AMPLIFY Your Voice: Going Sober Out Loud with Margy Schaller & Laura Nelson

December 10, 2025·33 min·2 clips

Margy Schaller kept her 21-year sobriety a secret until a conference question forced her to raise her hand alongside 15-20% of the room.

1. That Sober Guy Podcast host Shane Ramey interviews Margy Schaller and Laura Nelson, co-founders of Sober Life Rocks, about their organization and the Amplify Sober Voices conference on January 15, 2026, in Orlando, Florida. 2. Margy Schaller has been sober for almost 21 years and is a speaker coach and former physician; Laura Nelson is a dental industry conference speaker who stopped drinking in January 2020. 3. The episode's purpose is to introduce the Amplify Sober Voices conference — the first event dedicated to sober content creators — and explain who should attend and why. 4. Margy describes hiding her sobriety throughout her professional career for nearly 20 years, telling no one in her work life until the retreat incident two years prior to recording. 5. The pivotal moment came at a women's entrepreneur retreat of approximately 125 people when Laura, speaking on a panel, asked the audience who doesn't drink for any reason — health, religion, or recovery. 6. Margy raised her hand cautiously and discovered that 15 to 20 percent of the room was doing the same, including people she had known for years — a revelation she describes as a shock. 7. She and Laura exchanged a look across the room, met for lunch, and Margy decided she could 'no longer put baby in the corner anymore,' leading to the founding of Sober Life Rocks. 8. Margy describes the emotional relief of becoming open about sobriety as feeling like her 'cells rearranged themselves' — suddenly being in complete authenticity in all parts of her life. 9. Laura explains she 'got sober on TikTok,' describing how she watched sobriety influencers on TikTok and Instagram while hiding her phone from her husband, who was himself sober, because she did not want him to think she had a problem. 10. Laura identifies the concept of alcohol use disorder as a spectrum as a turning point: recognizing herself as a high-functioning alcoholic even though her professional life appeared under control. 11. She stopped drinking in January 2020, noting the pandemic timing was fortuitous because she did not have to navigate hotels, airports, or conference bars during early sobriety. 12. A conference attendee later stopped Laura to say she was part of his sober journey — the moment Laura describes as pushing her from private sobriety advocacy to the idea for Amplify. 13. The Amplify Sober Voices conference sits within PodFest, a multi-thousand-attendee podcasting conference, giving attendees access to both a sober-creator-specific day and broader podcast industry networking. 14. The conference format features speakers giving their 10 best minutes each on podcasting, writing, speaking, and influencing, followed by structured masterminding sessions in small groups. 15. Margy emphasizes that the masterminding sessions are intentional — designed to create the hallway conversations that are typically the most valuable part of conferences, but inside the room. 16. Laura stresses the mission of Sober Life Rocks is not to persuade people to get sober but to 'normalize choices' — sober, sober-curious, or sober-ish — so those conversations become acceptable everywhere. 17. Laura predicts alcohol is 'slowly becoming the new smoking' and that within five to ten years its cultural status will be fundamentally different, framing the Amplify event as part of that shift. 18. The episode format is a three-way remote interview; Shane manages the conversation so the two guests — who cannot see each other — do not talk over one another, with occasional coordination missteps acknowledged on air. 19. People who are sober and working in creative or professional fields and feel isolated in their public sober identity will find the most direct value in this episode. 20. Listeners looking for clinical treatment resources, AA-style recovery programs, or content focused on how to achieve sobriety will not find that here — the episode assumes sobriety is already in place.

As heard by us

A sober-community episode about connection, visibility, and building a room for sober voices.

Shane Ramey uses this episode to frame a simple point: sober voices sound less isolated when they find each other. Margie Schaller and Lauren Nelson of Sober Life Rocks talk through the first Sober Influencer event, set for January 15, 2026 in Orlando, Florida, and the plan is…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want sober-media talk that feels like a real room full of people, not a polished slogan.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from That Sober Guy Podcast