Unbottled

What 38 Years Of Sobriety Really Looks Like

• Marcy Backhus • Season 1 • Episode 2

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We reflect on what 38 years of sobriety actually looks like: not a perfect life, but a practiced one rooted in awareness, service, and community. We share how AA provided structure, why emotional sobriety matters most, and how these tools apply to any “too loud” habit.

• who this podcast is for and why belonging matters
• why one day at a time still works
• differences between getting sober in 1988 and today
• many paths to sober without judgment
• the role of service, structure and accountability
• steps as tools and traditions as protection
• higher power as personal anchor, not religion
• emotional sobriety beyond abstinence
• real life: illness, family, work and temptation
• next up: sobriety as a life practice

If this podcast resonates, follow or subscribe, share it with someone who might need it, and remember you don't have to have all the answers to start living unbottled


SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to Unbottled. My name is Marcy Backis, and I am your host. Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, we are stepping into episode two. And I can't believe it. Here we go. All right. Hi friends, my name is Marcy Backis, and this is Unbottled, a podcast where we talk about sobriety. We in real life, without shame, secrecy, or pretending we've got it all figured out because after 38, almost 38 years, I don't have it all figured out. I've been sober since January 11th, 1988. And over the years I've learned that sobriety isn't just about what you stop drinking. It's not about the drink, it's about what you start noticing. Whether you're sober, curious, newly sober, longtime sober, or just wondering why something in your life knee is a little bit too loud, you're welcome here. Let's unbottle the truth and talk about what actually helps. So what I'm gonna tell you is I introduced myself in episode one. So if you want to know a little bit more about me, feel free to go back. I'm gonna talk today about what 38 years is actually taught me. And I want you to know that if alcohol isn't your problem, but something else is. Oh, it's starting to snow out. Sorry. I live in Chicago in a high rise and it's snowing out. And it's really cool because up here it snows up because I'm so high that the wind blows it up and then down. It's kind of fun. Anyway, sorry, distracted. But sobriety, if if if it's not alcohol, if if something in your life is loud, whether it be overworking, over anything, overeating, over shopping, over-gambling, if anything, just replace when I say the word alcohol, replace it with your issue. Because everything we're gonna talk about here can work for any type of issue, okay? So I want to make this podcast a very comfortable place. I don't want this to be scary. If you're still drinking, you can sit here, you can be drunk and listen. That's fine. It's okay. You know, I was drunk a lot too. So I didn't drink for long, but I drank very alcoholically. And yeah. So again, by the time you hear this, I'll be days away from 38 years of sobriety, which feels impossible and also very normal. It's a very double-edged sword. It feels impossible because I remember the day I walked into AA, and I thought 24 hours was gonna be hard, and it was. And then I got another day, and you know what happened? I got another day, and then another day, and another day. And do you know those days have all added up to 38 years? That's sick, isn't it? That's crazy. I'm turning 65 on January 18th. I got sober when I was 27. Does that make it? Yeah, I think that's right. In 1988, and things were a lot different back then in the sobriety world and the sobriety realm. I'm still human. I still make mistakes. We not because don't ever confuse, don't get it twisted. Sobriety doesn't mean perfection, even if you're sober every day for 38 years. That's just a part of my life. I'm still a human. I had cancer this year. I had a child that was homeless for a short period of time. I went through chemotherapy this year. I've got a marriage that works some days and doesn't other days, like most people. For me, temptation for drinking is not really out there, but I am tempted to eat too much, drink too much Diet Coke, eat too much sugar. All those things are still a problem in my life. Sometimes I get so mad at myself. I can stop drinking for 38 years. Why can't I get a handle on my eating? I have finally gotten a handle on my eating this last three years, but that was with the help of Ozempic. I do work out five days a week. That's on me. I did get that part of my life under control. So I may not be tempted with alcohol, but I'm tempted with many other things: overspending, shopping. You know, those are the things that can still get me. So if you've landed here, if you've landed in my podcast, I'm glad to have you. Hang in there. We're gonna take a short break and I will be right back. Oh, before I go, I do want to let you know that my podcasts are always under 30 minutes. They're meant so that if you are going to work, if you're in the car for a short bit of time, if you're doing a run, if you're doing a walk, if you're doing a workout, you can listen. It's never gonna go over 30 minutes unless I have something so great to say I can't stop talking. So, all right, with that being said, hang in there and we're gonna get into the uh body of this episode. All right, wow. There was a little glitch in my giddy up there. I, you know, first of all, I hope everybody likes my music. If you don't, too bad, so sad. It's really hard. You know, getting a podcast together and trying to do it well is not easy. But picking the music, ooh, that's hard. I love my music. I love it. I for those of you that don't know, I have two other podcasts. One is inside Marcy's mind, listen to that one. That's where I talk about all things that are on my mind. The other one I have is Aging Eight for Sissies. And that's because I'm old, I'm 65, and I talk about all things aging. So if you either of those spark you, you can listen to those. You find them exactly where you found this podcast. All right. So getting sober then versus now. So getting sober in 1988 versus 20, almost 2026. There were some, there's some differences. There was no computers, nothing online. There were no apps, none of that, no sober merchandise, no rebrands, nowhere could you go and get a mocktail. I think you might have been able to get a pina colada or a margarita as a mock tail. But there was no mocktail menus. There was the only thing you had to drink, there were no fake beers, there was no, there was no none of that stuff. There was no rebranding of what sobriety is. There was no sober curious. And I and I think, or California sober, which I think is really cool. If people can smoke pot and not drink, and drinking was their problem, so be it. No judgment here. However, you get there, whatever you do. If you drink non-alcoholic beer, alcohol-free beer, alcohol-free wine, alcohol-free anything, and that's what keeps you away from the hard stuff, amen to that. I am not here to judge you, your sobriety or your journey. And that is the number one rule here. We are not judging. I did it my way. Is my way the only way? Absolutely freaking not. And that's why I say if you're out there and you want to be on an episode, you want to share your journey, I want to hear it. I want to share it with everyone. You can email me at Marcy Bacchus Media. That's Marcybacchus Media at gmail.com. And that's M-A-R-C-Y, V-A-C-K-H-U-S, M-E-D-I-A, Marcybacchusmedia at gmail.com. Email me, email me that you love the podcast. Email me that I'm helping you. Email me you can't stand me. I don't care, just email me. But I certainly would love to get guests, and I would certainly love people to share their stories, especially if there's another way that you got sober. I would love to hear it. How I got sober? AA. What are we gonna talk about a lot? AA. If you are not an alcoholic but you have other problems, what are you gonna do again? Every time I use the word alcohol, you're gonna substitute it for chocolate or shopping or whatever your problem is. What we didn't have in language, we made up for an accountability. When I first got sober, it was that AA accountability that kept me there. I was told 90 meetings in 90 days, I did it. I'm gonna tell you, I was living on a street off of Topanga Canyon, but not on the canyon part, on the Fault Flat Valley part. And my first meeting I shared last time. And my second meeting, because I got this little book, we got little books with all the meetings in the I got sober in the San Fernando Valley, basically Woodland Hills area. And so I found that at the end of my street at Sherman Way was an AA clubhouse. Now, those of you that don't know AA, all over the place and all over are AA clubhouses. Now, that's really important because AA gets no money from anybody except for the people sitting those butts in chairs. We give a dollar or two, whatever, to every meeting. AA is not supported by any outside contributions at all, at all. And there'll be an episode talking about that. But that's important because I found this little AA clubhouse at the end of my street. Now I was in sales, hair, hair sales, hair color, and my day would end fairly early. So I would go to a meeting at the little clubhouse, and most of the time I was getting sober with bikers. The bikers would be there. And and then as I as I got those 90 meetings in 90 days, I found more meetings with young people and so on and so forth. And I'm here today to tell the story. But I basically got sober with bikers. It's kind of cool. And this cute little, I'm trying to think of it. It was next to a restaurant called Follow Your Heart. Um, how you know it's an AA clubhouse when you're out zooming around in your life? If you see a circle with a triangle in it, that is AA. So if you see one of those and you've been wondering if somebody's wearing one, that's what it is. I want to be very careful. I want everybody to feel inclusive. And I so I'm gonna talk about what AA gave me. And this is me. Again, this is my story, this is my podcast. AA gave me structure. So one of the biggest things, one of the biggest things about my life was at that I I had no structure. I I got married for a short time. I still had no structure. My life was structureless. I worked and then what? Went to bars. So AA gave me structure. It gave me a place to go, it gave me something to look forward to in my day as I was getting sober. It gave me community. There were people that were excited to see me. I was making friends. I even the days that I went and I was quiet and just sat there in the beginning and didn't participate very much. People, bikers were happy to see me. Probably. I was hot and cute. I was young. I was given steps as tools, not rules. We will talk about the steps in AA. We will go through the steps during the months to come in the podcast. But they're tools, not rules. They gave me tools to help me stay sober in those early days and in the days now. They gave me traditions as protection, not control. Part of the structure it gave me is you're asked to take on responsibilities. The meetings don't run themselves. Coffee doesn't make itself, cookies don't just show up. People read, people do things. It depends on the type of meeting. I was cookie girl in a meeting, I was coffee girl in another meeting. If I didn't come to those meetings, there were not there was no sugar for recovering alcoholics. And let me tell you something, that's not good. And there was no coffee. So I took on these responsibilities because I was told to number one to help me stay sober, and it worked. So if you're newly sober and you are going to meetings and people are asking you, do you have a sponsor? Do you have any responsibilities? Get them. They're important. Okay. All right. Traditions, protection, not control. AA doesn't try to control you. You can come, you cannot come. Honestly, they care, but they don't, to the point no one's gonna hold you there. You can take what works and leave the rest and still be sober. It's one of the things they'll tell you right in the beginning in AA when you get there. You can take what works and leave the rest and still be sober. You're not gonna get it all at first. No matter what program you're working, no matter where you are, no matter what you're doing, you're not gonna get it all at first. You're gonna get it in bits and pieces. You need to keep showing up to figure it out. So in AA, there's two important things. There's a higher power equals a non-religious requirement. A higher power can be anything. I you can give that snowflake out your higher power. Or if it happens to be mine, it happened to be God. I don't have any problems with God. God has always been a part of my life. I never had a punishing God. I never feel like God's coming to get me at any point. I don't ever felt that I fucked up enough in my life that God wasn't going to be there for me. That is the truth. I have always believed in God. I've always had that. If you don't, it's okay. Find something else to give, make your higher power. But you need one. You need something that's stronger than yourself. They give you steps. These steps, emotional maturity and motion. You're gonna work the steps. You're gonna work them two, three, four times. If you're an AA and you think you're gonna work them once, you're wrong. You're gonna need to keep working them. But they're easy, they're I don't want to say they're easy. I don't ever want to say that because some are easier than others. But they're spelled out for you. Bill W and Dr. Bob put together AA, and the basis of AA is two alcoholics talking to each other. That is what the stripped down version is. Yes, they put all these guidelines in to help us and to give us direction, but the bottom line is one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic. All righty. Let's see what 38 years actually looks like. Interesting. This is gonna be some real talk. Sobriety didn't fix everything, not at all. When I first got sober, it did help my life, but I still made mistakes. I still tried to have men fix me. That was incorrect. Eventually I found my husband Craig, and I was a couple years sober when I found Craig. He's a normie. Craig's a normie. What's a normie? Somebody might ask. What is a normie? A normie is a person that can drink normal, and that's what we call you. We don't call you muggles, but us in the program call you normies. So we do have a name for you normies out there. Sobriety didn't fix everything, nor has it fixed everything, or will it fix everything? I still got cancer. I still have a rare genetic disorder. My kids have had their ups and downs. Craig and I have had our ups and downs. My life has not run perfectly, but I'll tell you one thing: my husband nor my kids have never seen me drunk. I can say that proudly. Um, actually, Alec was here visiting for Thanksgiving, and I took him to my meeting on Friday night. First time I ever took him to a meeting. Yes, can one of those questions? Can somebody who doesn't have a problem with alcoholic? Yes, they can go to open meetings. My Friday night is the Chicago Open Group. It's an open meeting of alcoholics, and we have a speaker and then a sharing portion. Usually speaker meetings are open meetings. What else did 38 years of sobriety? It gave me a capacity to understand my life, to work through my problems, to give back to others, to help others, to didn't make me a perfect mom, but I did an okay job. And emotional sobriety is the real work. Working on that part. As you get emotionally sober, as you grow emotionally, it makes things better. But life isn't gonna be perfect. Sobriety doesn't remove life, it hands you the keys and says, drive. And that's a fact. You might hear my cat meowing. He I'm talking, he thinks he needs to talk to me. That's a Patrick, by the way. I also have a pickle. Again, this show is not AA only. This is about living unbottled. We've got episode three coming up when we're gonna be talking about sobriety as a life practice, even if alcohol isn't your thing. I want to thank you for spending this time with me today. I promised you my episodes are never gonna be super long. I'm gonna get to the heart of the matter. If something in this episode made you pause, smile, or feel a little less alone, I hope you'll carry that with you. Sobriety in whatever form you're exploring isn't about perfection, it's about awareness, compassion, and staying curious. If this podcast resonates, follow or subscribe, share it with someone who might need it, and remember you don't have to have all the answers to start living on bottled. You can start anytime. I'll see you soon.