I dreamt that you were twisting through seven sons of gold and the gypsy was insisting

that his story must be told I came two in the morning but I took it as a warning

that you might be a treasure. I could touch but never hold.

Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Soberful podcast. We have really, really interesting topic today that I just think is massively underserved. So I'm really delighted to

be joined. I'm more than delighted. I just feel very, very happy to be joined by the very

wonderful Polly Kaiser. Hi Polly. I'm very honored to be here. Honoured to be invited. You're welcome. Yeah. My sister from

another mister. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, tell us, you're better to introduce this. This is what we're going

to talk about today. We're going to talk about addiction and trauma in the older population.

So people sort of over 65, is that when we say older population? Is that what we mean? Yeah. I just kind of, I followed your work and you've

kind of posted bits and bobs. And it's always kind of like, well, the older I get and my

clients are older as well often. I'm like, I'm learning so much and I really think this is an

underserved area. But tell us a little bit about what you sort of your background and what you do.

Hi. Yeah. So my name is Polly Kaiser. I've stopped saying I'm retired because I'm still as busy as

ever. I'm retired from the NHS but I still practice and run workshops and write.

I might like to mention my book later on, if that's all right, blow away at that later.

But I've worked for over 40 years with older people and their carers.

I started off in 1984 researching, stressing carers of people with dementia. And I had an amazing

mentors, Mary Jo Gisei, who works in Europe. And I think, you know, you say, where did my passion

come from? I don't know. A lot of it isn't. I love history. I love stories. Working with older people,

I got both. I learn. I learn from them. My grandparents were in the States, as you know, so I didn't have grandparents nearby. I'm just fascinated by what I can learn from them because they've had such rich lives. And Marjorieuzei in France gave me a real passion for the subject. And also, the more I got into it, the more I realised the inequalities, the lack of

justice, the fact that they don't get access to services, they're not seeing a lack of voice.

And it's been said that ageism is the last socially accepted prejudice.

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