
At the beginning of a new year, I like to take some time to reflect on the past year, and to set some intentions for the new year. (Please note: intentions are not resolutions!)
This year, I took these questions from another email group I'm a member of, and asked you to reflect on them. In this episode, we hear from Deborah, Ashley, and Spencer.
- What worked?
- What didn't work?
- What did I learn?
- How did I change?
- What is left unresolved or incomplete and how does that feel?
I didn't explicitly ask, but we also considered what recovery tools or principles we used or followed.
Upcoming topics
We continue to explore the 12 Steps, with Steps 8–12 upcoming. Please call us at 734-707-8795 or email feedback@therecovery.show with your questions or experience, strength and hope. Or just leave a comment right here.
Transcript
Intro
[00:00:00] Spencer: What was last year like for you? What worked or didn't work? What did you learn? What changed? How do you feel? How did your recovery grow?
[00:00:11] Welcome to episode 426 of The Recovery Show. This episode is brought to you by Susan, Sarah, Heather, Lauren, and Jay. They used the donation button on our website. Thank you, Susan, Sarah, Heather, Lauren, and Jay for your generous contributions. This episode is for you.
[00:00:30] We are friends and family members of alcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness. We who live or have lived with the seemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can. So much depends on our own attitudes and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
[00:00:46] Before we begin, we would like to state that 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 strictly those of the person who gave them. Take what you like and leave the rest. We hope that you will find something inner sharing that speaks to your life.
[00:01:06] My name is Spencer. I am your solo host today.
Reflections on 2024
[00:01:10] Spencer: At the end of an old year, beginning of a new year, I always like to do an episode of reflection and possibly looking ahead. I cribbed a prompt from another email group that I'm part of, about reflecting on the past year, the questions that It asked, were, what worked, what didn't work, what did I learn, how did I change, what is left unresolved or incomplete and how does that feel.
[00:01:39] I sent this prompt out to the Google group email list and I got a couple of responses. We'll start with those.
[00:01:48] Deborah wrote, Hi Spencer, wishing you a happy new year. I've had a very interesting year and sending this response helped me reflect on the progress I've made and work I still need to do.
[00:01:58] The last few years, I have stolen an idea from Maria Shriver. She, and now many of her readers, select a word to guide their year. Last year, I chose acceptance. Acceptance of myself, my loved ones, my need to do more work on myself. Staying focused on acceptance really helped me stay in my own lane, mind my own business, and resist reacting to every situation.
[00:02:22] I paused, prayed and took a lot of deep breaths. I learned a new acronym, MAGIC. My Acceptance of God's In Charge. It has been an amazing 2024.
[00:02:35] About five years ago, at this time, my son had relapsed. He was near death, having had five seizures and a detox after walking out of nine different detox facilities. I had also relapsed, in that I was attempting to rescue, interfere, and mother, manage and manipulate a 30 year old man. I finally let go, trusted in God, and the miracle happened. He found recovery on his own, and I went deep into my program to get my life back.
[00:03:01] Fast forward to 2024. My son is celebrating five years of sobriety, married a beautiful young woman in July, and is now expecting their first child in July 2025.
[00:03:12] So my word for 2025 is hope. I would never have thought five years ago that I would have danced at my son's wedding and would be welcoming a beautiful grandson in 2025. There is hope in the rooms of Al Anon. I know not every person has a positive outcome, but I think it is important to share the good stories as well as sharing our sad ones.
[00:03:34] With the help of Al Anon, I know I am better prepared for anything that might happen, and there is always hope of a good and happy life if I do the work. My hope is that everyone finds hope and joy. Life is too short to negatively project and live in fear. I have done that for many years as a result of living with the disease.
[00:03:53] Working my program gives me peace, serenity, and hope for a beautiful future, regardless of the ups and downs of life. I am beyond grateful. Thank you for all you do. Debra. Thanks, Debra.
[00:04:06] Got a voice memo from Ashley.
[00:04:09] Ashley: Hello, Spencer I'm calling in to share for the new year, what worked, what didn't kind of share. This past year I've done a lot of work in the ACA fellowship. I had 10 years or so of Al Anon fellowship and I was feeling stuck. I could see there was some deep layers. I didn't know what those layers were, and I wasn't finding the answers in Al Anon.
[00:04:38] I grew up in a household where my parents were the children of alcoholics. So I was taught a lot of the isms. There was emotional abuse in my family. I was not taught how to feel feelings, or how to regulate, or how to love myself unconditionally. Not how to just be a human being instead of a human doing.
[00:05:00] so ACA, I had been kind of dabbling in it off and on for the past two to three years. And this year I said, well, you know, it's time to maybe stop just sitting on the fence and commit because I had been going to a few meetings here and there. And every time I went to meeting, there was something that came out.
[00:05:23] I came out of that meeting with that. I went, Oh my gosh. And it just, it, it really resonated. whereas in Al Anon, I wasn't having that same experience anymore. I wasn't coming away from the meetings with nuggets, with little enlightenments. so I decided that. That was my higher power trying to tell me that where I needed to be was ACA.
[00:05:49] so I signed up to do the step study with a couple ladies. We are somewhere in the middle of the fourth step in ACA and the amount of things that I've come away with from that has changed my life this last year. I am becoming that person that I wanted. Those things that were under the surface that I couldn't quite make out have become clear.
[00:06:12] I have learned a lot about myself and how I never ever felt enough, not just enough with family members in my house of origins, but also I was never allowing myself to be enough. I'm working on changing that. This is all pretty new things for me. So, like I said, within about the last year, so I don't necessarily know the true path forward for the majority of it.
[00:06:36] But I will say for some of these things, like. The enough piece about allowing how people treat me, allowing them to do that kind of behavior towards me and and myself worth, in allowing them to do that and giving them my serenity. These are all things that I've been working on a lot this year. A lot of those have changed, but I can't say what has changed other than one day I woke up and it's like the world has shifted a few degrees.
[00:07:08] And it's all due to, I believe, just the work that I've been doing, acceptance, awareness. And slow osmosis of understanding how I can choose differently, how I have choices. I'm sure there's a lot of things left unresolved. what those things are currently. the only things I can tell you that I'm aware of, are I still have, self worth work to do.
[00:07:35] And I honestly believe a lot of that will pull along the other things that are still requiring attention. the self work stuff would be along the lines of, one of the issues that I have is how I love myself. And this is that never enough piece too, where I was taught that love is conditional, that love is performance based.
[00:07:59] You do X, you now deserve love. I, learned this past year that that's how I tend to love myself because it's what I was taught. So I don't give myself love and acceptance and credit unless I, you know, get all the things on the list done. The problem is I create the list and so if I get the things on the list done.
[00:08:23] Well, then I mustn't have made the list big enough So then the next time I make the list longer and bigger and impossible to finish So it's almost as if I was intentionally depriving myself of self love. I know it's a bit weird That's a nice way to put it. so I Have learned to throw out the list. I mean don't get me wrong.
[00:08:46] I still have a to do list, but I'm detaching my to do list from my self worth and my mentality that that's the only time I deserve love. I am showing up to love myself with intention. I'm trying to connect with my inner self, my true self, on a very regular basis. I want to say daily, but that would be a lie.
[00:09:08] but as often as I'm able to do that. Because when I can connect with my true self, then all my other little broken selves, my 4 year old, my 8 year old, my 16 year old, they don't show up and try and drive the boat that is going to head for the edge of the waterfall because these tiny humans can't see over the steering wheel.
[00:09:29] metaphorically. So if I can connect with my adult true self, then they're the ones driving the boat and the little versions of me can just be and play. And that to me is a lot of what I learned through ACA and what has helped me heal a lot. And wishing you all health and healing in this new year because This past year has been transformative for me and I'm looking forward to this year to see what other things I'm going to learn about myself and what else will grow and heal.
[00:10:03] Spencer: Thank you, Ashley, for sharing.
[00:10:07] Now it's my turn. The year 2024, for me, was a year of change. It was a year of adapting to being retired. To understand what my life was going to look like when work no longer gave it structure. What does my new life look like? What do I want it to look like? These are questions that I faced in, in 2024.
[00:10:31] I'm still facing.
[00:10:32] What are some of my successes? What worked?
[00:10:35] I have a dog. He likes to get outside and Okay, my dog is sleeping over in the corner and I'm I'm not gonna say the word w a l k because it'll probably wake him up But he encourages me to get outside and move. Early this year I discovered that the local city parks department has a program called visit every park. This city that I live in has 162 city parks.
[00:11:04] That was at least the number in 2024. Seems like they keep adding new ones. It ranges from small ones that maybe have a bench and a table, or just a bench, or not even, to Medium sized ones with some benches, playground, etc. Large ones with long walking trails, party pavilions, playgrounds. And a number of unimproved natural areas, some of which have trails, and some of which have no trails, and you're encouraged to just sort of bushwhack in there.
[00:11:37] Over about a 10 month period in 2024, I visited all 162 parks. Yeah, kind of amazes me. Where it was possible. I walked on paths or trails or. Where it was a small park that maybe didn't have a trail. I would walk around the border or walk through the middle of it just to get a feel for what the park was like.
[00:12:01] Maybe I would sit there and eat lunch. If that was where I was in my day. There were milestones. At 25 parks, I got a t shirt and on the back of the t shirt was a list of all the parks that I could then check off with a Sharpie. There were pins, there was a first aid kit, when I finished, I got another pin and a really nice hoodie that declares me a visit every park champion. It's also nice and warm.
[00:12:26] Doing this motivated me to get out and walk. And I discovered this really noticeably when I had finished and I no longer was like, okay, what parks are we going to go to today that we haven't been to? And sure. I can go and visit some that I liked before, I can go back and maybe walk a different trail that I didn't walk the first visit.
[00:12:48] But I don't have this looking forward to the next challenge.
[00:12:53] The other thing happened, of course, is it's winter and. It's harder to walk in, say, a hilly wooded park in the winter. It's also harder to walk outside for a significant amount of time when it's cold out, which we've had some of that recently.
[00:13:10] Another thing that worked for me in 2024 was stepping up my exercise program. For a long time, my exercise was basically walking. That's something, but it doesn't work my whole body. I signed up for a gym membership. I paid for sessions with a personal trainer, and I saw real improvements in health outcomes. I saw improvements in my balance. Every now and then, a YouTube video pops up and says, want to know how old your body is? Try this balance test. How long can you stand on one foot? It says a lot about your biological age, your body age. And I saw an improvement in my overall fitness. In November, I had surgery, so I couldn't work out for a month, and then I got sick over the holidays, which then lingered on for several weeks, and I'm just about over that.
[00:14:02] The consequence of that was that I haven't been to the gym for a couple of months, and I, I will be getting back now that I can breathe easily, and so on. That is something that I liked doing. It was fun. And I saw the benefit of it. So I would say that, that worked.
[00:14:20] Another thing that is working, to some extent for me, is that I have a more relaxed schedule. I used to rush through my morning activities, I now have time to read the news, that portion of it that doesn't piss me off at least. Do some puzzles and so on, but also, I can easily be too relaxed.
[00:14:42] Which often results in going down rabbit holes on YouTube and so on, and all of a sudden it's lunchtime. Oops. So, I think it could be helpful for me to schedule time for doing things like working on the podcast. You know, I find myself saying, well, okay, I didn't really get to it today, I can do it tomorrow.
[00:15:06] And that is not conducive to publishing podcast episodes with any kind of regularity.
[00:15:13] There are projects that I was slash am planning to do in retirement. And many of these have not been started, so that, that didn't work so well.
[00:15:25] What did I learn? A big learning that I've already kind of talked about is that I definitely benefit from external pushes to get me going, to motivate me.
[00:15:36] This is true for walking. This is true for exercising, doing my workouts. I do record each workout. And my trainer then can look at those when we meet and see what progress I am or am not making and what he might want to change in my program. This is true for recording the podcast. When one of you signs up for a recording session, it not only gives me a commitment, but it also excites me about the conversation that we are going to have or that we have had when I'm working towards publishing it.
[00:16:06] I learned that I need to make time to socialize. I keep reading that one of the most important things as we get older to help us continue to have a long, healthy life is keeping social interaction. A lot of that used to happen at and around work, and I need to replace that with something else.
[00:16:28] I'm currently meeting weekly with a lunch group. We meet once a week for lunch at a different restaurant around town. It's mostly guys around my age. So we have these common topics to talk about. It's mostly people who are somewhat technical, although not always. One of the guys collects cookbooks, and has a lot of knowledge about used book sales and where to find used books and he'll talk about yeah I was driving across Canada and I stopped at this amazing used bookstore. So it gets me a little bit outside of my own life and seeing what other people are doing with their time and their energy
[00:17:06] In December, I joined a book study group. This was prompted because there's a quote, men's night out, for guys from my church that happens once a month, we go and have beer or whatever and talk. Mostly the talking is the important part there.
[00:17:22] I was talking to some guys about retirement and what do they do? And one guy says, well, I'm in this book group. And I was like, you know, that sounds like a good thing. That sounds like something that I could get into. I like to read. So I joined the group in December. I just had my first meeting of the group this week. Some of them go out to lunch after the group. It didn't happen for me this month, but I'm looking forward to it in the upcoming months.
[00:17:47] I have some other social groups that I'm part of that are not work related. And obviously I'm continuing to meet with them. And so I feel like I'm doing okay, socially. Also, you know, I have program friends and it's not just meetings. We sometimes get together outside of meetings. I have one friend that, after our Saturday morning meeting, we regularly go for a walk in a park somewhere. So those continue.
[00:18:12] But also, especially in the winter, it's really easy to just sit home and veg. Need to continue to make time to get out, to socialize with people.
[00:18:22] A learning, or a thing that's not working, or something, I have resisted making a daily or weekly schedule that I actually write down.
[00:18:32] I have these intentions, you know, like two to three mornings a week, I'm going to go to the gym. Well, which mornings, right? When I have a meeting with my trainer, of course, that's scheduled. But the others are like, oh, well, let's see today. I didn't get going very quickly, so I guess I'm not going to the gym today.
[00:18:48] I think it would be good to actually set times that I intend to go. And this is true for other things like times that I intend to edit the podcast for publication. Times that I intend to sit down and work on digitizing photographs. If I put it on my calendar, then I can have a reminder that pops up.
[00:19:09] When I'm doing something like mindlessly playing solitaire on my phone. Says, Hey, you were going to go work on the podcast right now. I'm like, Oh yes, I should go do that. And then it'll help me make progress towards some of the goals that I have, whether they're formal goals or informal goals.
[00:19:27] There's a question. How did I change? One of the changes that sort of surprised me is that I discovered it was really easy to totally let go of the work that I had been doing for the last 28 years and in the most recent job. Like, Oh, I did not really expect that.
[00:19:45] I thought I would have some some grieving and It didn't really happen, but without that structure and that obligation, I got lazy. So some good change, some not so good change.
[00:19:59] Question what is left unresolved or incomplete? How does that feel? I didn't digitize a single photograph this year, and that doesn't feel good. That was something I really wanted to start doing.
[00:20:11] A goal that my wife and I have is to de junk the house because we've lived here for 37 years. We have a lot of stuff that has accumulated. The basement, I feel, is approaching hoarder status. This is something that really could benefit from scheduling just like an hour a week to go down there, find one thing I can triage. Sort into the throwaway, giveaway, keep piles. Do a little bit at a time because approaching the whole thing is just depressing.
[00:20:46] How do I feel? Well, I, I feel frustrated that I didn't make any progress towards some of these goals. But I feel good that I've been able to take charge of my fitness and my health. I have seen some real and significant improvements in those areas. Sure, there's stuff I still need to do. And some stuff that I just need to keep on doing.
[00:21:07] I recognize that 2024 was a year of transition. I had to let go of a way of living that had been my reality for 50 years and find a new way of living in retirement. And with such a huge change, it's not surprising I didn't get to all the things I thought I could or should be able to do.
[00:21:24] I made it through some real positive changes and I still have some areas for improvement. So what's new? You know, what do we say in the program? Progress not perfection.
[00:21:34] I like Debra's word of acceptance. Acceptance has been a word that I continue to come back to.
[00:21:39] So how was your 2024? How would you answer those questions? What worked? What didn't work? What did I learn? How did I change? What is left unresolved or incomplete? And how does that feel? And I should have added to that. And how do you feel that you have used Your recovery principles in 2024.
[00:21:58] I know for me, it permeated a lot of my life.
[00:22:02] I think the key principles in 2024, for me, were acceptance, accepting that things had changed and that I needed to figure out new ways to live. Self examination was important. How much of what I had been doing, did I want to keep on doing? What did I want to add? How was that working for me? Self care. You know, one of the things that I started to learn when I came into Al Anon. One of the first things I learned early on is, hey, I need to take care of myself. And that has been a strong theme throughout 2024. And I think will continue to be a theme going forward. All of those will be: acceptance, self examination, self care.
[00:22:48] This is a shorter episode. I'm not going to have lives in recovery. Cause I kind of just talked about that. Not going to have listener feedback.
Song 1
[00:22:57] Spencer: So I got one song. I knew this song was going to go with this episode.
[00:23:01] I think I have used it before, but I'm not sure exactly when. The song is called, This Year, it's by the Mountain Goats. The refrain in the song, I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me. I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me. And sometimes, sometimes that's how I felt. If you look at the actual lyrics of the song, it's about being a teenager and all the things that are happening in, in his life at that time.
[00:23:30] But, the feeling of the song. I think applies to me and, you know, 50 years after I was a teenager, I'm going to make it through this year if it kills me.
Outro
[00:23:48] Spencer: Thank you for listening. Please keep coming back. Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too. If we did not talk about a problem you are facing today, feel free to contact us so we can talk about it in a future episode. May understanding, love, and peace grow in you one day at a time.