Unbottled
After 38 years of sobriety and 5 years of podcasting, I finally had the good sense to put the two together. Unbottled is where we crack open all things sobriety—without the shame, the whispering, or the “I’m fine” face we all perfected in the 90s.
This is a space for honest conversations, practical tools, laugh-so-you-don’t-cry stories, and the kind of truth that only comes after decades of doing the work and living to tell about it. Whether you’re sober-curious, long-time sober, or somewhere in the messy middle, we’re going to talk about the habits, people, boundaries, victories, and ridiculous moments that shape a sober life.
Think of Unbolted as the place where we unhook the armor, loosen the bolts, and talk real sobriety—candid, witty, a little sassy, and full of hope because life gets a whole lot lighter when you stop tightening everything down and start opening up.
Unbottled
A Wider Tent For Every Kind Of Escape
What if sobriety isn’t about quitting a substance but about noticing the patterns that keep you numb, busy, or seeking approval? We open the door to a wider view of recovery that includes alcohol, yes, but also food, shopping, work, and the endless chase for gold stars. Instead of shaming, we get practical: simple tools that create awareness, repair what’s frayed, and bring real relief when life turns up the pressure.
We break down how an honest inventory can locate the small ruptures—missed promises, sharp words, avoidance—so you can turn apology into actual repair. We sit with the idea of surrender as a grounded choice, whether your higher power is God, the ocean, or the quiet steadiness of a tree in your yard. These moves shift the nervous system from fight to steadier presence, and they’re useful whether you’re newly sober, sober-curious, or just tired of running on fumes. Instead of brittle New Year resolutions, we lean into intentions that support learning and momentum. Curiosity replaces punishment so you can stay in the game when a lapse happens.
You’ll also hear what’s coming next: a step-by-step tour through the Twelve Steps in plain language, a simple guide to AA traditions, honest talks on boundaries that hold, aging while sober, relationships that can bear truth, and the daily practice of joy. Expect zero purity tests and plenty of practical insights. Open AA and speaker meetings are highlighted as accessible spaces to learn life skills even if alcohol isn’t your main struggle, because the pressure is universal and the toolkit travels.
If this resonates, follow along, subscribe, and share with someone who might need a gentler path. Tell us what you want explored next and the tools you’re trying this week—your story helps shape where we go.
Hello, and welcome to Unbottled. My name is Marcy Backis, and I am your host. Oh, hi friends. I'm Marcy Backus and this is Unbottled, a podcast where we talk about sobriety in real life without shame, secrecy, or pretending we've got it all figured out. And that is a fact. I've been sober since January 11, 1988, and over the years I've learned that sobriety isn't just about what you stop drinking, it's about what you start noticing. Whether you're sober, curious, newly sober, longtime sober, or just wondering why something in your life feels a little too loud, you're welcome here. Let's unbottle the truth and talk about what actually helps. Welcome, welcome, welcome. This is episode three of Unbottled. I'm glad you're here. If you haven't listened, please listen to episodes one and two. My name is Marcy Backis. I have been podcasting for five years. I have two other podcasts. I have Inside Marcy's Mind and I have Aging Aimed for Sissies because I'm 38 years, almost 38 years sober. I'm 65 years old, and I enjoy doing podcasts. So I figured why not marry my sobriety and a podcast together. And it's been very cathartic for me. I actually am really enjoying this podcast. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy my music that I picked, and I hope you like my cover art and all the things that go into creating a podcast. I do all of my own editing. If you're watching me on YouTube, I am videoing this podcast that you can find it at YouTube. And you know what? I don't even know what my YouTube handle is. I can't remember because I set it up so long ago. I will let you know. But if you look up Marcy Backis on YouTube, you should be able to find me and these episodes as well. If you have friends that are YouTube watchers, then and you think they would enjoy it, please send it to them. My videoing is not the best. I have a little habit of editing while I work. So it's awkward when you're being videoed, but we're gonna work it out. Anyways, today we are gonna talk about what if it's not about alcohol? Hmm. Sobriety is a life skill, but what if it's not about alcohol? We're gonna widen the tent, we're gonna reduce the fear, and we're gonna increase the relevance of what sobriety can mean in the life that alcohol is not the problem. You're gonna find that my episodes are anywhere between 20 and 30 minutes, usually. I like to keep them short. I don't know many alcoholics that can focus on something for a long time, to be honest. And I'm one of them. I like to give you information. I don't like to have a lot of filler. And at this point, we're not making any money, so we have no advertisements, but I will advertise my two other podcasts, A GNA for Sissies and Inside Marcy's Mind. I also want to let you know if you want to talk on this podcast, if you want to be a part of this podcast, if you have a short story or something to share, you can find me at Marcy Bacchus Media at gmail.com. That's M-A-R-C-Y, B-A-C-K-H-U-S Media at gmail.com. So glad you're here. Hang in there, and we're gonna get started with the main part of this episode. Oh, by the way, it's almost New Year's, so happy New Year. There'll be a lot of people that will make quitting drinking a New Year's resolution. Don't bother. You won't stop. Enjoy your New Year's. After New Year's, think about stopping drinking. Maybe do a dry January. I don't know. But don't burden yourself with resolutions. My podcast, my other podcast this week, I talked about intentions. You can set an intention not to drink. I think you'll feel a lot better. It'll help you if you do mess up that you really didn't fail. I want you to be successful out there. So hang in there. We're gonna start uh our episode. Welcome back to our episode. My name is Marcy Backis, and we're talking about all kinds of stuff today. Let's see here. Huh. What if sobriety isn't about quitting something, but about noticing something? Hmm. Let me repeat that. What if sobriety isn't about quitting something, but about noticing something? I'm gonna tell you something. Whether you are an alcoholic or not, everybody numbs. Everybody numbs themselves with something. You may numb yourself with shopping, you may numb yourself with chocolate, you may numb yourself with nerds. Numbing yourself doesn't just isn't something alcoholics do, people. So just know that. What else? Everybody avoids. Everybody avoids something. A relative, a subject, money, budgets, you name it, everybody avoids, and everybody copes. Everybody has coping mechanisms. Okay. People who drink too much use alcohol for a lot of that numbing, avoiding, and coping mechanism. But you may use something else, so I want you to think about it. Think about what else could be fill in the place where I have the word alcohol. All right, but everybody numbs, everybody avoids, and everybody copes. All right, the many faces of sobriety. Emotional sobriety, food sobriety, shopping sobriety, busyness sobriety, approval sobriety, chocolate sobriety. If chocolate runs your mood, that's worth looking at, not judging. I have a scale that runs my life. I get on the scale in the morning. If I like the number, I'm happy. If I don't, I'm sad. That's sick. And I'm sober 38 years. See, we all got problems. We all have problems. So your issues could totally be emotions. It could be food. It could be shopping. It could be that you keep yourself so busy you don't have to feel or think. You could be seeking people's approval all the time. You could need approval. You could be your business card. You could need chocolate to solve all your problems. I don't know what's bad about that. We all know what's bad about that. But, you know, these these are things out there. And this is a non-judging spot. So I want you to think about it. Do you have to put things in a shopping cart online to feel better? Do you have to keep yourself busy so you don't feel? Do you eat when you're not hungry? Do you find food to stuff yourself and stuff your feelings? Do you stuff your feelings with being busy? These are all things in our lives that everybody has, whether you are trying to be sober or not. So you may find that what we talk about on this podcast and the suggestions we give and the things we do in the weeks to come help you with other things, help you in other places in your life. That is my goal. That this podcast helped people in all places in their life with alcohol or not. We all have problems. We all, there are many phases of sobriety, things you need to stay away from. So the steps in AA are a tool. They're not a requirement. One of the things that we do in AA is we take an inventory. What is that inventory? That inventory is people we have hurt. Now, whether you drink or not, I bet you've hurt somebody. I bet you've done some things where you need to make some amends, where you need to repair. So we do an inventory, we make amends, and we surrender. And what do those things give us? They give us awareness, repair, and relief. Could you use those things? Could you use some awareness in your life? Could you repair some things in your life? And could you find some relief? A bitch could sit down with your own self. Take a small inventory of people you have wronged, things you have done wrong. Maybe it's at work. Maybe you snapped at someone. Maybe it's with your children, maybe it's with your spouse, maybe it's with your family, maybe it's with your friends. I don't know, but look at your life and just do a small inventory right now. You could probably do it in your mind. What is that doing? Doing an inventory is making aware of things we have done wrong. As humans, we don't like to look at what we've done wrong. We don't want to acknowledge it. Well, I'm gonna tell you you need to. I continue to do an inventory till this day. I don't do it all the time. But I try immediately when I fuck up, which I do, to make an amends as soon as I can. What is an amends? An amends is repairing. An amends can be an I'm sorry, but it is a repair of whatever you broke. And we've all broken things. And surrender, we surrender to a power greater than ourselves. Could it be God? Yes. Could it be anything you want it to be? Could it be a rock in your yard? Absolutely. Maybe it's nature, maybe it's the ocean, maybe it's a tree. But you do need to surrender to something. And you know what surrendering brings? Relief. It brings a lot of relief. So again, these are topics we'll talk about more in depth, but I want you to think about them. Inventory equals awareness, amends equals repair, and surrender equals relief. The steps are less about alcohol and more about how to be a decent human being under pressure. So, see, when I told you that Alcoholics Anonymous is for everyone, I truly meant it. Do you need to go to meetings? Maybe not. Maybe so. You can go to open meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, you can go to speaker meetings, even if you don't have alcohol as a problem. But maybe you have shopping as a problem. Just listen and learn. The steps are less about alcohol and more about how to be a decent human being under pressure. And we're all under pressure of one kind or another. Absolutely. So, what's coming up on Unbottled? Well, let me tell you something. We're gonna do a deep dive on the steps. How many steps are there? There's twelve. So we're gonna do a deep dive on steps. We're gonna walk through the traditions, explain them simply. We're gonna talk about boundaries. I'm gonna do an episode on aging sober. We're gonna do an episode on relationships. And we're gonna do an episode on joy and many, many others. But those are some things that you can look forward to. I know that this episode is a little short, but I did do three episodes right in a row, so I don't want to bore you with my voice. But I have a very clear promise for you. You will never, ever, ever be told that you're doing sobriety wrong here. Sobriety comes in many shapes, sizes, forms, and ways. I'm gonna always share what works for me. But if you have a way that you think needs to be shared on this podcast, please, please let me know. Tell me your story, email it to me, or I would be happy to interview you on Unbottled. Well, New Year's is almost here, and this is a really tough time for alcoholics. Whether you're sober, newly sober, if you've got some time under your belt, this time of year doesn't seem to be as hard. Go to a meeting. If you're struggling, go to a meeting. If you need help, reach out. The hand of AA is always there. Whether you're abstaining, experimenting, recovering, or just waking up, you belong in the conversation. My name is Marcy Backis, and this is Unbottled, a podcast where we talk about sobriety in real life without shame, secrecy, or pretending we've got it all figured out. Let's unbottle the truth and talk about what actually helps. Happy New Year. All three of these episodes dropped at once. I'm going to be dropping a new episode every Friday. If I don't, there's a reason. I have a real life. I have two other podcasts. I do my best to get one out every Friday. Please subscribe. Share this with your friends. Send me suggestions. What do you want to hear? What do you want to know? What is it about a sober journey that you feel is important? Thank you, everyone. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for giving me a chance to share what I think is important about being a bottle. All righty, again, happy new year all.