04/11/2026
She walked into the wrong mall.
That is not a metaphor. Marci Hopkins spent years carrying a bottle of w**e in her bag, her liquid courage, because she was too nervous to be seen without it. The day of the modeling gig she actually convinced herself she could walk the show sober. Small win. Then she found out she was at the wrong mall.
So she drove to the right one, drinking the whole way. Met a friend after. Got her third DUI at 45 years old.
She went to bed a victim. Everything was somebody else's fault, her husband, her life, the world. She woke up the next morning and heard her own voice for the first time in decades: What are you doing, Marci? You are about to lose this life that you have built.
Sober since October 4, 2015.
Here is the part that guts me. She did not get sober to quit drinking. She got sober to get her life back. Those are two different deals and only one of them actually works.
Before all of it there was a mother who drank every day, a boyfriend who beat her at six years old, a stepfather who started abusing her at twelve, and her first drink at her mother's wedding. She ran. She drank. She built a career at Fox Sports and a nationally syndicated talk show and won three Telly Awards, and she was dying inside the whole time.
"You're not broken," she says. "We're wounded." Then she says it again, like she needs you to hear it.
Her new book is Wake Up, You're Not Broken, a companion for the first 30 days. Journaling prompts, affirmations, permission to eat the candy, permission to rest. Not clinical. A hand on your back.
Full episode wherever you listen.
