So You Stopped Drinking; Now What, Bossy Pants?

We explore how sobriety grows beyond not drinking and into daily emotional work, honest self-reflection, and real freedom. Marcy shares tools for handling control, resentment, identity shifts, and non-linear growth, grounded in 38 years of experience.

• alcohol as symptom, not root
• emotional sobriety and the power of the pause
• control as a sneaky substitute for drinking
• resentment as slow poison and how to release it
• identity after alcohol and choosing who to be
• growth as non-linear, progress over perfection
• practical tools: meetings, sponsors, inventories, amends
• willingness and honesty as the core of change
• simple next steps for early sobriety

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need it
Go to my website, Marcybackismedia.com
There is a link to Alcoholics Anonymous there

Transcript

Welcome & A Bigger Promise

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome to Unbottled, sobriety uncorked, unfiltered, and unapologetically real. I'm Marcy Backis, and I've been sober for 38 years. If you are new here and wondering if you might have an issue with drinking, I want you to hear this clearly. You are not weak, you are not broken, and you are not alone. If alcohol is whispering to you and you can't live without it, I promise you you can. And your life might just become bigger than you ever imagined. Take what you need, leave the rest, and let's get into it. So today I am gonna talk about. Really, sobriety isn't just about alcohol. And we're gonna talk about, we're gonna dive into that a little deeper. So there's a big myth. Let's start with something that took me years to understand. Sobriety is not just about not drinking. When I first got sober, I thought the goal was simple. Don't drink, go to meetings, stay out of bars, done. All done. Well, after 38 years, I can tell you there's a little more to it. Check the box, goal star, recovery complete. Oh no, honey, it ain't that easy. But it is that easy. It's kind of a double-edged sword. What I didn't understand was that alcohol was just the symptom. The real work, the real sobriety. That was underneath. Because you can remove the alcohol and still keep the anger. Think about that. I'm gonna say that again. Because you can remove the alcohol and still keep the anger. You can remove the wine and keep the resentments. You can remove the vodka and still try to control everyone in the room. So sobriety without growth is just dry. And dry isn't the same as free. Dry isn't the same as free. So let's talk about emotional sobriety. This is the part nobody explains in the beginning because honestly, it's really uncomfortable. Emotional sobriety means not exploding when you're triggered. I'm gonna tell you, after 38 years, I still struggle with that one. Triggering me and keeping my explosions down is a struggle for me today. It doesn't mean I can't do it. I can, and I know the tools to keep doing it. But I'm not perfect, just like the rest of you. Not punishing people when you're hurt, not rehearsing arguments in your head for three days, and not controlling the narrative in every room you walk into. Again, we're talking about emotional sobriety right now. And I'll be honest, this is the part I still work on. I still work the the desire to drink is way gone. It's been gone for a very long time. That left me in the first year. Once things started going and I worked my program and that lifted. But I will tell you this emotional sobriety is not that easy. And you can have years where it's good, and you can have years where it's bad, you can have days where it's good and days where it's bad. I can stay sober from alcohol. That part is solid. Solid is a rock. But emotional sobriety, that's daily. It's catching myself when I want to withdraw, withhold affection, go silent, or punish. I am a punisher. Yes, I said punish. I'm a punisher. I came from a punisher. I'm a punisher. My dad was a punisher, but my dad wasn't an alcoholic.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Far from it, as a matter of fact. Some of us drank at people.

Control: The Sneaky Substitute

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Now we try to control them sober. That's not freedom. That's just a different bottle. All right. So, yes, I am sober. I've been sober a very long time. My emotional sobriety has its ups and downs. I think just like anybody's emotions have ups and downs. But I have a program that helps me work with those. So I want to talk about control. Let's talk about control because this one is sneaky. When I stopped drinking, I thought, okay, I've surrendered. But what I really did was trade one illusion for control of another. Alcohol controlled me, then I tried to control everything else. Schedules, people's behavior, conversations, outcomes. I wanted certainty. I wanted predictability. I wanted everyone to act right so I could feel okay. I want you to sit with that for a minute. I wanted certainty. I wanted predictability. I wanted everyone to act right so that I could feel okay. But sobriety taught me something brutal and beautiful. You can't control people into loving you, you can't control situations into being safe, and you can't control outcomes into being fair. And when you try, you suffer. Sobriety isn't about controlling life. It's about leaning, I'm sorry, it's about learning how to live inside uncertainty without numbing out. Life is uncertain, everyone. I I don't think we could have learned that any better than COVID.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I had no idea an entire world could shut down, and it did. It did. I stayed sober through the whole thing.

Resentment And Letting Go

Identity After Alcohol

Growth Isn’t Linear

SPEAKER_00 6:13

It isn't about learning how to live inside uncertainty. It's about, I'm sorry. It's about learning how to live inside uncertainty. My words are flipping around today without numbing out. That's grown-up sobriety. What's another part of it? Is resentment. Yeah, let's go here. Resentment. Resentment is the drink we sip in sobriety. It is slow, it is justified, and it feels powerful. Resentment says, I'm right, I deserve to be angry, and they owe me. And guess what? Sometimes you are right. But holding on to resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick. Let's think about that. It's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to get sick. I've had to learn and relearn how to let it go. Not because people deserve forgiveness, but because I deserve peace. I deserve peace. You deserve peace. Sobriety isn't just about not picking up a drink, it's about not picking up old grudges. Oh my gosh. Old grudges. All right. I'm going to take a little sip here of my hot chocolate. I live here in Chicago and today's a little cooler, and I always have a little afternoon hot chocolate. So I am enjoying that today. Identity. Here's another hard truth. When you stop drinking, you don't just lose alcohol, you lose an identity. Yeah, I lost the identity of as a as a sloshed bar fly. But there is an identity that goes along with it. You lose the party version of you. I never lost that. I am still the party version of me. I'm just going to tell you. I'm still the fun one. Some people lose that. Some people need alcohol to have the party version and the fun one, the checked-out one and the avoidant one. And then you were left with you. Even though I didn't lose the fun person, I'll tell you a funny story. We lived in Oregon and a gal had a margarita party. And I went to this margarita party, and it was, these women were having their margaritas. I was drinking, I don't know, Diet Coke water, something. I don't care. I was having a great time. An absolute great time. The next day at school at drop off, one of the moms looked at me and says, How are you feeling today? And I go, I feel great. Why? She goes, Well, you were really having fun last night. I go, I don't drink. I've been sober and I can't remember how many years, 10 years, 11. And she just kind of looked at me skeptical. I said, I didn't have any margaritas. That's just me. That's just me. So when we stop drinking, sometimes we lose us. We are now raw, unfiltered, and sometimes uncomfortable. And that's when the real question shows up: who am I without the bottle? Am I kind? Am I honest? Were you a mean drunk? Are you kind without alcohol? Am I honest or were you just a brutally honest person when you were drunk? Am I brave? Am I reactive? Am I fearful? Sobriety forces self-awareness. And I will do an episode on self-awareness after sobriety. And self-aware can sting because you may not be a great person sober either. And that can really hurt. But it also gives you a choice, and you have choice. Choice is power. See, now you get to look at yourself naked and afraid, and you get to figure out what parts of you you want to bring forward and what parts you want to stay in the background. You have choice, and you have clear thinking choice because you're not drunk.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

There's a lot of power in that. A whole lot of power.

Tools, Community, And AA

Willingness, Honesty, Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And I want you to remember this, and this goes for alcoholics, non-alcoholics, I don't care who you are, growth is not linear. I can tell you for 38 years, my line is certainly not straight. I've had up years, down years, I've had up weeks, down weeks, days, minutes, hours. I stayed sober through it all. I've learned from all of that. I kept working my program. And usually when things weren't going linear, I wasn't working my program hard enough. And that is a fact. So let me say this clearly. You can have decades of sobriety and still have bad days. You can still overreact, shut down, get defensive, feel insecure. The difference is this, though. You don't have to drink about it. You can sit in it, you can talk about it, you can own it, and you can apologize. You can apologize. That is maturity, that is growth, that is sobriety in motion. Sobriety doesn't sit still either. It's in motion. It's gonna move. It's gonna move up, it's gonna move down, it's gonna move straight across. It's not perfection, it's progress. We claim progress, not perfection, as alcoholics. And if you're putting that perfection label on yourself, shame on you, wipe it away. We are not perfect just because we're sober. Just because we're sober. But if we're sober and working a program, we are blessed because we have something to turn to and to look to. When our line dips, we have tools, we have rules, we have all kinds of things to help us. We have people, we have sponsors, we have big books, we have stories, we have all kinds of things to help us. And sometimes I actually feel sorry for people that haven't gotten sober through AA or sober at all. I mean, like just normies. Where do they turn when they've got problems? We have a place to go. We have people who understand and we have people who listen. The freedom. Here's what sobriety beyond alcohol has given me. Here's what sobriety beyond alcohol has given me. The ability to sit in discomfort, the courage to tell the truth, the strength to admit when I'm wrong, the awareness to pause before reacting, the ability to walk away from situations I don't need to be in, the humility to change. That doesn't mean I do it perfectly, but what it means is I am willing. Are you willing? Ask yourself that question. Are you willing? I'm willing, and willingness is everything. Everything. Are you willing to try sobriety? Are you willing to try AA? Are you willing to try the steps? Are you willing to try to get a sponsor? Are you willing to look at your flaws as well as your good points? Are you willing to look at your friendship circle and see what works and doesn't? Willingness is everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Sobriety isn't about being impressive, it's about being honest. And honesty can be hard, but it can also be freeing.

Closing & Resources

SPEAKER_00 14:20

So if you are early in this journey, let me say this. Right now, just don't drink. That's enough for today. But one day you'll wake up and realize sobriety is bigger than that. It's about emotional regulation, it's about boundaries, it's about forgiveness, it's about self-respect. It is about becoming someone you trust. And that's worth everything. If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who might need it. And remember, if you think you might have an issue with drinking, talk to someone. Go to a meeting, reach out. There is help. There is hope. There is a life waiting for you that does not revolve around a bottle. Go to my website, Marcybackismedia.com. There is a link to Alcoholics Anonymous there. I want you to know this is unbottled, sobriety uncorked, unfiltered, and unapologetically real. I am Marcy Backus, and we don't just put down the bottle, we grow up.