September 21, 2024 • 60 mins
Retirement can be an exciting yet challenging phase of life. It brings forward new experiences and demands a blend of anticipation and adaptation. The principles and tools garnered through our journeys of recovery can play a pivotal role in navigating these changes. Mary H. shares insights into her retirement process and how recovery has helped...
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Spencer (00:01):
Retirement brings new challenges.
How can we use our recovery principlesand tools to meet those challenges?
Welcome to episode 418 of The Recovery Show.
This episode is brought to you by Diana,Jeremy, Doreen, Charlotte, Sandra, and Marsha.
They used the donation button on our website.
Thank you, Diana, Jeremy, Doreen, Charlotte,and Marsha for your generous contributions.
(00:26):
This episode is for you.
We are friends and family members of alcoholics andaddicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness.
We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopelessproblem of addiction understand, as perhaps few others can.
So much depends on our own attitudes, and webelieve that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
Mary H (00:46):
Before we begin, we would like to state in this show, we represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program.
During this show, we will share our own experiences.
The opinions expressed here are strictlythose of the person who gave them.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
We hope that you will find something inour sharing that speaks to your life.
Spencer (01:04):
My name is Spencer.
I am the host today, and joining me today is Mary.
Welcome to The Recovery Show, Mary.
Mary H (01:13):
Thank you, Spencer.
Spencer (01:14):
I asked you to bring a reading.
What did you bring us?
Mary H (01:17):
I will read from today's, Courage to Change because it was very fitting.
August 21st.
Some Al Anon suggestions, such as getting asponsor, were easy for me because I'm good at following specific instructions, but I didn't know what to do with the slogan live and let live.
Al Anon helped me to let live by teaching me aboutdetachment and helping me to see that many of my problems stem from my minding everyone's business but my own.
(01:45):
But how do you turn your eyes on yourselfand live for the first time in your life?
When I put this question to mysponsor, she asked me one in turn.
What had I done earlier that day?
Although I'd had a very busy day, I couldbarely remember what I had been doing.
My sponsor suggested that I begin learning how to live bybecoming more aware of my life as I was already living it.
(02:06):
Then I would be better able to makechoices about how I would like to live.
Searching for the real me, living according to myneeds, and loving myself as a newfound friend have been the most rewarding benefits of the Al Anon program.
Strangely, they're the last ones I wouldhave imagined receiving when I began.
Today's Reminder Today I can choose totake responsibility for my own life.
(02:28):
If I stay out of others affairs and become more aware ofmy own, I have a good chance of finding some serenity.
Each man's life represents a road toward himself.
Herman Hess.
And I really liked that because it speaks to my mood today.
Spencer (02:46):
You wrote to me a little while back and said you'd love to do a show on how recovery is helping in the challenge of retirement.
And you said, it isn't exactlywhat I thought it was going to be.
And I thought, well that, that sounds like an interestingtopic, and this is something that I'm also facing, as are, I'm sure, some other listeners to the podcast.
(03:08):
The first question I had that Ithink comes up for a lot of us.
Did you choose when you were going to retireor was it some outside factors maybe making it sooner or later than you would have chosen?
Mary H (03:22):
I actually worked for a company that has mandatory retirement at age 65.
so I retired at my mandatory age and then I went backto work for them full time as what's called emeritus.
And then I retired a year later, And then Iwent back to them as a full time emeritus.
(03:42):
And then I worked for another year and then I retired again.
And now after what, my third retirement, Iam now working part time and mostly remotely.
And some of that was influenced by the worldwidepandemic that there was need for me to come back to work.
(04:03):
But I think I am really prettymuch done working at this point.
Spencer (04:08):
if I can interpret what you said in the terms of the question that I asked.
Had you chosen, you might haveworked longer, but now you're ready.
Is that a fair
Mary H (04:20):
I actually fear that if my company didn't have a mandated retirement, I would work until the day I dropped dead.
Spencer (04:29):
Okay, then.
you were not looking forward to retirement?
Mary H (04:35):
It's a mixed bag.
I was looking forward to it.
as with all jobs, my job hadmany joys and I loved my career.
It had many challenges.
And there were days I really couldn'twait to get out, but I really love my job.
And I like many of us, I am something of a workaholic.
(04:59):
I think without having had to retire.
I probably would have stayed hidden in that world.
And I'm glad I didn't.
I'm glad I was forced to get out and to startdoing some more recovery work outside of work.
Spencer (05:17):
How long have you been retired?
Mary H (05:20):
It's been three years, since I, retired in mandatory retirement.
it's been about a year that I have been workingmostly remotely, which suits me pretty well.
And it's only a few hours a week.
Spencer (05:34):
Okay.
So it's mostly retired,
Mary H (05:37):
Yes.
Spencer (05:38):
but still doing the same kind of work you were doing, which you enjoyed.
that sounds good.
now you said it wasn't what you thought it was going to be.
So I have to ask, what did you expect of retirement?
Mary H (05:51):
Like most people, I think I thought I would just go out and do all those things I'd always wanted to do that I was too busy to do.
And I had all these hobbies that I love, and Itravel, and just enjoy every minute of every day.
Spencer (06:11):
Our listener can't see me, but I am smiling and nodding at everything you just said.
Mary H (06:16):
part of what prompted me to write to you was the fact that you talk about going into retirement on the podcast, which I listen to every week.
Also at my home group, there aremany of us who are in retirement age.
So as with every step of my life in recovery,there's a group of us going through the same thing.
(06:37):
It's great to have people to be able to talk to about that.
Because I think our cultural expectation of what retirementis going to be and the reality of what retirement is.
is for many people, is very different.
And I have to acknowledge extreme privilegein that I am retiring from a career I loved, that I am retiring financially secure, and that I have the opportunity to retire.
(07:08):
And to not be burdened by fears that I'mnot going to be able to, have a living.
I do have to acknowledge that and be very grateful for it.
But the reality is I don't do my hobbies every day.
I'm not traveling all over the world.
I spend a lot of time not really knowingwhat I'm doing or what I should be doing.
Spencer (07:32):
I'm also smiling at that.
I'm looking at you on screen and in the background, Isee lots of shelving with like drawer units and stuff.
and I'm guessing that those havesomething to do with hobbies.
Mary H (07:47):
Yes, I am currently in my studio, which takes up, the entire third floor of a very old home, and I have several hobbies, and they are all housed here.
While I do still do my hobbies, the first thingthat I found was a complete disinterest in my hobbies that had previously been delightful.
(08:11):
And I hear that from a lot of people whoretire is, Oh, I love to do whatever it was.
And then I retired and I just didn't want to do it anymore.
So I do still do, the hobbies that I do,which are mostly artistic, kinds of things.
but I also found out that I'm a terribleboss and that I'm very work driven.
(08:33):
And so my head immediately took me to, if I'm going todo hobbies, I have to do this eight to 10 hours a day.
And I need to turn out a certain amount of product.
which is the antithesis of hobbies and artistry.
I had to, talk with my sponsor and actually do afourth step around why those were my expectations.
Spencer (08:57):
Pre retirement, when you thought about, okay, I'm going to be retired and I have these hobbies and I'll be able to spend more time at them.
Did you expect to have that mindset about it?
Did you envision them full time as it were?
Mary H (09:10):
I went so far as to envisioning that I was going to be getting a storefront space and, opening a store and teaching because I do a lot of teaching of my hobbies.
And I had been successfully also on the side runninga online marketplace for hobbyists who do what I do.
(09:36):
And all of that I did while workingand juggled it all just fine.
Spencer (09:42):
So you thought, wow, I'll be able to really.
Mary H (09:45):
Yes, and instead what happened is I lost interest, I didn't open a store, I closed my online marketplace.
I didn't do any of that.
But then I turned a lot of that inward on myselfof, what are the expectations that I have of myself?
And they were nuts!
(10:06):
Because, I have the ism and that, that was what I expected.
Now, the flip side of that is that I have taken upsome other hobbies, which I didn't really expect.
one of them, when I retired, I boughtmyself a old, small travel trailer.
I completely gutted it, rebuilt it.
(10:26):
And, I have been going camping.
I took off in April and drove through theWest, from April through July and camped.
I also took up kayaking, so I took my kayak withand I camped and I kayaked and had a wonderful time and met people, who I know in various places.
(10:46):
And I did it by myself because my husband's ideaof camping is a five star resort with turn-down service and Ghirardelli chocolates on the pillow.
Not my little refurbished travel trailer.
Spencer (10:59):
So this is something that, that your recovery really gave you permission to do that by yourself, right?
Mary H (11:08):
Yes, very much so.
Spencer (11:10):
I'm guessing that previously, you would have thought, I have to take my husband with me.
We have to do this together.
Mary H (11:17):
No, that would not be a dynamic in our relationship.
I would not have thought that.
but recovery allowed me in many other ways.
One is just that I can get up and go do this.
Okay, let's go do it.
And also that I have a recoverycommunity all over the world.
So wherever I go, whenever I go, there's always people.
(11:39):
and if I get into any kind of problems, cause I am, alone,
I just have to reach out to the community.
If I want to go to a meeting, I can go to a local meeting.
and those people are almost always willingto, jump in and make recommendations where to eat, where to stay, where to kayak.
Recovery helps me a lot in that sense.
Spencer (11:58):
It sounds like you do, find local meetings when you travel.
Do you also sometimes just do a Zoom meeting or something?
Mary H (12:07):
Every day, I do zoom meetings every single day, sometimes one, sometimes more.
But I like to find local meetings andgo meet people and hang out with them.
And because they're almost always, Oh, we'llcome over and eat or let's go to the barbecue or, Oh, have you been to this restaurant?
Let's go get.
somebody's apple pie or something.
or we share hobbies together.
(12:28):
A lot of the women's, so yeah, it's, a wonderful part.
Spencer (12:32):
and it helps keep travel from being lonely.
Mary H (12:35):
Yes, exactly.
And if I ever broke down anywhere, I know somebodywould roust up somebody who would come and help me.
Spencer (12:42):
yeah, you didn't mention it, but I was thinking, and where to go for repairs?
Cause that happens.
Mary H (12:50):
Yes.
Fortunately so far, I've not run intothat, but yes, I feel prepared for that.
Spencer (12:57):
I think I might have shared this at the time it happened, but it was over five years ago.
So I think I'm safe and sharing it again.
My wife and I were in her travel trailer in a campgroundin Texas and it got chilly and then it was raining and It turned out that the furnace wasn't working, which normally when we're down there, we don't necessarily notice because it gets warm in Texas, you know.
(13:22):
We would notice if the air conditioning wasn't working.
We just, Googled and found a repair person to come out.
But it's yeah, these things happen.
And when you're not in your homebase, you don't know who to call.
You don't know who to trust necessarily.
I Have not done as much as it sounds likeyou do reaching out to local meetings and local recovery community when I'm traveling.
I used to do it more, I think back wheneverything was a little as I might say, crispier.
(13:46):
When my parents were going through their dementiatowards the end of their lives, I was always finding a meeting when we were visiting them because I needed it.
I want to circle back.
You talked about doing a fourth step on the,I think it was on the hobby, on disinterest.
Is that right?
Mary H (14:06):
I've done.
several four steps in retirement.
one of them, what I was alludingto before is this workaholism and
burying myself in work and then expecting me to do that inretirement with things that are supposed to be enjoyable.
and that uncovered so much, I'vebeen in program for almost 40 years.
(14:30):
So I.
Don't know life outside of program.
I started
in my early twenties.
I grew up with, an alcoholicmother with severe mental, illness.
I became, a, untended minor at a very young age.
And, I had my first child when I was, 14,
(14:51):
and then met my current husband, who we've beentogether almost 50 years, when I was 16, and went back to school, which I had dropped out of, and ended up going to university, and then on to further training, and, into medicine.
The drive to constantly work and to provemyself and to stay safe was very strong.
(15:17):
I still struggle with that need to, prove myself towork, to stay safe, to stay busy, to always be producing.
and I, pretty much can direct line that back to my earlyyears, but I also recognize it's time to get over it.
(15:37):
I've also done a fourth step with my sponsoron the transition from saving, to spending
and on finances because we live on the Westcoast, but I and my husband are first generation post depression kids who save, save, save, save, you never spend, pinch a penny, be frugal.
(15:59):
I've been a good girl.
I've done that.
And now all of a sudden I'm supposed to spend it.
And that was, that is a real struggle.
Then four steps on that.
time management.
I worked in a, career where somebody told meliterally, someone was assigned to me and told me every minute of every day, where to be and how long to be there, when to be done, where to go next.
(16:21):
And now I'm in charge of myself.
And I, it turns out I'm not very good at time managementwithout, Somebody telling me, do this, do that, go there.
you're expected here.
Give this speech, do that.
yeah, lots of things I get to work on.
upcoming a fourth step with my sponsor, who is alsoa retiree on, health issues and loss and, death.
(16:47):
So we're going to be looking deeply into changes inourselves as we age and what the future looks like.
Spencer (16:55):
So these came out of doing an inventory around the workaholism and that sort of thing, is that what I understand you said?
Mary H (17:06):
Around, around workaholism, then around finance, and then around grief, just the
whole idea of, I didn't expectto grieve the loss of my career.
and quote unquote, who I was,
but here I am grieving it.
And I didn't even know that.
I didn't even know how I didn't know Iwould, and I didn't know how to do it.
Spencer (17:28):
When you look at that through a I'll say recovery lens, you are recognizing how big a part of your identity that was.
Mary H (17:39):
Yes.
My sponsor
suggested that I read Opening Our Hearts,Transforming Our Losses yet one more time.
And sure enough, it's right there.
I have read this book before we've done book studies on it.
And I thought, okay, I'm going to go back to thatbook and read it with this view of who am I, if I'm not this thing that I've been for, So many years.
(18:07):
It speaks directly to that.
It really does.
Spencer (18:10):
I've pulled a book off the shelf and I'm just looking at,
Mary H (18:13):
I think people see this book and think about it in terms of losing people to death, or to, alcoholism or drug addiction.
And it's really about so much more.
you can really apply it to all kinds of loss.
Retirement is a loss.
It's a gain, but it's also a loss.
Spencer (18:35):
It's interesting.
I didn't have.
that exact experience.
I'm not grieving the loss of the career.
And that may be partly because I was able tochoose my retirement date and plan for it.
I actually told my boss, I think about four years inadvance that I was planning to retire in about four years.
(19:00):
because I had been with the companybasically since the beginning.
I'd been there 28 years by the time I retired.
so I knew that because of the the corporatememory and experience that I carried that it was going to be significant.
And that I needed to make sure to transmit all ofthat to the people who are still going to be there.
(19:24):
but maybe I had sort of pre, pregrieved it, or maybe I just was ready.
Mary H (19:30):
It's interesting that you went through it in that sense.
The company I work for actually has a really great pathwayto retirement with yearly offsite meetings and meetings with all kinds of different people, financial planners and retirement planners . There is a glide path to it.
(19:52):
I think my
Spencer (19:53):
but is it an emotional glide path?
Mary H (19:56):
I think, that's a lot of the work you have to do yourself.
And I'm not sure I thought I was doing it and I wasn'tdoing, I didn't realize there was so much more to do.
Let's put it that way.
I'm a trauma surgeon.
As I learn a lot more about trauma and our responses.
(20:18):
I laugh at myself actually, because as I'm learningsome of the recovery information around trauma and some of the trauma that I had growing up, which I would never have identified as trauma, though it probably was by today's definition.
I find it highly ironic that I became a an orthopedictrauma surgeon, because it is the ultimate fixing, there is nothing more that you can do to fix than to take broken, battered bodies and put them back together.
(20:54):
At this point in retrospect, while I do not regret onesecond of my career, because I've had a wonderful career, I also now really, for the first time, understand how directly related to my mental health and my recovery that choice of career was, for so many different reasons.
(21:18):
It's a rare career, particularly for women in my age group.
There simply weren't any or were very few.
It was a battle all the time.
It's highly adrenaline charged.
It requires a hundred hour work weeks for years on end.
And yes, it became my identity to a large extent.
(21:39):
Now that is not to say that I didn't havea marriage and recovery program and raise children and grandchildren during all of that.
But yeah, it was a huge part of my life.
I'm tearing up just talking about it because,it's not easy for me to just walk away from that.
A lot of my work is with multiply handicappedchildren and, I really love my patients and my families and to walk away from that is really hard.
Spencer (22:07):
Were there people that you saw over a period of time?
Because my vision, when you say trauma surgeon, myvision is the emergency department on Chicago Med where somebody's rushed in and et cetera, right?
and it's all very dramatic and then it's over.
but I imagine that's not at least all of what it's like.
Mary H (22:26):
That is a part of trauma surgery.
My particular subspecialty is in pediatric orthopedics.
So my children are largely, handicappedchildren born with lots of different problems.
And I have known many of my kids and my families.
From the day they were born and I got calledto see them in the hour they were born
(22:49):
to where they're going to college and havingtheir own babies or have, passed away.
And I still know the families.
So I have long term relationships with a lot ofmy families and my kids who are now mostly adults.
Spencer (23:04):
So for you, part of your retirement process would have been that separation, Were you able to do that with these long term connections gradually?
Mary H (23:16):
yes.
it has had to be a gradual thing for many of my families.
It's been really hard to let go of that relationshipsimply because we have worked together for so long and their children's needs are many times so large that, Finding someone else to help them with it is difficult.
(23:39):
That's part of why this has been an extended leave takingfrom work is the somewhat difficult part of disengaging and helping to find replacement specialists who can help them.
and that's been done.
And again, the organization Iwork for is really good with that.
(24:00):
but yeah, yeah.
It took some time.
Spencer (24:03):
I feel that very emotionally different from me walking away from my software development career, Wow.
Was part of this statement, it's not exactlywhat I thought it was going to be, does it have to do with the protracted slow retirement that you've gone through or is that part of it?
Mary H (24:24):
I'm actually really grateful that I have been able to withdraw in stages.
I think an abrupt end with no chance of, handingpeople off in what we call warm handoffs, I think that would have been a lot harder.
And I'm very grateful to be ableto come back in emeritus, status.
(24:47):
I still teach, I still give lectures.
I'll be it.
Probably in many of the younger studentsminds, historical lectures in this age, but, I'm still very involved in my community.
and with my colleagues, so it's been nice thatit's been able to be gradual, I think it did not always please my family that it was so gradual.
(25:10):
though they saw how I needed that, but Ithink the expectation was that I would just walk away one day and that would be that.
And I would be, I don't know whatthey thought I would be doing.
I can't speak for that, but I think they weresomewhat confused by the protracted, leave taking.
Spencer (25:27):
I asked about your expectations, but what do you know about the family's expectations?
Mary H (25:32):
My husband and I have been married coming on almost 50 years.
He's been clean and sober, 40 of those years.
We raised our kids in a recovery household with recoverylanguage and our grandkids who are now growing as well.
We talk program language, so we're pretty goodin our family about being able to, use the language of the program to express what we want.
(25:57):
I think my grown daughters, we live about 1200 miles away.
I think they thought I would bemore present, where they are.
And of course they're busy in their careers.
I think they thought that we'd be there more than we are.
Grandkids.
We're very fortunate.
Our grandkids love us.
they don't, they do roll their eyes at us.
Let me put it that way,
(26:17):
but they?
also invite, they're in their twenties, but
they also invite us to be involvedwith every aspect of their life.
They invite us to go out with their friends.
We go kayaking and stand up paddleboarding and we do things together.
So I think they were hoping there might be more of thatand there probably will be, but, I think they thought it would start on day one, and it's not quite that way.
(26:42):
My husband is a little older than Iam, has been retired for quite a while.
And I think we both went into this withsome trepidation about what did it mean to be spending all day, every day together?
And I, that's not unusual for people whoare retiring to be wondering about that.
And yeah, that's where program really comes in.
(27:04):
He works his program.
I work my program.
I don't know that we knew what to expect.
We're two very different people.
We approach life very differently.
We have different expectations.
And thank goodness we have recovery language and the stepsand the traditions to apply, to work through some of that.
Spencer (27:25):
I just want to say that you're obviously making it work if you're still together after 50 years and still talking to each other.
Mary H (27:31):
We still like each other.
Yes,
Spencer (27:33):
that's, that doesn't always happen.
We just celebrated 40 years last month.
You talked about moving from a savingmentality to then starting to spend the money that you spent all those years saving.
Mary H (27:48):
Yes.
Spencer (27:49):
How has that felt and how are you coming to terms with that change?
Mary H (27:57):
Oh yes.
That is a big one.
so I don't expect that I am ever going to be a person whogoes out and spends a lot of money willy nilly, let's say.
That is just not in, I am not a shopaholic.
Spending money is not one of my addictions.
We have a good financial counselor, which I recommendto everyone who is fortunate enough to need some help.
(28:25):
That person has laid out very clearly exactlywhat we can and should spend, what we should be doing with this, that, or the other thing.
And I think that's part of, I take out of the traditions.
I love the traditions and the one for this month isabout getting outside expert help if you need it.
And that, that has been very helpful.
(28:47):
I strongly recommend having someonewho is not emotionally involved in your finances, help you figure out your finances.
So I have a pretty clear budget.
We know what we can spend.
We know what we can do and what wecan't, and we're not extravagant people.
Even my little travel trailer is, it's 20years old and I did all the work on it myself.
(29:08):
I didn't go out and buy a brand newAirstream or something crazy like that.
but yeah, spending is hard.
Spending on myself is particularly difficult.
I, find it very easy to spend on familyand, needed things for other people, but spending for myself, I find very difficult.
(29:31):
So my sponsor and I have a little plan with things thatI will do for myself that it's okay to spend money on.
Spencer (29:38):
We also have a financial advisor, sounds maybe a little less personal than what you've got, but he was able to lay out for us what we wanted to plan for.
He asked us, so what do you want to do?
How do you want to live?
What's your risk profile?
All those good questions.
Somehow, I don't know.
I had internalized this notion that whenyou retire, then, you live more cheaply.
(30:03):
and I started thinking about that.
I'm like, I didn't have like hugecommuting expenses or anything.
I, what am I not spending money on if I'm not working?
I didn't have to have special clothing.
like my father had suits and ties and, hegot his dress shirts laundered every week.
Those expenses go away when you retire,but I didn't have those sorts of expenses.
(30:25):
And our guy's like, you're probably going to want to.
have the same amount of disposable income as it were.
And, obviously covering your fixed expenses likerent or mortgage or whatever it is and so on.
And then, what are your goals for retirement?
And one of our goals for retirementwas to travel a little more.
We had been tied down as it were for yearswith children and then with my aging parents, And now we're, quotes, free, more or less.
(30:56):
And in some not too distant future, we're not going tomaybe have the health or the energy to do much traveling.
So he's like, yeah, you want to front load your retirement.
throw in extra for travel.
and I'm like, Oh wow.
Mary H (31:12):
I see you clutching your heart.
Spencer (31:13):
Oh yeah, it's just it's Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Mary H (31:16):
Exactly.
Spencer (31:17):
My siblings who were there relayed this to me.
towards the end of my mother's life asshe had some investments of her own.
She also had significantly elevated living expenses becausewe were paying for 24 hour care, and that sort of thing.
So they're meeting with the financial advisor and he'slike, yeah, you're going to need to cash in this stock that you've held for 40, 50 years, however long it was.
(31:45):
I don't know exactly what she said.
He said, no, he said, this is why youhave it because now you need to spend it.
This is why you saved it.
I was like, well, that makes sense.
It's still hard.
this is why I've been saving since, sinceI was in my mid twenties is when I started contributing to my retirement portfolio.
(32:07):
I've been doing it for a while, 40 something years.
So that when I get here, I can have a comfortable life.
Mary H (32:14):
Right.
And yet it's hard to do.
It's one of those head to heart things for me.
In my head, I know it makes sensethat's what I saved for is to be able
to do what we want to do now.
My heart says, Oh no, we need tokeep saving that money for what?
(32:36):
You know,
Spencer (32:37):
For what?
Mary H (32:38):
I can't take it with me.
It is not my goal to leave all my money to mychildren or, the whatever's left they're welcome.
but yeah, what is it that I think I'm
saving for?
Spencer (32:49):
Yep.
at one point he plugged all our numbers into hiscomputer program and said, okay, here's the projection.
you spend at this rate, you live to 95 andthere's this much left over for your children.
And I looked at that number and Isaid, shit, we need to spend more.
I mean,
(33:09):
When my parents died, they had some money leftover and it got split among us kids and that provided a nice little extra cushion, I will say.
It wasn't a whole lot of money, so yeah, I wantto leave something for my kids, but I don't need to like finance the rest of their lives.
Not that I really have that much money, but,
Mary H (33:26):
that whole idea of you're going to spend less.
I also had that thought, and in some little ways
I did, I realized, after I retired that myhabit of buying my team lunch once a week and, going to the coffee cart every day and getting everybody a latte or whatever it is they wanted.
(33:48):
Those were actually expenses I really didn't need to do.
I had just fallen into the habit of
doing.
Commuting, not needing the car.
We're in the process of downsizing becausewe live on a property in a house that is much too large and much too old for us to maintain.
And we simply don't want to anymore.
(34:08):
That's a whole big part of my retirement is trying todecide where we're going to live location wise and, decluttering our house, getting rid of everything.
I'm pretty much just ready to walk out thedoor with my purse and my laptop and be done.
but there are years of accumulation in this oldVictorian house that we live in that needs to go and then finding the right place to live.
(34:36):
We're leaning on the traditions heavily for this.
We went through the process of going to look at ahouse and a location we thought in a house that is absolutely everything we wanted on our list, was affordable, was in a beautiful paradise emotionally, we were both ready to jump and buy the house.
(34:58):
It's a good thing we had a long drive back home,and we put it to the traditions test of unity.
Were we in unity on it?
Well, maybe One minute I was pro and one minutehe was pro, but we switched back and forth.
So no, we really didn't have unity.
And did it meet our primary purpose?
(35:18):
Our primary purpose is simplify and safety.
And no, it was not simpler.
It was very remote.
It was not safer.
There was no medical care within three hours of it.
And that was by helicopter.
So once we ran it through the traditions,we went, yeah, that is a beautiful home and a beautiful location for somebody else.
Spencer (35:40):
for some younger
Mary H (35:42):
Yeah, definitely.
I have always used the traditions.
Once I embraced them, which took me a long time in program,once I embraced the traditions and applied them both at work in management positions and in family and in this process.
(36:03):
It really helps me clarify, decision making.
Because it needs to meet those criteria that are outlined inthe traditions about unity and financial self sufficiency.
Is it affordable?
Do we agree on it?
Is it going to meet our primary purpose?
All the things that are outlined there.
(36:24):
kind of went off topic, but it relates to financebecause that is a huge part of finance for us right now.
Is this whole downsizing and moving to somethingmore manageable and what's it going to look like?
Spencer (36:35):
Yeah.
My wife and I are still clarifying ourmutual needs desires for downsizing.
In our case.
We live in a three story house, built in the30s, and our bedroom's on the third floor.
We have bathrooms on the third and second floor.
The laundry's in the basement.
And she's already having knee problems.
Mary H (36:57):
Yes.
Spencer (36:59):
And it's very clear that this is not an age in place house.
So we know that we want to movebefore it becomes necessary to move.
Mary H (37:09):
Yes.
Spencer (37:10):
you talk about grief, I mean, we know we want to stay in the same community.
Particularly for her, this is where her recoverycommunity is, and she does not want to leave it.
Which makes it difficult in one way becausethe selection of houses that meet the physical criteria is not big in the immediate area.
(37:33):
And the ones that are aren't for sale,you know, but we're not in a hurry.
So that's good.
I'm listening to you and realizing we still have work to doin aligning our expectations and our desires and our needs.
and maybe one of the things that we need is everything'son one floor, so we don't have to move again.
(38:00):
Okay.
Um, strong desire is separate bathrooms.
We collide sometimes physically inthe bathroom every morning and night.
that's a strong desire.
close to need.
It's not like need need, but close to need.
Having separate spaces that we caneach call our own is important.
(38:24):
That's why two to three bedrooms,then we can each have our own space,.
, you start putting that together and Ireally want to be somewhere I can go out the front door and walk in the neighborhood.
At least.
I would love to be able to get downtownwithout having to get in a car.
It's this sort of descending hierarchy of criteria here.
(38:44):
and then there's the whole affordability question,because, we've lived in this house for 36 years.
And in Michigan, that means that our taxable valueof our house has only gone up at the inflation rate.
Even if we buy a cheaper house, Taxes will be higher.
but we hopefully have some years to figure this out.
Mary H (39:06):
It's remarkable how aligned all of that is.
So we also live in a three story, actuallyfour story if you count the cellar.
Our house was built in 1890.
five flights of narrow wooden
stairs.
I am currently in the third story, which is mystudio, which means I go up and down the stairs.
And, that's not sustainable over time.
(39:29):
It's just too much to take care of.
It's a huge amount of work.
There's all the maintenance on a house thisold and then we have a avocado citrus grove around us that we have to take care of.
And while it's delightful, it's a lot of work.
And so we're done.
But what we sat down and together and we wrote all thosethings out, starting with What we could afford to spend.
(39:52):
That was at the top.
Then what we absolutely had to have, which isvery similar to what you were talking about.
It has to be one story.
We need to be able to age in place, safety, and simplicity.
And then we started getting into thosesame things you were talking about.
how much space inside, how much space outside?
what do we want?
(40:12):
Do we want to be rural, which we currently are pretty rural.
We don't like suburban life, butcould we live with urban life?
I don't know.
we're priests.
We're pretty spoiled.
we did when we were young, but we're pretty spoiledwith our privacy and the quiet where we are now.
So we just rank all those things.
(40:34):
location, fortunately, you guysdon't have to deal with location.
We have Very different ideas about location.
That's probably the biggest stumbling block we have, but,I think we have found a suitable place in the middle.
I love cold, wet, rainy.
I could go live up in the rain forest and my husband,my temperature is 50 and below and his is 80 and above.
(41:00):
So
we have a big gap to
fill in the middle.
Spencer (41:03):
yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Mary H (41:06):
But yes, all those things.
and I know I said it once, and I should only say itonce, but I will reiterate, write all that stuff down.
And then, Write out the traditions in wordingthat makes sense for making a life decision and run it through that and see how it lines up.
It was amazingly clarifying for us.
Spencer (41:27):
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Thank you for that.
Mary H (41:30):
The last thing that I thought about, talking about, and it's a deep, long subject, but the other thing we all face is this whole thing of health issues, and end of life.
That is a whole subject in and of itself.
But once you get to retirement, yourealize that, you touched on it.
You may not be able to do some of that travel in the future.
(41:53):
, All those plans for all of that and how doesthat align with each other and with your
families?
That's a big subject.
Spencer (41:59):
We watched my parents.
Health decline, dementia incline, as theymoved towards the end of their lives.
And, it was, is, a reality check, , my grandparentsdied when I was significantly younger and I was not,
Immediately involved with them,you know, see them on vacation.
(42:22):
Both sets of grandparents had moved to Florida.
I might see them once a year.
So I didn't really see the progression,of their health and eventual death.
It was like, oh, granddaddy died.
We're gonna, the funeral that actually happened when I wasa teenager, I think I might've still been in high school.
(42:42):
My other grandfather died when I was in college.
My grandmother died, it was like85, 86, something like that.
So I was still in Utah.
Again, oh, she's gone.
I had some awareness that my mother and her brother weretrading off being with her in the last year or so of her life as her dementia progressed to the point where she wasn't really able to, take care of herself anymore.
(43:08):
but I didn't see that happening close up.
It was all at a distance.
So when my parents went through their end of life years Isaw it and I still, 400 miles away, but I saw it a lot more close up, and I saw it through my siblings who were there.
And it's okay, reality check here.
(43:29):
it is not unlikely that I will follow that path.
What does that mean?
What does that mean for me?
What does that mean for my family?
We're able to afford long term care insurance for me.
It ain't cheap.
but hopefully if it comes to the point where, I needto go into a facility, we'll have some help with that.
(43:50):
Yeah, you got to plan for this shit.
also trying to stay healthy, but,
Mary H (43:56):
got to see it through a recovery lens in two very different ways.
my husband's parents, were very traditionalMidwestern German stiff upper lip, planned everything right down to their funeral services.
mom, mother in law had dementia.
(44:17):
Dad took care of her until the very end, then dad.
lingered for a few years, but everything was righty tighty.
It, just took us to step in and pull a fewstrings to make things happen and close it up.
in my family, my mother's, ill health, bothphysically and mentally, ended up, something that I could not have done without Years of Recovery.
(44:44):
I ended up taking care of her and myestranged father in their last years of life.
primarily because neither of them had, any financialresources and we did, so we ended up being their caretakers.
There was no planning.
My mother's line, whenever I would try to approach it, wasalways, Oh, if that ever happens, you'll know what to do.
(45:07):
And I kept saying, Mom, it isn't if, it's when.
Believe me, you're closer to win than if,
and in fact, I did not know what shewanted because she refused to discuss it.
Fortunately, there was nothing to dispose of becausethere were no finances, but just taking care of her and
dealing with the chaos that she left behind with, Bothher alcoholism and her mental illness and my father who just abdicated, I mean, I hadn't seen the man in years and, he just abdicated all responsibility for anything and said, you take care of it.
(45:46):
And again, with no definite plans, really.
so I got to see both extremes and, again.
So grateful for AA and Al Anon and recovery program.
we did not have big Hallmark momentsof, reconciliation and all of that.
I think my mother's mental health wasnot, something that could do that.
Probably my dad's either.
(46:08):
But I was able to take care of them with grace and dignity.
And to allow them to have the endsof their lives, such as it were.
I was really grateful for that.
From that lesson, I want to be like my in laws.
I don't want my kids to have to figure out anything.
(46:30):
I do not want to leave them wonderingwhat in the world mom and dad wanted.
So we will be more the, Buttoned up Midwesternerswhere everything is tied with a neat bow and all they need to do is just follow the instructions.
But it is something to think about and believeme, I have seen family after family where.
(46:51):
The older people have refused to acknowledgethat this was ever going to be a situation.
and were never going to leave their homes.
Were never going to need long term care.
Were never going to need anything else.
They would just die at home.
And that, unfortunately, in our cultureis not really a common thing anymore.
(47:13):
So
Yeah.
the planning you've done is important.
Spencer (47:19):
I'm going to rephrase the question I often ask at the end of a conversation, which is, what would you, or what do you say to a program friend who is facing retirement?
have you had that experience?
Mary H (47:35):
So yes, it, my, my cohort, as I call them, we've all aged together.
We've raised children together.
We've raised grandchildren togetherand we are retiring together.
So yes, we talk about it a lot.
and I think the biggest thing I suggestto people is stay with your program, stay in whatever recovery system you have.
(47:59):
particularly if you lose a spouse, which manyof my friends in recovery have lost a spouse.
And there is a tendency to drift away afterthat in, in grief, in feeling like I don't need that anymore because they're gone, whatever.
I make a lot of phone calls and I encourage other peoplein our home group to make the phone calls to people and reel them back in because I can't think of anything that helps me more than my recovery group and being in recovery.
(48:33):
I don't know how I would do life without it.
Spencer (48:37):
I always ask my guests to bring some musical selections and you told me I'm not really a musical person.
this is hard, but you did, you came through.
what was the first song that you picked?
Mary H (48:49):
it is true.
I am not someone who listens to a lot of music,which is ironic because that was my husband's business, but, so Joe Walsh, One Day at a Time.
I, was looking at recovery music and the lyricsare just amazing about him facing recovery.
Spencer (49:05):
I think most people are aware that he has been in recovery for a while now.
I think my wife saw him speak at, aFounders Day event some years ago.
said it was really good.
(49:28):
In this section of the podcast, wetalk about our lives in recovery.
How have we each experienced recovery recently?
The thing that came to mind for me, particularly with theconversation we've had here, comes back to this theme of acceptance that has been so central to my life for the last, I don't know, half a decade or something at least.
(49:51):
in this case, it's acceptance of my health conditionsas they currently are and as they might develop.
I was diagnosed a few years ago now with.
One of these health conditions that sometimescomes on as one ages that can progress and get worse if you don't deal with it.
(50:15):
In this case, dealing with it means medication,dietary and lifestyle changes, and continuing awareness of how my body is acting and reacting.
For the longest time, maybe until this month, Ihad this delusion that if I did the right things, if I, exercised ate right and lost a little bit of weight and so on and so forth that I could actually maybe reverse the progress of this disease.
(50:49):
I've been taking an education class about this diseaseand it became very clear to me in the first class.
that in fact there have been probably irreversiblechanges in my body and the way parts of it work and that I'm not going to go back to the way I was.
(51:09):
That this is something I'm going to haveto deal with for the rest of my life.
I don't think I really understood that Ihad been in denial about that for the last six years since I was first diagnosed.
This is what it is.
And the beauty for me of that tool of acceptance is now thatI know, now that I accept that this is the case, this is the situation that changes narrows perhaps, but illuminates
(51:43):
options for action that I do have that could havesome positive effect rather than ignoring the whole thing which does not have a positive effect.
I was not totally ignoring it.
I was taking medication.
trying to exercise more, but I really hadn't looked at thewhole, the rest of the lifestyle changes that are necessary.
And so starting to implement those and, I'm so gladthat I have this program, these principles that allow me to see the true nature of what is happening.
(52:13):
To recognize What I can't do, and thus, what I can do.
And then, a higher power thatwill help me do what I need to do.
that's what's been on my mind recently.
Mary H (52:24):
I got thrown into awareness, acceptance, and action, all three.
In one day yesterday,
Spencer (52:32):
oh,
Mary H (52:34):
one of the things I identify in myself, have always been part of my identity, let me put it that way, is that I'm physically very strong.
I'm active and I'm healthy.
I've never had health concerns.
I'm, still for my age, very activekayaking and camping and biking and hiking.
(52:56):
Do all sorts of things.
So yesterday I went to my doctor thinking, Oh,it'll just be another one of those yearly things where we chat a little bit and they do a few things.
Well, I left there wearing a heart monitor, beingscheduled for a sleep apnea study and getting a date for cataract surgery, none of which I thought I
(53:16):
had any need for when I walked in that door.
yeah, the awareness came as she started listing all thethings that I needed to do yesterday and today, which I was very grateful that, it all happened very quickly.
acceptance yesterday, I was not in acceptance.
(53:38):
I was irritated.
I'm in much more acceptance today.
And action just happened.
I did have to.
Follow through on all the appointmentsthat were made, but they were made so fast, I didn't really have much of an option.
So, yeah, I totally, the middle one, theacceptance thing, I have to really, work on that.
(54:02):
Yes, this is an aging body and yes, you have used andabused this body physically and yes, there are some consequences and there are some changes that I have to make.
So I'm with you on that.
I get it.
Spencer (54:19):
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to what's coming up inthe podcast we're continuing on the steps.
There have been a couple of episodes on Step 3.
I think I've got another one coming up because we getlots of different perspectives on that particular step.
Interesting.
I've scheduled a conversation about Step 4.
(54:41):
So we're going to work our way through.
I'm going through in order, but I'm not ina hurry to knock them out one after another.
They are coming.
And so if you are interested in contributing to aparticular step, or if you just want to, send in a little experience, strength, and hope, you're welcome to, or if, hey, you're like in retirement or facing retirement.
(55:03):
And this episode.
sparked something in you, a question or a, arealization, you can join our conversation.
You can leave us a voicemail or send us an email.
And Mary, how can people send us feedback?
Mary H (55:20):
You can send a voice memo or email to feedback at therecovery.
show.
Or if you prefer, you can call andleave us a voicemail at 734 707 8795.
You can also use the voicemail button on thewebsite to join the conversation from your computer.
We'd love to hear from you.
Share your experience, strength and hope, or yourquestions about today's topic of retirement or any of our upcoming topics, including the steps.
(55:48):
If you have a topic you'd likeus to talk about, let us know.
If you would like advance notice for some of ourtopics so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback at the recovery dot show.
Put email in the subject line and make it easier to spot.
Spencer (56:07):
Our website is therecovery.
show where we have everything thatyou can find out about the show.
You can listen to the podcast there.
You can read the notes for each episode,and those notes are at therecovery.
show slash number of episode.
We'll also link to the books that weread from or that we talked about.
(56:31):
There will be videos for the music that Inthis case, Mary chose, and there's also some links to other recovery podcasts and websites.
If you want to refer a friend to The Recovery Show, oneway to do that is to send them to the website, therecovery.
show.
What's your second song?
Mary H (56:51):
Second song is by Natasha Bedingfield, who I had never heard before, but I'm sure you guys all know.
And her song is called Recovery.
Great lyrics.
Spencer (57:10):
I've got one email to share today.
This is from Libbey.
She writes,
Spencer, I found your podcast four years ago as Iwas in the depths of unmanageability and despair.
I was new to 12 step recoveryalthough I was generally aware.
I was a skeptic.
My therapist said, go to six meetings,and I agreed to do that, but no more.
(57:33):
Alcoholism was not the primary issue.
Why would 12 step be a resource?
I grew up in a home with an alcoholicparent, but my spouse wasn't an alcoholic.
I wondered about other addictions.
His behavior, lies, etc.
was not normal.
My qualifier still doesn't admitthere is an issue slash addiction.
I will likely never get disclosure.
(57:53):
What I do know is that listening to the recoveryshow and attending a 12 step meeting, several a week actually, has helped me through some really dark times.
I'm learning about myself in ways thatI've been scared to explore in the past.
It has only taken me 55 years.
I feel I have a better parent, professional,and human being because of 12 step recovery.
Your podcast has been a gentle path for me.
(58:16):
I have been coming to the rooms for over four years and havejust gotten a sponsor to start working the steps formally.
I have worked through them several times throughyour podcast archive and my meetings, but now it is time for the honesty with another human being.
I wanted to let you know how much yourservice and commitment have meant to me as I muddle my way through recovery.
Thank you and your guests for thethoughtful, vulnerable, and humble shares.
(58:40):
And I wanted to let you know that even if alcohol is notthe presenting addiction, your podcast and the resources you share are so very helpful to us practicing recovery.
Signed warmly, Libbey.
Well, thank you, Libbey, for that letter.
For the reminder that sometimes, even if we don't thinkthere's a problem of alcoholism or addiction in our lives, what I have said to people in newcomer meetings is, if you connect with what we say here, if you find value in what we say here, then you probably belong here, whether there's any obvious alcoholism happening in your life or not.
(59:20):
Thanks again for writing, Libbey.
Mary, I want to thank you so much for coming on todayand sharing your experience, strength, and hope.
And how you are using the tools and principlesof recovery as you move into retirement, as you move more deeply into retirement?
Thank you for coming.
Mary H (59:39):
Thank you so much, Spencer.
Spencer (59:43):
and what's the, the last song you picked?
Mary H (59:46):
Lincoln Park, Breaking the Habit.
Again, not somebody I knew, but I'm sure a lotof you musicologists did, and loved the lyrics.
Spencer (01:00:02):
Thank you for listening, and please keep coming back.
Whatever your problems, there arethose among us who have had them too.
If we did not talk about a problem you arefacing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode.
May understanding, love, and peacegrow in you one day at a time.
Retirement brings new challenges.
How can we use our recovery principlesand tools to meet those challenges?
Welcome to episode 418 of The Recovery Show.
This episode is brought to you by Diana,Jeremy, Doreen, Charlotte, Sandra, and Marsha.
They used the donation button on our website.
Thank you, Diana, Jeremy, Doreen, Charlotte,and Marsha for your generous contributions.
(00:26):
This episode is for you.
We are friends and family members of alcoholics andaddicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness.
We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopelessproblem of addiction understand, as perhaps few others can.
So much depends on our own attitudes, and webelieve that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
Mary H (00:46):
Before we begin, we would like to state in this show, we represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program.
During this show, we will share our own experiences.
The opinions expressed here are strictlythose of the person who gave them.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
We hope that you will find something inour sharing that speaks to your life.
Spencer (01:04):
My name is Spencer.
I am the host today, and joining me today is Mary.
Welcome to The Recovery Show, Mary.
Mary H (01:13):
Thank you, Spencer.
Spencer (01:14):
I asked you to bring a reading.
What did you bring us?
Mary H (01:17):
I will read from today's, Courage to Change because it was very fitting.
August 21st.
Some Al Anon suggestions, such as getting asponsor, were easy for me because I'm good at following specific instructions, but I didn't know what to do with the slogan live and let live.
Al Anon helped me to let live by teaching me aboutdetachment and helping me to see that many of my problems stem from my minding everyone's business but my own.
(01:45):
But how do you turn your eyes on yourselfand live for the first time in your life?
When I put this question to mysponsor, she asked me one in turn.
What had I done earlier that day?
Although I'd had a very busy day, I couldbarely remember what I had been doing.
My sponsor suggested that I begin learning how to live bybecoming more aware of my life as I was already living it.
(02:06):
Then I would be better able to makechoices about how I would like to live.
Searching for the real me, living according to myneeds, and loving myself as a newfound friend have been the most rewarding benefits of the Al Anon program.
Strangely, they're the last ones I wouldhave imagined receiving when I began.
Today's Reminder Today I can choose totake responsibility for my own life.
(02:28):
If I stay out of others affairs and become more aware ofmy own, I have a good chance of finding some serenity.
Each man's life represents a road toward himself.
Herman Hess.
And I really liked that because it speaks to my mood today.
Spencer (02:46):
You wrote to me a little while back and said you'd love to do a show on how recovery is helping in the challenge of retirement.
And you said, it isn't exactlywhat I thought it was going to be.
And I thought, well that, that sounds like an interestingtopic, and this is something that I'm also facing, as are, I'm sure, some other listeners to the podcast.
(03:08):
The first question I had that Ithink comes up for a lot of us.
Did you choose when you were going to retireor was it some outside factors maybe making it sooner or later than you would have chosen?
Mary H (03:22):
I actually worked for a company that has mandatory retirement at age 65.
so I retired at my mandatory age and then I went backto work for them full time as what's called emeritus.
And then I retired a year later, And then Iwent back to them as a full time emeritus.
(03:42):
And then I worked for another year and then I retired again.
And now after what, my third retirement, Iam now working part time and mostly remotely.
And some of that was influenced by the worldwidepandemic that there was need for me to come back to work.
(04:03):
But I think I am really prettymuch done working at this point.
Spencer (04:08):
if I can interpret what you said in the terms of the question that I asked.
Had you chosen, you might haveworked longer, but now you're ready.
Is that a fair
Mary H (04:20):
I actually fear that if my company didn't have a mandated retirement, I would work until the day I dropped dead.
Spencer (04:29):
Okay, then.
you were not looking forward to retirement?
Mary H (04:35):
It's a mixed bag.
I was looking forward to it.
as with all jobs, my job hadmany joys and I loved my career.
It had many challenges.
And there were days I really couldn'twait to get out, but I really love my job.
And I like many of us, I am something of a workaholic.
(04:59):
I think without having had to retire.
I probably would have stayed hidden in that world.
And I'm glad I didn't.
I'm glad I was forced to get out and to startdoing some more recovery work outside of work.
Spencer (05:17):
How long have you been retired?
Mary H (05:20):
It's been three years, since I, retired in mandatory retirement.
it's been about a year that I have been workingmostly remotely, which suits me pretty well.
And it's only a few hours a week.
Spencer (05:34):
Okay.
So it's mostly retired,
Mary H (05:37):
Yes.
Spencer (05:38):
but still doing the same kind of work you were doing, which you enjoyed.
that sounds good.
now you said it wasn't what you thought it was going to be.
So I have to ask, what did you expect of retirement?
Mary H (05:51):
Like most people, I think I thought I would just go out and do all those things I'd always wanted to do that I was too busy to do.
And I had all these hobbies that I love, and Itravel, and just enjoy every minute of every day.
Spencer (06:11):
Our listener can't see me, but I am smiling and nodding at everything you just said.
Mary H (06:16):
part of what prompted me to write to you was the fact that you talk about going into retirement on the podcast, which I listen to every week.
Also at my home group, there aremany of us who are in retirement age.
So as with every step of my life in recovery,there's a group of us going through the same thing.
(06:37):
It's great to have people to be able to talk to about that.
Because I think our cultural expectation of what retirementis going to be and the reality of what retirement is.
is for many people, is very different.
And I have to acknowledge extreme privilegein that I am retiring from a career I loved, that I am retiring financially secure, and that I have the opportunity to retire.
(07:08):
And to not be burdened by fears that I'mnot going to be able to, have a living.
I do have to acknowledge that and be very grateful for it.
But the reality is I don't do my hobbies every day.
I'm not traveling all over the world.
I spend a lot of time not really knowingwhat I'm doing or what I should be doing.
Spencer (07:32):
I'm also smiling at that.
I'm looking at you on screen and in the background, Isee lots of shelving with like drawer units and stuff.
and I'm guessing that those havesomething to do with hobbies.
Mary H (07:47):
Yes, I am currently in my studio, which takes up, the entire third floor of a very old home, and I have several hobbies, and they are all housed here.
While I do still do my hobbies, the first thingthat I found was a complete disinterest in my hobbies that had previously been delightful.
(08:11):
And I hear that from a lot of people whoretire is, Oh, I love to do whatever it was.
And then I retired and I just didn't want to do it anymore.
So I do still do, the hobbies that I do,which are mostly artistic, kinds of things.
but I also found out that I'm a terribleboss and that I'm very work driven.
(08:33):
And so my head immediately took me to, if I'm going todo hobbies, I have to do this eight to 10 hours a day.
And I need to turn out a certain amount of product.
which is the antithesis of hobbies and artistry.
I had to, talk with my sponsor and actually do afourth step around why those were my expectations.
Spencer (08:57):
Pre retirement, when you thought about, okay, I'm going to be retired and I have these hobbies and I'll be able to spend more time at them.
Did you expect to have that mindset about it?
Did you envision them full time as it were?
Mary H (09:10):
I went so far as to envisioning that I was going to be getting a storefront space and, opening a store and teaching because I do a lot of teaching of my hobbies.
And I had been successfully also on the side runninga online marketplace for hobbyists who do what I do.
(09:36):
And all of that I did while workingand juggled it all just fine.
Spencer (09:42):
So you thought, wow, I'll be able to really.
Mary H (09:45):
Yes, and instead what happened is I lost interest, I didn't open a store, I closed my online marketplace.
I didn't do any of that.
But then I turned a lot of that inward on myselfof, what are the expectations that I have of myself?
And they were nuts!
(10:06):
Because, I have the ism and that, that was what I expected.
Now, the flip side of that is that I have taken upsome other hobbies, which I didn't really expect.
one of them, when I retired, I boughtmyself a old, small travel trailer.
I completely gutted it, rebuilt it.
(10:26):
And, I have been going camping.
I took off in April and drove through theWest, from April through July and camped.
I also took up kayaking, so I took my kayak withand I camped and I kayaked and had a wonderful time and met people, who I know in various places.
(10:46):
And I did it by myself because my husband's ideaof camping is a five star resort with turn-down service and Ghirardelli chocolates on the pillow.
Not my little refurbished travel trailer.
Spencer (10:59):
So this is something that, that your recovery really gave you permission to do that by yourself, right?
Mary H (11:08):
Yes, very much so.
Spencer (11:10):
I'm guessing that previously, you would have thought, I have to take my husband with me.
We have to do this together.
Mary H (11:17):
No, that would not be a dynamic in our relationship.
I would not have thought that.
but recovery allowed me in many other ways.
One is just that I can get up and go do this.
Okay, let's go do it.
And also that I have a recoverycommunity all over the world.
So wherever I go, whenever I go, there's always people.
(11:39):
and if I get into any kind of problems, cause I am, alone,
I just have to reach out to the community.
If I want to go to a meeting, I can go to a local meeting.
and those people are almost always willingto, jump in and make recommendations where to eat, where to stay, where to kayak.
Recovery helps me a lot in that sense.
Spencer (11:58):
It sounds like you do, find local meetings when you travel.
Do you also sometimes just do a Zoom meeting or something?
Mary H (12:07):
Every day, I do zoom meetings every single day, sometimes one, sometimes more.
But I like to find local meetings andgo meet people and hang out with them.
And because they're almost always, Oh, we'llcome over and eat or let's go to the barbecue or, Oh, have you been to this restaurant?
Let's go get.
somebody's apple pie or something.
or we share hobbies together.
(12:28):
A lot of the women's, so yeah, it's, a wonderful part.
Spencer (12:32):
and it helps keep travel from being lonely.
Mary H (12:35):
Yes, exactly.
And if I ever broke down anywhere, I know somebodywould roust up somebody who would come and help me.
Spencer (12:42):
yeah, you didn't mention it, but I was thinking, and where to go for repairs?
Cause that happens.
Mary H (12:50):
Yes.
Fortunately so far, I've not run intothat, but yes, I feel prepared for that.
Spencer (12:57):
I think I might have shared this at the time it happened, but it was over five years ago.
So I think I'm safe and sharing it again.
My wife and I were in her travel trailer in a campgroundin Texas and it got chilly and then it was raining and It turned out that the furnace wasn't working, which normally when we're down there, we don't necessarily notice because it gets warm in Texas, you know.
(13:22):
We would notice if the air conditioning wasn't working.
We just, Googled and found a repair person to come out.
But it's yeah, these things happen.
And when you're not in your homebase, you don't know who to call.
You don't know who to trust necessarily.
I Have not done as much as it sounds likeyou do reaching out to local meetings and local recovery community when I'm traveling.
I used to do it more, I think back wheneverything was a little as I might say, crispier.
(13:46):
When my parents were going through their dementiatowards the end of their lives, I was always finding a meeting when we were visiting them because I needed it.
I want to circle back.
You talked about doing a fourth step on the,I think it was on the hobby, on disinterest.
Is that right?
Mary H (14:06):
I've done.
several four steps in retirement.
one of them, what I was alludingto before is this workaholism and
burying myself in work and then expecting me to do that inretirement with things that are supposed to be enjoyable.
and that uncovered so much, I'vebeen in program for almost 40 years.
(14:30):
So I.
Don't know life outside of program.
I started
in my early twenties.
I grew up with, an alcoholicmother with severe mental, illness.
I became, a, untended minor at a very young age.
And, I had my first child when I was, 14,
(14:51):
and then met my current husband, who we've beentogether almost 50 years, when I was 16, and went back to school, which I had dropped out of, and ended up going to university, and then on to further training, and, into medicine.
The drive to constantly work and to provemyself and to stay safe was very strong.
(15:17):
I still struggle with that need to, prove myself towork, to stay safe, to stay busy, to always be producing.
and I, pretty much can direct line that back to my earlyyears, but I also recognize it's time to get over it.
(15:37):
I've also done a fourth step with my sponsoron the transition from saving, to spending
and on finances because we live on the Westcoast, but I and my husband are first generation post depression kids who save, save, save, save, you never spend, pinch a penny, be frugal.
(15:59):
I've been a good girl.
I've done that.
And now all of a sudden I'm supposed to spend it.
And that was, that is a real struggle.
Then four steps on that.
time management.
I worked in a, career where somebody told meliterally, someone was assigned to me and told me every minute of every day, where to be and how long to be there, when to be done, where to go next.
(16:21):
And now I'm in charge of myself.
And I, it turns out I'm not very good at time managementwithout, Somebody telling me, do this, do that, go there.
you're expected here.
Give this speech, do that.
yeah, lots of things I get to work on.
upcoming a fourth step with my sponsor, who is alsoa retiree on, health issues and loss and, death.
(16:47):
So we're going to be looking deeply into changes inourselves as we age and what the future looks like.
Spencer (16:55):
So these came out of doing an inventory around the workaholism and that sort of thing, is that what I understand you said?
Mary H (17:06):
Around, around workaholism, then around finance, and then around grief, just the
whole idea of, I didn't expectto grieve the loss of my career.
and quote unquote, who I was,
but here I am grieving it.
And I didn't even know that.
I didn't even know how I didn't know Iwould, and I didn't know how to do it.
Spencer (17:28):
When you look at that through a I'll say recovery lens, you are recognizing how big a part of your identity that was.
Mary H (17:39):
Yes.
My sponsor
suggested that I read Opening Our Hearts,Transforming Our Losses yet one more time.
And sure enough, it's right there.
I have read this book before we've done book studies on it.
And I thought, okay, I'm going to go back to thatbook and read it with this view of who am I, if I'm not this thing that I've been for, So many years.
(18:07):
It speaks directly to that.
It really does.
Spencer (18:10):
I've pulled a book off the shelf and I'm just looking at,
Mary H (18:13):
I think people see this book and think about it in terms of losing people to death, or to, alcoholism or drug addiction.
And it's really about so much more.
you can really apply it to all kinds of loss.
Retirement is a loss.
It's a gain, but it's also a loss.
Spencer (18:35):
It's interesting.
I didn't have.
that exact experience.
I'm not grieving the loss of the career.
And that may be partly because I was able tochoose my retirement date and plan for it.
I actually told my boss, I think about four years inadvance that I was planning to retire in about four years.
(19:00):
because I had been with the companybasically since the beginning.
I'd been there 28 years by the time I retired.
so I knew that because of the the corporatememory and experience that I carried that it was going to be significant.
And that I needed to make sure to transmit all ofthat to the people who are still going to be there.
(19:24):
but maybe I had sort of pre, pregrieved it, or maybe I just was ready.
Mary H (19:30):
It's interesting that you went through it in that sense.
The company I work for actually has a really great pathwayto retirement with yearly offsite meetings and meetings with all kinds of different people, financial planners and retirement planners . There is a glide path to it.
(19:52):
I think my
Spencer (19:53):
but is it an emotional glide path?
Mary H (19:56):
I think, that's a lot of the work you have to do yourself.
And I'm not sure I thought I was doing it and I wasn'tdoing, I didn't realize there was so much more to do.
Let's put it that way.
I'm a trauma surgeon.
As I learn a lot more about trauma and our responses.
(20:18):
I laugh at myself actually, because as I'm learningsome of the recovery information around trauma and some of the trauma that I had growing up, which I would never have identified as trauma, though it probably was by today's definition.
I find it highly ironic that I became a an orthopedictrauma surgeon, because it is the ultimate fixing, there is nothing more that you can do to fix than to take broken, battered bodies and put them back together.
(20:54):
At this point in retrospect, while I do not regret onesecond of my career, because I've had a wonderful career, I also now really, for the first time, understand how directly related to my mental health and my recovery that choice of career was, for so many different reasons.
(21:18):
It's a rare career, particularly for women in my age group.
There simply weren't any or were very few.
It was a battle all the time.
It's highly adrenaline charged.
It requires a hundred hour work weeks for years on end.
And yes, it became my identity to a large extent.
(21:39):
Now that is not to say that I didn't havea marriage and recovery program and raise children and grandchildren during all of that.
But yeah, it was a huge part of my life.
I'm tearing up just talking about it because,it's not easy for me to just walk away from that.
A lot of my work is with multiply handicappedchildren and, I really love my patients and my families and to walk away from that is really hard.
Spencer (22:07):
Were there people that you saw over a period of time?
Because my vision, when you say trauma surgeon, myvision is the emergency department on Chicago Med where somebody's rushed in and et cetera, right?
and it's all very dramatic and then it's over.
but I imagine that's not at least all of what it's like.
Mary H (22:26):
That is a part of trauma surgery.
My particular subspecialty is in pediatric orthopedics.
So my children are largely, handicappedchildren born with lots of different problems.
And I have known many of my kids and my families.
From the day they were born and I got calledto see them in the hour they were born
(22:49):
to where they're going to college and havingtheir own babies or have, passed away.
And I still know the families.
So I have long term relationships with a lot ofmy families and my kids who are now mostly adults.
Spencer (23:04):
So for you, part of your retirement process would have been that separation, Were you able to do that with these long term connections gradually?
Mary H (23:16):
yes.
it has had to be a gradual thing for many of my families.
It's been really hard to let go of that relationshipsimply because we have worked together for so long and their children's needs are many times so large that, Finding someone else to help them with it is difficult.
(23:39):
That's part of why this has been an extended leave takingfrom work is the somewhat difficult part of disengaging and helping to find replacement specialists who can help them.
and that's been done.
And again, the organization Iwork for is really good with that.
(24:00):
but yeah, yeah.
It took some time.
Spencer (24:03):
I feel that very emotionally different from me walking away from my software development career, Wow.
Was part of this statement, it's not exactlywhat I thought it was going to be, does it have to do with the protracted slow retirement that you've gone through or is that part of it?
Mary H (24:24):
I'm actually really grateful that I have been able to withdraw in stages.
I think an abrupt end with no chance of, handingpeople off in what we call warm handoffs, I think that would have been a lot harder.
And I'm very grateful to be ableto come back in emeritus, status.
(24:47):
I still teach, I still give lectures.
I'll be it.
Probably in many of the younger studentsminds, historical lectures in this age, but, I'm still very involved in my community.
and with my colleagues, so it's been nice thatit's been able to be gradual, I think it did not always please my family that it was so gradual.
(25:10):
though they saw how I needed that, but Ithink the expectation was that I would just walk away one day and that would be that.
And I would be, I don't know whatthey thought I would be doing.
I can't speak for that, but I think they weresomewhat confused by the protracted, leave taking.
Spencer (25:27):
I asked about your expectations, but what do you know about the family's expectations?
Mary H (25:32):
My husband and I have been married coming on almost 50 years.
He's been clean and sober, 40 of those years.
We raised our kids in a recovery household with recoverylanguage and our grandkids who are now growing as well.
We talk program language, so we're pretty goodin our family about being able to, use the language of the program to express what we want.
(25:57):
I think my grown daughters, we live about 1200 miles away.
I think they thought I would bemore present, where they are.
And of course they're busy in their careers.
I think they thought that we'd be there more than we are.
Grandkids.
We're very fortunate.
Our grandkids love us.
they don't, they do roll their eyes at us.
Let me put it that way,
(26:17):
but they?
also invite, they're in their twenties, but
they also invite us to be involvedwith every aspect of their life.
They invite us to go out with their friends.
We go kayaking and stand up paddleboarding and we do things together.
So I think they were hoping there might be more of thatand there probably will be, but, I think they thought it would start on day one, and it's not quite that way.
(26:42):
My husband is a little older than Iam, has been retired for quite a while.
And I think we both went into this withsome trepidation about what did it mean to be spending all day, every day together?
And I, that's not unusual for people whoare retiring to be wondering about that.
And yeah, that's where program really comes in.
(27:04):
He works his program.
I work my program.
I don't know that we knew what to expect.
We're two very different people.
We approach life very differently.
We have different expectations.
And thank goodness we have recovery language and the stepsand the traditions to apply, to work through some of that.
Spencer (27:25):
I just want to say that you're obviously making it work if you're still together after 50 years and still talking to each other.
Mary H (27:31):
We still like each other.
Yes,
Spencer (27:33):
that's, that doesn't always happen.
We just celebrated 40 years last month.
You talked about moving from a savingmentality to then starting to spend the money that you spent all those years saving.
Mary H (27:48):
Yes.
Spencer (27:49):
How has that felt and how are you coming to terms with that change?
Mary H (27:57):
Oh yes.
That is a big one.
so I don't expect that I am ever going to be a person whogoes out and spends a lot of money willy nilly, let's say.
That is just not in, I am not a shopaholic.
Spending money is not one of my addictions.
We have a good financial counselor, which I recommendto everyone who is fortunate enough to need some help.
(28:25):
That person has laid out very clearly exactlywhat we can and should spend, what we should be doing with this, that, or the other thing.
And I think that's part of, I take out of the traditions.
I love the traditions and the one for this month isabout getting outside expert help if you need it.
And that, that has been very helpful.
(28:47):
I strongly recommend having someonewho is not emotionally involved in your finances, help you figure out your finances.
So I have a pretty clear budget.
We know what we can spend.
We know what we can do and what wecan't, and we're not extravagant people.
Even my little travel trailer is, it's 20years old and I did all the work on it myself.
(29:08):
I didn't go out and buy a brand newAirstream or something crazy like that.
but yeah, spending is hard.
Spending on myself is particularly difficult.
I, find it very easy to spend on familyand, needed things for other people, but spending for myself, I find very difficult.
(29:31):
So my sponsor and I have a little plan with things thatI will do for myself that it's okay to spend money on.
Spencer (29:38):
We also have a financial advisor, sounds maybe a little less personal than what you've got, but he was able to lay out for us what we wanted to plan for.
He asked us, so what do you want to do?
How do you want to live?
What's your risk profile?
All those good questions.
Somehow, I don't know.
I had internalized this notion that whenyou retire, then, you live more cheaply.
(30:03):
and I started thinking about that.
I'm like, I didn't have like hugecommuting expenses or anything.
I, what am I not spending money on if I'm not working?
I didn't have to have special clothing.
like my father had suits and ties and, hegot his dress shirts laundered every week.
Those expenses go away when you retire,but I didn't have those sorts of expenses.
(30:25):
And our guy's like, you're probably going to want to.
have the same amount of disposable income as it were.
And, obviously covering your fixed expenses likerent or mortgage or whatever it is and so on.
And then, what are your goals for retirement?
And one of our goals for retirementwas to travel a little more.
We had been tied down as it were for yearswith children and then with my aging parents, And now we're, quotes, free, more or less.
(30:56):
And in some not too distant future, we're not going tomaybe have the health or the energy to do much traveling.
So he's like, yeah, you want to front load your retirement.
throw in extra for travel.
and I'm like, Oh wow.
Mary H (31:12):
I see you clutching your heart.
Spencer (31:13):
Oh yeah, it's just it's Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Mary H (31:16):
Exactly.
Spencer (31:17):
My siblings who were there relayed this to me.
towards the end of my mother's life asshe had some investments of her own.
She also had significantly elevated living expenses becausewe were paying for 24 hour care, and that sort of thing.
So they're meeting with the financial advisor and he'slike, yeah, you're going to need to cash in this stock that you've held for 40, 50 years, however long it was.
(31:45):
I don't know exactly what she said.
He said, no, he said, this is why youhave it because now you need to spend it.
This is why you saved it.
I was like, well, that makes sense.
It's still hard.
this is why I've been saving since, sinceI was in my mid twenties is when I started contributing to my retirement portfolio.
(32:07):
I've been doing it for a while, 40 something years.
So that when I get here, I can have a comfortable life.
Mary H (32:14):
Right.
And yet it's hard to do.
It's one of those head to heart things for me.
In my head, I know it makes sensethat's what I saved for is to be able
to do what we want to do now.
My heart says, Oh no, we need tokeep saving that money for what?
(32:36):
You know,
Spencer (32:37):
For what?
Mary H (32:38):
I can't take it with me.
It is not my goal to leave all my money to mychildren or, the whatever's left they're welcome.
but yeah, what is it that I think I'm
saving for?
Spencer (32:49):
Yep.
at one point he plugged all our numbers into hiscomputer program and said, okay, here's the projection.
you spend at this rate, you live to 95 andthere's this much left over for your children.
And I looked at that number and Isaid, shit, we need to spend more.
I mean,
(33:09):
When my parents died, they had some money leftover and it got split among us kids and that provided a nice little extra cushion, I will say.
It wasn't a whole lot of money, so yeah, I wantto leave something for my kids, but I don't need to like finance the rest of their lives.
Not that I really have that much money, but,
Mary H (33:26):
that whole idea of you're going to spend less.
I also had that thought, and in some little ways
I did, I realized, after I retired that myhabit of buying my team lunch once a week and, going to the coffee cart every day and getting everybody a latte or whatever it is they wanted.
(33:48):
Those were actually expenses I really didn't need to do.
I had just fallen into the habit of
doing.
Commuting, not needing the car.
We're in the process of downsizing becausewe live on a property in a house that is much too large and much too old for us to maintain.
And we simply don't want to anymore.
(34:08):
That's a whole big part of my retirement is trying todecide where we're going to live location wise and, decluttering our house, getting rid of everything.
I'm pretty much just ready to walk out thedoor with my purse and my laptop and be done.
but there are years of accumulation in this oldVictorian house that we live in that needs to go and then finding the right place to live.
(34:36):
We're leaning on the traditions heavily for this.
We went through the process of going to look at ahouse and a location we thought in a house that is absolutely everything we wanted on our list, was affordable, was in a beautiful paradise emotionally, we were both ready to jump and buy the house.
(34:58):
It's a good thing we had a long drive back home,and we put it to the traditions test of unity.
Were we in unity on it?
Well, maybe One minute I was pro and one minutehe was pro, but we switched back and forth.
So no, we really didn't have unity.
And did it meet our primary purpose?
(35:18):
Our primary purpose is simplify and safety.
And no, it was not simpler.
It was very remote.
It was not safer.
There was no medical care within three hours of it.
And that was by helicopter.
So once we ran it through the traditions,we went, yeah, that is a beautiful home and a beautiful location for somebody else.
Spencer (35:40):
for some younger
Mary H (35:42):
Yeah, definitely.
I have always used the traditions.
Once I embraced them, which took me a long time in program,once I embraced the traditions and applied them both at work in management positions and in family and in this process.
(36:03):
It really helps me clarify, decision making.
Because it needs to meet those criteria that are outlined inthe traditions about unity and financial self sufficiency.
Is it affordable?
Do we agree on it?
Is it going to meet our primary purpose?
All the things that are outlined there.
(36:24):
kind of went off topic, but it relates to financebecause that is a huge part of finance for us right now.
Is this whole downsizing and moving to somethingmore manageable and what's it going to look like?
Spencer (36:35):
Yeah.
My wife and I are still clarifying ourmutual needs desires for downsizing.
In our case.
We live in a three story house, built in the30s, and our bedroom's on the third floor.
We have bathrooms on the third and second floor.
The laundry's in the basement.
And she's already having knee problems.
Mary H (36:57):
Yes.
Spencer (36:59):
And it's very clear that this is not an age in place house.
So we know that we want to movebefore it becomes necessary to move.
Mary H (37:09):
Yes.
Spencer (37:10):
you talk about grief, I mean, we know we want to stay in the same community.
Particularly for her, this is where her recoverycommunity is, and she does not want to leave it.
Which makes it difficult in one way becausethe selection of houses that meet the physical criteria is not big in the immediate area.
(37:33):
And the ones that are aren't for sale,you know, but we're not in a hurry.
So that's good.
I'm listening to you and realizing we still have work to doin aligning our expectations and our desires and our needs.
and maybe one of the things that we need is everything'son one floor, so we don't have to move again.
(38:00):
Okay.
Um, strong desire is separate bathrooms.
We collide sometimes physically inthe bathroom every morning and night.
that's a strong desire.
close to need.
It's not like need need, but close to need.
Having separate spaces that we caneach call our own is important.
(38:24):
That's why two to three bedrooms,then we can each have our own space,.
, you start putting that together and Ireally want to be somewhere I can go out the front door and walk in the neighborhood.
At least.
I would love to be able to get downtownwithout having to get in a car.
It's this sort of descending hierarchy of criteria here.
(38:44):
and then there's the whole affordability question,because, we've lived in this house for 36 years.
And in Michigan, that means that our taxable valueof our house has only gone up at the inflation rate.
Even if we buy a cheaper house, Taxes will be higher.
but we hopefully have some years to figure this out.
Mary H (39:06):
It's remarkable how aligned all of that is.
So we also live in a three story, actuallyfour story if you count the cellar.
Our house was built in 1890.
five flights of narrow wooden
stairs.
I am currently in the third story, which is mystudio, which means I go up and down the stairs.
And, that's not sustainable over time.
(39:29):
It's just too much to take care of.
It's a huge amount of work.
There's all the maintenance on a house thisold and then we have a avocado citrus grove around us that we have to take care of.
And while it's delightful, it's a lot of work.
And so we're done.
But what we sat down and together and we wrote all thosethings out, starting with What we could afford to spend.
(39:52):
That was at the top.
Then what we absolutely had to have, which isvery similar to what you were talking about.
It has to be one story.
We need to be able to age in place, safety, and simplicity.
And then we started getting into thosesame things you were talking about.
how much space inside, how much space outside?
what do we want?
(40:12):
Do we want to be rural, which we currently are pretty rural.
We don't like suburban life, butcould we live with urban life?
I don't know.
we're priests.
We're pretty spoiled.
we did when we were young, but we're pretty spoiledwith our privacy and the quiet where we are now.
So we just rank all those things.
(40:34):
location, fortunately, you guysdon't have to deal with location.
We have Very different ideas about location.
That's probably the biggest stumbling block we have, but,I think we have found a suitable place in the middle.
I love cold, wet, rainy.
I could go live up in the rain forest and my husband,my temperature is 50 and below and his is 80 and above.
(41:00):
So
we have a big gap to
fill in the middle.
Spencer (41:03):
yeah.
Oh my goodness.
Yes.
Mary H (41:06):
But yes, all those things.
and I know I said it once, and I should only say itonce, but I will reiterate, write all that stuff down.
And then, Write out the traditions in wordingthat makes sense for making a life decision and run it through that and see how it lines up.
It was amazingly clarifying for us.
Spencer (41:27):
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Thank you for that.
Mary H (41:30):
The last thing that I thought about, talking about, and it's a deep, long subject, but the other thing we all face is this whole thing of health issues, and end of life.
That is a whole subject in and of itself.
But once you get to retirement, yourealize that, you touched on it.
You may not be able to do some of that travel in the future.
(41:53):
, All those plans for all of that and how doesthat align with each other and with your
families?
That's a big subject.
Spencer (41:59):
We watched my parents.
Health decline, dementia incline, as theymoved towards the end of their lives.
And, it was, is, a reality check, , my grandparentsdied when I was significantly younger and I was not,
Immediately involved with them,you know, see them on vacation.
(42:22):
Both sets of grandparents had moved to Florida.
I might see them once a year.
So I didn't really see the progression,of their health and eventual death.
It was like, oh, granddaddy died.
We're gonna, the funeral that actually happened when I wasa teenager, I think I might've still been in high school.
(42:42):
My other grandfather died when I was in college.
My grandmother died, it was like85, 86, something like that.
So I was still in Utah.
Again, oh, she's gone.
I had some awareness that my mother and her brother weretrading off being with her in the last year or so of her life as her dementia progressed to the point where she wasn't really able to, take care of herself anymore.
(43:08):
but I didn't see that happening close up.
It was all at a distance.
So when my parents went through their end of life years Isaw it and I still, 400 miles away, but I saw it a lot more close up, and I saw it through my siblings who were there.
And it's okay, reality check here.
(43:29):
it is not unlikely that I will follow that path.
What does that mean?
What does that mean for me?
What does that mean for my family?
We're able to afford long term care insurance for me.
It ain't cheap.
but hopefully if it comes to the point where, I needto go into a facility, we'll have some help with that.
(43:50):
Yeah, you got to plan for this shit.
also trying to stay healthy, but,
Mary H (43:56):
got to see it through a recovery lens in two very different ways.
my husband's parents, were very traditionalMidwestern German stiff upper lip, planned everything right down to their funeral services.
mom, mother in law had dementia.
(44:17):
Dad took care of her until the very end, then dad.
lingered for a few years, but everything was righty tighty.
It, just took us to step in and pull a fewstrings to make things happen and close it up.
in my family, my mother's, ill health, bothphysically and mentally, ended up, something that I could not have done without Years of Recovery.
(44:44):
I ended up taking care of her and myestranged father in their last years of life.
primarily because neither of them had, any financialresources and we did, so we ended up being their caretakers.
There was no planning.
My mother's line, whenever I would try to approach it, wasalways, Oh, if that ever happens, you'll know what to do.
(45:07):
And I kept saying, Mom, it isn't if, it's when.
Believe me, you're closer to win than if,
and in fact, I did not know what shewanted because she refused to discuss it.
Fortunately, there was nothing to dispose of becausethere were no finances, but just taking care of her and
dealing with the chaos that she left behind with, Bothher alcoholism and her mental illness and my father who just abdicated, I mean, I hadn't seen the man in years and, he just abdicated all responsibility for anything and said, you take care of it.
(45:46):
And again, with no definite plans, really.
so I got to see both extremes and, again.
So grateful for AA and Al Anon and recovery program.
we did not have big Hallmark momentsof, reconciliation and all of that.
I think my mother's mental health wasnot, something that could do that.
Probably my dad's either.
(46:08):
But I was able to take care of them with grace and dignity.
And to allow them to have the endsof their lives, such as it were.
I was really grateful for that.
From that lesson, I want to be like my in laws.
I don't want my kids to have to figure out anything.
(46:30):
I do not want to leave them wonderingwhat in the world mom and dad wanted.
So we will be more the, Buttoned up Midwesternerswhere everything is tied with a neat bow and all they need to do is just follow the instructions.
But it is something to think about and believeme, I have seen family after family where.
(46:51):
The older people have refused to acknowledgethat this was ever going to be a situation.
and were never going to leave their homes.
Were never going to need long term care.
Were never going to need anything else.
They would just die at home.
And that, unfortunately, in our cultureis not really a common thing anymore.
(47:13):
So
Yeah.
the planning you've done is important.
Spencer (47:19):
I'm going to rephrase the question I often ask at the end of a conversation, which is, what would you, or what do you say to a program friend who is facing retirement?
have you had that experience?
Mary H (47:35):
So yes, it, my, my cohort, as I call them, we've all aged together.
We've raised children together.
We've raised grandchildren togetherand we are retiring together.
So yes, we talk about it a lot.
and I think the biggest thing I suggestto people is stay with your program, stay in whatever recovery system you have.
(47:59):
particularly if you lose a spouse, which manyof my friends in recovery have lost a spouse.
And there is a tendency to drift away afterthat in, in grief, in feeling like I don't need that anymore because they're gone, whatever.
I make a lot of phone calls and I encourage other peoplein our home group to make the phone calls to people and reel them back in because I can't think of anything that helps me more than my recovery group and being in recovery.
(48:33):
I don't know how I would do life without it.
Spencer (48:37):
I always ask my guests to bring some musical selections and you told me I'm not really a musical person.
this is hard, but you did, you came through.
what was the first song that you picked?
Mary H (48:49):
it is true.
I am not someone who listens to a lot of music,which is ironic because that was my husband's business, but, so Joe Walsh, One Day at a Time.
I, was looking at recovery music and the lyricsare just amazing about him facing recovery.
Spencer (49:05):
I think most people are aware that he has been in recovery for a while now.
I think my wife saw him speak at, aFounders Day event some years ago.
said it was really good.
(49:28):
In this section of the podcast, wetalk about our lives in recovery.
How have we each experienced recovery recently?
The thing that came to mind for me, particularly with theconversation we've had here, comes back to this theme of acceptance that has been so central to my life for the last, I don't know, half a decade or something at least.
(49:51):
in this case, it's acceptance of my health conditionsas they currently are and as they might develop.
I was diagnosed a few years ago now with.
One of these health conditions that sometimescomes on as one ages that can progress and get worse if you don't deal with it.
(50:15):
In this case, dealing with it means medication,dietary and lifestyle changes, and continuing awareness of how my body is acting and reacting.
For the longest time, maybe until this month, Ihad this delusion that if I did the right things, if I, exercised ate right and lost a little bit of weight and so on and so forth that I could actually maybe reverse the progress of this disease.
(50:49):
I've been taking an education class about this diseaseand it became very clear to me in the first class.
that in fact there have been probably irreversiblechanges in my body and the way parts of it work and that I'm not going to go back to the way I was.
(51:09):
That this is something I'm going to haveto deal with for the rest of my life.
I don't think I really understood that Ihad been in denial about that for the last six years since I was first diagnosed.
This is what it is.
And the beauty for me of that tool of acceptance is now thatI know, now that I accept that this is the case, this is the situation that changes narrows perhaps, but illuminates
(51:43):
options for action that I do have that could havesome positive effect rather than ignoring the whole thing which does not have a positive effect.
I was not totally ignoring it.
I was taking medication.
trying to exercise more, but I really hadn't looked at thewhole, the rest of the lifestyle changes that are necessary.
And so starting to implement those and, I'm so gladthat I have this program, these principles that allow me to see the true nature of what is happening.
(52:13):
To recognize What I can't do, and thus, what I can do.
And then, a higher power thatwill help me do what I need to do.
that's what's been on my mind recently.
Mary H (52:24):
I got thrown into awareness, acceptance, and action, all three.
In one day yesterday,
Spencer (52:32):
oh,
Mary H (52:34):
one of the things I identify in myself, have always been part of my identity, let me put it that way, is that I'm physically very strong.
I'm active and I'm healthy.
I've never had health concerns.
I'm, still for my age, very activekayaking and camping and biking and hiking.
(52:56):
Do all sorts of things.
So yesterday I went to my doctor thinking, Oh,it'll just be another one of those yearly things where we chat a little bit and they do a few things.
Well, I left there wearing a heart monitor, beingscheduled for a sleep apnea study and getting a date for cataract surgery, none of which I thought I
(53:16):
had any need for when I walked in that door.
yeah, the awareness came as she started listing all thethings that I needed to do yesterday and today, which I was very grateful that, it all happened very quickly.
acceptance yesterday, I was not in acceptance.
(53:38):
I was irritated.
I'm in much more acceptance today.
And action just happened.
I did have to.
Follow through on all the appointmentsthat were made, but they were made so fast, I didn't really have much of an option.
So, yeah, I totally, the middle one, theacceptance thing, I have to really, work on that.
(54:02):
Yes, this is an aging body and yes, you have used andabused this body physically and yes, there are some consequences and there are some changes that I have to make.
So I'm with you on that.
I get it.
Spencer (54:19):
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to what's coming up inthe podcast we're continuing on the steps.
There have been a couple of episodes on Step 3.
I think I've got another one coming up because we getlots of different perspectives on that particular step.
Interesting.
I've scheduled a conversation about Step 4.
(54:41):
So we're going to work our way through.
I'm going through in order, but I'm not ina hurry to knock them out one after another.
They are coming.
And so if you are interested in contributing to aparticular step, or if you just want to, send in a little experience, strength, and hope, you're welcome to, or if, hey, you're like in retirement or facing retirement.
(55:03):
And this episode.
sparked something in you, a question or a, arealization, you can join our conversation.
You can leave us a voicemail or send us an email.
And Mary, how can people send us feedback?
Mary H (55:20):
You can send a voice memo or email to feedback at therecovery.
show.
Or if you prefer, you can call andleave us a voicemail at 734 707 8795.
You can also use the voicemail button on thewebsite to join the conversation from your computer.
We'd love to hear from you.
Share your experience, strength and hope, or yourquestions about today's topic of retirement or any of our upcoming topics, including the steps.
(55:48):
If you have a topic you'd likeus to talk about, let us know.
If you would like advance notice for some of ourtopics so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback at the recovery dot show.
Put email in the subject line and make it easier to spot.
Spencer (56:07):
Our website is therecovery.
show where we have everything thatyou can find out about the show.
You can listen to the podcast there.
You can read the notes for each episode,and those notes are at therecovery.
show slash number of episode.
We'll also link to the books that weread from or that we talked about.
(56:31):
There will be videos for the music that Inthis case, Mary chose, and there's also some links to other recovery podcasts and websites.
If you want to refer a friend to The Recovery Show, oneway to do that is to send them to the website, therecovery.
show.
What's your second song?
Mary H (56:51):
Second song is by Natasha Bedingfield, who I had never heard before, but I'm sure you guys all know.
And her song is called Recovery.
Great lyrics.
Spencer (57:10):
I've got one email to share today.
This is from Libbey.
She writes,
Spencer, I found your podcast four years ago as Iwas in the depths of unmanageability and despair.
I was new to 12 step recoveryalthough I was generally aware.
I was a skeptic.
My therapist said, go to six meetings,and I agreed to do that, but no more.
(57:33):
Alcoholism was not the primary issue.
Why would 12 step be a resource?
I grew up in a home with an alcoholicparent, but my spouse wasn't an alcoholic.
I wondered about other addictions.
His behavior, lies, etc.
was not normal.
My qualifier still doesn't admitthere is an issue slash addiction.
I will likely never get disclosure.
(57:53):
What I do know is that listening to the recoveryshow and attending a 12 step meeting, several a week actually, has helped me through some really dark times.
I'm learning about myself in ways thatI've been scared to explore in the past.
It has only taken me 55 years.
I feel I have a better parent, professional,and human being because of 12 step recovery.
Your podcast has been a gentle path for me.
(58:16):
I have been coming to the rooms for over four years and havejust gotten a sponsor to start working the steps formally.
I have worked through them several times throughyour podcast archive and my meetings, but now it is time for the honesty with another human being.
I wanted to let you know how much yourservice and commitment have meant to me as I muddle my way through recovery.
Thank you and your guests for thethoughtful, vulnerable, and humble shares.
(58:40):
And I wanted to let you know that even if alcohol is notthe presenting addiction, your podcast and the resources you share are so very helpful to us practicing recovery.
Signed warmly, Libbey.
Well, thank you, Libbey, for that letter.
For the reminder that sometimes, even if we don't thinkthere's a problem of alcoholism or addiction in our lives, what I have said to people in newcomer meetings is, if you connect with what we say here, if you find value in what we say here, then you probably belong here, whether there's any obvious alcoholism happening in your life or not.
(59:20):
Thanks again for writing, Libbey.
Mary, I want to thank you so much for coming on todayand sharing your experience, strength, and hope.
And how you are using the tools and principlesof recovery as you move into retirement, as you move more deeply into retirement?
Thank you for coming.
Mary H (59:39):
Thank you so much, Spencer.
Spencer (59:43):
and what's the, the last song you picked?
Mary H (59:46):
Lincoln Park, Breaking the Habit.
Again, not somebody I knew, but I'm sure a lotof you musicologists did, and loved the lyrics.
Spencer (01:00:02):
Thank you for listening, and please keep coming back.
Whatever your problems, there arethose among us who have had them too.
If we did not talk about a problem you arefacing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode.
May understanding, love, and peacegrow in you one day at a time.
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