: Personal Stories
• 3:59:07 Navigating Perimenopause and Alcohol Use

Transcript

Shelby: 0:09

Hello and welcome to the Confident Sober Women podcast. I'm your guide, shelby John. I'm the mother of three, wife to one, and sober since July 1st 2002. As sober women, we have something huge in common, and when we share our lives and our stories with each other, we feel that sense of belonging and connection. So we know we are no longer alone. In this podcast, you will hear real life talk about building confidence and transforming your life beyond recovery. So come on, let's talk. Hey, it's me, shelby.

Shelby: 0:49

Have you ever wondered what's really happening in your brain during recovery? Are you ready to take control of your anxiety, sleep better and finally feel focused and confident? I want to introduce you to a game changer that's transforming women's recovery remote neurofeedback therapy. I want you to a game changer that's transforming women's recovery Remote neurofeedback therapy. I want you to think of this as a personal trainer for your brain. It's helping you build new neuropathways right from the comfort of your own home. So if you're dealing with anxiety that just won't quit, if you have ADHD that's making life chaotic, or sleep issues that leave you exhausted, neurofeedback could be your missing piece. It's science-backed brain training that works with your natural healing process, helping you regulate emotions and build lasting confidence. The best part is, you don't need to add another appointment to your busy schedule. My remote neurofeedback program brings professional guidance and support right to your living room. Do you want to learn more about neurofeedback therapy?

Shelby: 1:52

You can go to my website wwwshelbyjohncom to download my free guide. Is Neurofeedback Right for you? Together, we'll create the calm, confident future you that you deserve. That's wwwshelbyjohncom. Take the first step towards training your brain for lasting change. Well, hey there, marci, thank you so much for joining me today for the Confident Sober Women podcast. I'm so excited to have you here with me and just have a phenomenal conversation. Introduce you to my community. So I'm going to turn the mic over to you and let you share a little bit more about your story, and then we're going to chat.

Marci: 2:32

Okay, thank you so much for having me first off. I've been sober almost 10 years now and it's truly changed my life. I came from a lot of abuse throughout my life and I turned to alcohol to cope and it worked for a lot of years. It was a daily practice for me and it fluctuated through that time but towards the end, for many reasons, it got really, really bad and I had to make a huge decision to stop. I will say, once I stopped, I was able to really dive deep and heal from my past, which I had tried therapy, which therapy is great, but I was drinking all the while and so I really wasn't facing what I needed to face. And I got sober through AA. Those 12 steps have been life-saving for me really doing the work, diving deep as to how others harmed me, how I personally had a role in it, and discovering that, how I personally had a role in it, and discovering that I think you cannot create change if you do not see your role and because the only thing we can change is ourselves, turning myself over to my higher power, being of service. There's so many things that you learn learn through the program and making amends to those that you harm and even continuing that throughout your life. So with this I was able to really find who I was. I lost myself when my sexual abuse started at 12 years old by my stepfather, and I lost the girl with the dreams. I lost the girl with the ambition and I then became the victim and I was looking to others for validation and I lost myself. I became a chameleon and so, with my sobriety, I started going within and it was through that that I found self-love, the passion that I had, what was important to me, and really connecting with myself and doing a lot of inner child work to create the change for me. And that's where I discovered that, through my service, I wanted to give back through media, because my background is in media.

Marci: 5:07

I've worked in television all my life. I had gotten in front of the camera in my 40s and a seed was planted for me and God guided me to start a talk show called Wake Up with Marci Wake Up With Marci and my platform was all about sharing stories of inspiration, transformation and empowerment, to share hope and let people know that they were not alone and to also navigate these difficulties that we have in life, because we all have them in different ways, but we all face the same, whether it's grief, divorce, abuse, mental health, wellness. So I have done that for the last seven years and it's been incredible creating this television show, creating this platform to help others, and through this journey I've helped myself, I've grown and I've learned so much and I continue healing and thriving. And I wrote a book Chaos to Clarity Seeing the Signs and Breaking the Cycles which my life was chaos, and I found clarity through my healing journey. And seeing the signs is seeing the signs and guidance from the other side and breaking generational cycles.

Marci: 6:29

I've had a lot of success with the book. I'm so grateful for that because really my ambition is to create change in the world and for others, and we do that one person and one story at a time, and so I'm just grateful to be here. I created a course with all that I've learned. I'm very excited about launching that and motivational speaker and just trying to help others. That's just where I'm at right now.

Shelby: 6:59

Thank you so much, marci, for sharing all that and for being so vulnerable and honest. Marcy, for sharing all that and for being so vulnerable and honest. It's sometimes it's super painful to kind of open up about the the most vulnerable parts of us. You know those, those damaged parts, those scary, shameful parts that you know we go through and um, but you're right, when we do this kind of work, however, we want to do it.

Shelby: 7:21

Not everybody wants to share all of their things or write a book, but we usually can find ways to share our experiences, even if we don't go into all the details. However, we do that. It is how this works. It is how we spread the message of hope. Right, that's what we're taught kind of when we get and stay sober for a long time, like we get to be somebody else's kind of light into what it's like to live alcohol and drug free. So, um, thank you so much for that. I really like how you were able to to share um, or I picked up very clearly that you talked about you lost yourself and I think that's experience, that if you talk to lots of other people who struggle with substances, it's probably something that they would also say. Sometimes I wonder for some of us, I mean, when you're a child, we probably do have, we do understand some parts of ourselves.

Shelby: 8:17

But I think for a lot of us we maybe never even did know ourselves you know, but for those, but you said that you said you lost yourself when, when things started with the abuse and I'm just curious if you can say a little bit more around kind of that piece of things what you kind of noticed happened from like who you kind of thought you were, who you were to yourself at that younger version, then kind of what happened to like who you sort of became, or like what your identity sort of shifted into, maybe even throughout active addiction. And then I'd love to get to the other side.

Marci: 8:54

Yeah, so well, as you can imagine, there's there's that's a really heavy question, cause there was there's a lot of evolution from 12 to 47 when I stopped drinking. But when you have a major trauma happen, it changes how you think and it changes how you believe those around you love you, your worth, how people perceive you. And so how did I lose myself? I started failing out of school, I didn't feel safe in my home. I wanted to end my life. I mean, I thought there was no way out. I mean, how does a young child leave an abusive situation, whatever that abusive situation is? So I had to find my way through that and thankfully I did not end my life. I found the strength thank God that I did not but what I started to do was feel more of a shell of a person. I had no drive within me to pursue and do anything in school, make good grades. It was all about, well, I guess, that boys just like you, if you look pretty on the outside, if you give yourself in some sort of sexual way. So I lost a girl with values and drive and the dreams that you would have. And so throughout high school I was in really bad relationships and long relationships and always staying in bad relationships because I knew nothing more than somebody treating you poorly and feeling safe wasn't normal. So if you're used to chaos, you put yourself in chaotic situations.

Marci: 10:55

After I graduated high school, I tried college, but again, I didn't really have a lot of drive. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't really know any worth. I didn't know of a lot of drive. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't really know any worth. I didn't know of any worth for myself. I didn't know what I wanted to do, if I could do anything. So my grandmother actually took me for some testing because I went off to college but I tried three different colleges and it was really an escape for me. It was a way for me to get away from my mother and my life and I would just fall into the party scene and just escape. It was just a way to get away. And so when I went for this testing, I started by identifying like, what was I good at, what were my interests? And a lot of that was around creativity. I have a very creative mind. That's where I thrive, that's where I love to be, and so that was recognized throughout this testing and there were colleges that were brought up that they thought that I would do best at and for me I needed a smaller, structured school. So I ended up going to the Art Institute of Houston. I went for radio and music business and I started my path in TV. I started interning. I lived in Houston, texas. I started at Paramount 20.

Marci: 12:27

And that's where I discovered television and I was like maybe I could do this, maybe I could do this, but I still was drinking. I was still in bad relationships. I had the mindset of creating change in my life. If I changed the person and the circumstance, the place I was, that my life would be better, but the realization I was taking myself wherever I went. So it may have started good, but then it would just crumble because of the drinking and the fighting and me reacting and I didn't know how to communicate. There was no communication in my home. So I ended up working for I'll just jump to it I ended up working to Fox Cable Group.

Marci: 13:17

I ended up thriving. I was rising the ranks. I ended up in operations and contract work. They ended up hiring me. I ended up in programming. I ended up being the program manager for Fox Rocky Mountain, I moved to Denver and then I moved to LA and ultimately I became the director of on-air promotions for FX and I ended up meeting my husband, and this was in California.

Marci: 13:44

And so you can thrive within the chaos, right, I was living and thriving and surviving, but all the while there was the current of the pain that was going through me, pulsing through me all throughout that time. So, while my husband and I formed this great relationship, we ended up getting married. There was still fighting, there was still drinking, there was still difficulty, because I again, at that time, I didn't know how to manage or deal with anything outside of yelling, outside of reacting to it, outside of being a victim, right. So we ended up getting married. I ended up retiring from Fox, we had our babies, we moved to New Jersey and when my kids started getting a little older, I ended up doing a fashion show, and it prompted a dream I had for me to pursue that when I was back in my teen years. I wanted to be a model, and so I decided to go after commercial, print, commercial, acting. I was 25 miles from New York, so it was something I could do. I felt I could do.

Marci: 15:14

But it was really, really difficult to be a full-time mother, because I didn't want to abandon my kids. I never wanted them to feel the way that I felt, so I tried to be there for them. To be a full-time mom, also, while trying to pursue this career of being in front of the camera and learning. When I throw myself into something, I go full throttle. I want to be the best at it that I can be, and my husband traveled all the time, so I basically was raising the kids on my own. So it was really, really hard.

Marci: 15:48

And, yet again, I was drinking every day, and so it was like that wine culture that people talk about. Every time at 5 o'clock I couldn't wait for my glass of wine and start the process of cooking dinner and all of that. And but when I was in front of the camera, all of my demons, the that I had pushed down, started coming up the not feeling worthy, not having self-confidence uh, imposter syndrome, feeling judged all of the time. And the way that I responded to that was by drinking more, because I started using wine as my liquid courage. So, while everything looks great from the outside, I was crumbling. I was crumbling, life was crumbling. My relationship with my husband was crumbling. I was full of hatred. I thought I wanted a divorce. I thought I wanted out of everything.

Marci: 16:55

I knew that my drinking was getting to a bad place, and so this is where the biggest part of my downfall happened and the biggest part of my evolution happened. So I knew that my drinking was getting to a bad place. My mother was an alcoholic. She had been in and out of rehabs, in and out of jail I mean it was bad. So I was always comparing myself to my mom. I hadn't gotten to that place right, but I knew that it still didn't seem right. So I did end up in the 12-step program, but then I started comparing myself to other people in the rooms and I'm like, wait a minute, my story is not that bad. And that's the worst thing you can do is compare yourself to others in the room, because we all have our own story. So I convinced myself after three months of not drinking that I was not an alcoholic and so I went back out. I started slowly drinking until it started really evolving and, like I told you, during that time I started pursuing this.

Marci: 18:08

So my drinking got worse and worse and so ultimately, towards the end, I started hiding my drinking. I was very resentful to my husband. I just thought he couldn't have fun. I thought that I could only be myself when I was drinking. I didn't know who to be, always trying to find myself, and I thought, oh, this fun girl when I drink, that's who I am. I drink, that's who I am.

Marci: 18:46

And my last day of drinking was October 3rd 2015. And I'd gone for a gig, a modeling gig. I took my liquid courage with me and I had convinced myself that I didn't need it. But I ended up in the wrong place. And so I was in this harried state trying to get to where I was supposed to be and make my call time, and I started drinking and the drinking got out of control. I went out with my girlfriend afterwards and ultimately I ended up getting a DUI. And I went to bed that night in enraged that my husband got me Somehow. I thought I was going to hide this, that if my friend came and got me I would never be found out. So I went to bed angry and a victim. And I woke up the next morning and God stepped in and I knew I had to surrender. And that's the thing about this horrible disease is that you have to decide yourself that you are ready, and it's only when you are ready that you can start creating.

Shelby: 19:48

The change was the catalyst of me beginning to evolve and find myself that girl that I had lost so many years before. I love that and I think that's basically the jumping off place for most of us. We land, it doesn't feel like that and it's not glamorous. Usually it doesn't feel good, but once we start to get a little bit more clarity, when we stay sober longer, we start to see like oh wow, here was the inflection point.

Shelby: 20:25

Right here was that jumping off place where I got to decide do I want to make these big changes in my life or not? But again, at the conscious level, we're not really thinking about that. It's really just how do I get out of trouble or how can I make this better or make my husband not leave, or whatever is going on at the time. But then when we stay sober for a long time, particularly after that first year or so because the first year of sobriety is usually pretty challenging for most of us who are really problematic drinkers we have like an awakening, like there's this awakening that starts to happen, the clarity that comes from around that one year, one to five year mark, and most of the people I talk to will can relate to that as well. And I'm curious for you, because something that I find is very fascinating and I have personal experience with, and just even sometimes still at times is that, like because you talked about chaos and that's a word I use a lot in my work as well and because I used to say things like I got sober in 2002. So it was kind of a long time ago.

Shelby: 21:24

I got sober in AA as well, because we didn't have anything else and I realized that I lived my whole life in I used to say in constant chaos, but now I know it's probably was anxiety. We didn't call it that back then. So I but I agree with you. You know, like we like that, like there's a dopamine hit that comes with that for a lot of us. Plus I have ADHD, so that doesn't help either, and so you know, I'm curious if you what your experience was like when you, because when we live in that most people who are like that you learn there are parts of us that like it. You know there is a drive that comes with the chaos and it doesn't always seem healthy, but I think it can be at times. But anyway, on that other side, as you started to evolve through that first year or so of sobriety, I'm curious, like for you, how did you manage not having like that as much?

Shelby: 22:18

Because that can be actually unnerving for a lot of us because we don't like that's a coping skill, like we think that that's the glue that's keeping us together, like that constant, like chaotic experience, and so then when you take it away it can feel very mundane and kind of rote and a little boring, a little bit, you know. Know, like life, you know. And so I'm curious if you experienced that at all.

Marci: 22:42

Well, right, we live in a place of fight or flight and always protecting ourselves, and it is all connected to our nervous system and we think that we don't want it, but we know nothing else. So that's the comfort level. So, if there is any peace, I mean, I remember having times of just sitting there in peace I didn't know to call it peace at that time just quiet, and I would start trying to create some chaos, you know, like tension, tension, I just needed it, even though I said I didn't want it. So how did I start to create the change? Well, I had to start changing daily habits. I had to create routines for myself. I had to shift my mindset. I had to rewire my brain and my thinking, because our brains are sick. We have rewired our brains because we can't handle the amount of dopamine hits that we're getting from the alcohol or the constant anxiety that we're living in, and so we've got to find ways to shift that and recreate how our brain is thinking. And so, for me, I started with practices like gratitude, like gratitude, praying to God and those were really big things for me and going into nature and finding ways to connect with myself and connect to my higher power.

Marci: 24:35

And so I think, once I started shifting out of a place of lack and feeling sorry for myself all the time which it's easy to do we sit there and say, well, nothing ever good happens in my life, or I always attract the wrong person, or you know just, my car always breaks down, everything bad always happens to me. I mean, and if we think that way, that's what we are going to attract in our lives. So when we start a gratitude practice which I know it can be hard if we're not happy in our lives to be grateful, so you have to start really small. If it's just the warm bed that you are in, if it's the shower that you can take, if it's the cup of coffee that you can have in the morning, there are things. We have clothes, we have a roof over our head. There's so many things to be grateful for. It's just restructuring how we think about it. We always think about being grateful if we have a good relationship or if we have a job that we want, or if we have the car that we want in the driveway, but there's really so many beautiful things in our lives.

Marci: 25:47

So once I started looking at life that way and for me. I asked Jesus to save me that if he would lead my way and I be my shepherd, that I would be his lamb and I would do his work. And for so many of us, I mean, that could be anything. It could be nature, it could be the universe, it could be a divine power. Whatever it is, but knowing something bigger than you is out there and your choices are not always the best for yourself. So being able to lean on something bigger than myself and trust that really helped me also.

Marci: 26:34

And also a big thing, when we start to go in a grateful mindset and we start to forgive ourselves and take ourselves out of the shame and the guilt and the hate for ourselves and hate for others, we are able to then connect with ourselves in a better way and forgive ourselves and stop feeling so awful about ourselves. Because when we can stop hating ourselves, we can allow the thought that others hate us. It is not the reality. The perception that we think others have of us is not the reality. It's what we tell ourselves. Others have of us is not the reality. It's what we tell ourselves.

Marci: 27:25

So through this practice, you can change the narrative in your head and there's many things that you can do different modalities, eft tapping, somatic work, inner child work these are all things that I had to do for myself and they really really do help.

Marci: 27:40

It's not just about deciding that you're going to put down the drink or stop overeating or change a bad habit in your life. There are a lot of things that you have to do to take action to create the change for yourself. And again I'll go back to what I said in the beginning you have to change yourself before anything in your life is going to change. You have no control over the outcome of something, how somebody else thinks about you or really, ultimately, anything that happens in our lives, anything that happens in our lives. So we have to surrender, let that go and understand how to navigate life in a different way in those ups and downs, and learn it as a guidance or a frame of reference, a learning tool, so, again, that we can react or respond to life in a different way. So there's just so many practices and so many ways that we can shift how that we think so we can live a better, more productive, peaceful, joyful life and feel comfortable in that.

Shelby: 29:02

You're so right and you touched on so many important things that I could just kind of riff on forever, but one of the important things that I picked up on is the fact that we do have to make changes to our thinking patterns, because that is where the center of all of this starts, right.

Shelby: 29:23

So the drinking and the drugs. We know, if you've been around long enough, if those are just symptoms of a greater problem, that's what we were using or taking in order to, like, relieve ourselves. That was our medicine. We thought it was anyway, and so, that being said, then that means we there is a disease or a situation that's happening inside of us that needs attention, that in a different way, and so that way is what you just talked about, which those practices are are beautiful. Thanks for sharing. It sounds like you are super spiritually connected, which I know is a very powerful way for most of us to feel at peace and comforted throughout this process and then our own healing journey, and that can look a lot of different ways depending on you know where you're coming from or who you are.

Marci: 30:07

Yeah.

Shelby: 30:07

And then also being able to shift out, like you highlighted, a lot of the results of that work too, which are so important. Thank you for doing that One of which is the ability to forgive ourselves, which is so, um, it sounds like such a simple concept, actually is a simple concept, but it's very challenging for most of us to personally do. You know, it's a lot of times it's easier for us to do that for other people. Like you can forgive somebody who's harmed you, you can work with, you know, a sponsor or a therapist or, um, some kind of a practitioner to help you kind of do that practice, but then, when we turn it on ourselves, that somehow seems very unnatural or impossible, even, or something. But it's not.

Shelby: 30:51

And the best thing about sticking with these things that you're sharing and that's exactly the way I teach, you know, we talk a lot about habits, we talk about thought processes, I talk about core values and then also spirituality. So when we put all these things together in a package and we consistently do things the same exact way every single day, over time, we get that huge transformation. And that's the amazing part of healing healing, really and we get to go from this one, this one way, this this kind of, like you said, a shell of a person, this sort of un? Um, not like immature, but not like that way. You know it's just like underdeveloped, maybe human, to this like fully developed, evolved, adult. You know that gets to like learn emotional sobriety and practice like emotional maturity, which I think is one of the major blessings of being an alcoholic.

Shelby: 31:50

I use that word regularly. It doesn't bother me or offend me, so like that's the kind of term I talk about myself, that's what I believe that I am. Other people don't like that term, that's fine, you can tell. You use whatever you want or don't use anything at all, I don't care.

Shelby: 32:00

But one of the blessings that I believe about, about the issue that I have with substance abuse and then where I am today, is that I have this entire program, pools, whitlet people in my life to help me make those changes, whereas regular people, normies, whatever we want to call them, people who don't have a problem with substance use, don't get the benefit of having that at the forefront. Right, they can do the same work, right they? Can do things, but they don't have like a life-threatening situation that makes them do it.

Marci: 32:32

Right and so.

Shelby: 32:33

I always feel like you know, like Laura McGowan's book is called, we are the luckiest and I just, I always think of that so often because we really are like we are.

Marci: 32:41

I have always thought to be so lucky to have gone through the 12 step program because otherwise I would have never healed in the way that I did and continue to do and change in my life. And one thing about myself is everything was around a man accepting me, the job that I had and where I was going to get my next drink right. Everything I did was around the party or the drink or a restaurant with alcohol. I couldn't go to a restaurant without alcohol right, I had to have my glass of wine with dinner. And so now it's just like you do. You just evolve in such a different way and you become so curious. And one of the things I heard and it really makes sense is that you kind of, when you put down the substance or whatever it is and you start trying to heal, you're stuck where their trauma started. So it's kind of like, yeah, I grew up, but my 12-year-old self was still there waiting to evolve and become the person I was supposed to be in this life. Yeah, and I will say also that I'm grateful to have gone through it because now I can help others, hopefully, that are going through it. That's one of the things that there's a few things I share in my book. I have a toolbox in there for all those in recovery, especially that first year all the things that we learn in the 12-step program to help us, and then also what I learned in each step.

Marci: 34:28

My book is not necessarily just for those in recovery, because it's so much about how we can shift our mindset and heal from things that have happened in our past and move through the fear and start living our true purpose in life and what brings us our happiness and what that looks like, what these practices are. So you know I'm very grateful to have my book and I just want to say, if anybody wants to go to my website, wakeupwithmarcicom, if you put in your email, I have a free morning routine that I can send you, and I always say you may see a morning routine that has 12 things on there, but you can combine a lot of those too. So, like, if you need to walk your dog in the morning, use that time to do a walking meditation. Right, meditation was huge.

Marci: 35:27

Meditation is a way to connect with your inner being, to connect to your higher source, to your intuition. So these are all really important things and there's different ways that you can do it. I have a YouTube video that's 10 minutes that I still listen to almost every morning and that's Connect with God and it's no denominational God type of thing, it's just about really connecting energetically with source. So you know, there's just a lot of beautiful practices that you can start easing into to help you create some change into your life for the better.

Shelby: 36:07

That's awesome, yeah, and thank you so much for sharing your book as a resource. We'll make sure we link to that and your website and the show notes so people can go there. And you know, I don't think we can ever hear about these things and not like no matter how long we've been around. You know there's ages and stages bring different needs.

Shelby: 36:27

You know, I got sober kind of a while ago and so I was a really different person than in my later 20s. And then I became a mom. I went through all of those mom years with three babies who are, you know, four years within four years, and then and then kind of now, and then all the teenage years, so like that stage brought a whole nother development Plus. Then I was aging, you know, like now this like sort of older woman with older children, like it's so we when we need different things at those things, so it's always a great idea to be exposed to multiple toolboxes, right?

Shelby: 37:00

Because because what worked for us, maybe when we were younger, maybe just doesn't really seem to fit right now, or it's not just meeting the need you have. And so being open-minded, I think, and willing to listen to other people's habits and routines and the things that they do, is a great skill, because we might just have something in there and be like oh, you know, I like that, or well, I've never heard it said that way and you know, that's how we, when we remain open-minded to everybody that we're interacting with which is a beautiful thing about being in recovery.

Shelby: 37:32

You know we become it's a self-centered disease, so you know when we are, when we stay in recovery for a long time the way you and I have done and done this work you become way it's a humbling experience and become way less well.

Shelby: 37:47

We, that's, we would hope that we become way less self-centered, right, yeah, and also when we were doing the work, when you're in the steps or you're in a program, or you're in a situation where you are working, you're you become aware of those times when you're like like I think maybe I was being a little self-centered or like what was my part in this, you know?

Shelby: 38:06

or like you have an interview with a spouse or a friend or somebody coworker, where it becomes very, you know, reactive or inflammatory, or you can feel that kind of bubbling up in yourself Like that's a clue you know, so.

Shelby: 38:18

But we didn't. We couldn't do that, you know, many years ago. But now we have the skills to be like that's a clue and like we can literally stop ourselves and we might not know right away, but we can ask really good questions and say, like what is going on with me right now, like what is really bothering me about this situation.

Marci: 38:34

It's really amazing because I want to touch on that. And then one other thing I just wanted to bring up really quick that was going on with me for a lot of women out there being able to. You may still react to something, but the reality is is you can walk away and immediately say wow, I really overreacted in that instead of continuing to fuel it and just try to be right. And there was a time where there was a woman that said something and it really hurt my feelings and I was able to step back and I said why am I feeling this way Before? I would have just never talked to that woman again like I thought she was horrible, but the reality is it was something inside of me I was fearful about and it created a change for myself because I was able to do that inventory.

Marci: 39:30

The other thing I wanted to talk about real quickly is that when my drinking got to an all-time high, I was going through perimenopause and I felt like my world was falling apart. So if you are out there and you are feeling like you are in the darkest place the depression you feel like life is falling apart around you and your drinking is starting to elevate and you are 40 plus. Please remind yourself that you may be going through perimenopause and you need help in other ways, and it's not your fault. This is a real chemical imbalance is happening within us and it creates this, this idea that everything is falling apart around us. And if we had bad PMS and we didn't feel right around that time, it's just amplified a hundred percent. You know when you're going through perimenopause, about how you feel about yourself and how you feel that others are perceiving you.

Shelby: 40:39

I'm going to be 50 this year, so I'm definitely in that, definitely in the throes of all of that, and have done a lot of research and spend a lot of time on how I can do this.

Shelby: 40:49

Well, I will definitely say it's not like you may be going through perimenopause. You are because after 35, it starts, so all of us are in a change, no matter what, and so that change is happening. Now. Your symptoms may or may not be totally from that, but it is happening to your body, so for sure, that's a whole other episode.

Marci: 41:08

So I really appreciate you bringing that up, yeah, and body so for sure. That's a whole other episode. So I really appreciate you bringing that up, yeah, and I just wanted to say that if you're drinking is elevating, it's just something that I've recognized, that it was a part of my decline.

Shelby: 41:19

Yes, one thing I learned about a year ago in relation to my own, you know, kind of mental health and wellness, and I should have known this. I'm a therapist, I've been studying this stuff for a long time, but I that our serotonin levels go down with us as our, as our estrogen decreases. That creates ADHD symptoms to be inflamed. It creates more anxiety, depression, and so I was like, wow, I didn't even know that little fact.

Shelby: 41:44

So when things do feel like, wow, this is way more. I used to have these symptoms, but now it's like way more a lot has to do with our estrogen levels and that serotonin and other chemical changes. So be, corrected with things like nutrition, lots of nutraceuticals and food. So it doesn't mean you like need medication. I mean you might, and that's okay too, but you can also do a lot of other things.

Marci: 42:08

So well, thank you so much for being here today with me.

Shelby: 42:13

This has been a great conversation. I can definitely see us kind of coming back together and sharing more. Thank you for sharing your book with us. I'll make sure it's linked below, and is there any place that you hang out the most where you'd like people to reach out if they want to talk to you?

Marci: 42:26

Sure, you know, please come to Instagram, wake up with Marcy, but I will tell you everything is wake up with Marcy, okay.

Shelby: 42:33

So thank you so much and I'll link it all below, and I hope you have a fantastic day.

Marci: 42:39

Thank you, you too, thanks for having me.

Shelby: 42:41

You're welcome. Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of confident, sober women. If you you enjoyed this conversation, hit the subscribe button above so you won't miss any upcoming episodes. And, hey, if you really loved it, leave me a review. You can learn more about the Sober Freedom Inner Circle membership at wwwshelbyjohncoachingcom. Forward slash inner circle. See you next time.