Gratitude

It's good to have it be Saturday, and I'm grateful for getting a good night's sleep. Even a simple thing like having it be Saturday is something to be grateful for. One of the things that is helpful with recovery is to have a gratitude list.

I thought that this concept seemed strange when I first heard about it since I guess I'd always felt the things that pleased me rather than actually listing them. My first gratitude list came after a particularly low period a few weeks ago when I felt a lot of self-pity and frustration about my life. My sponsor suggested that I make a gratitude list of ten things that I was grateful for. I sat down and pondered what I was grateful for at that moment. It took a while to come up with the list but I was surprised to have more than 10 things on it. When you're mired down in the swamp, it's hard to think of good things about yourself and your surroundings.

For some strange reason, making that list helped me to put the focus back on myself and off the alcoholic who was driving me crazy. It's so easy to get caught up in the activities of the alcoholic and forget that it's best not to try to control anyone's behavior but my own. I keep having to remember Step 1 in Al-Anon which says that I admit that I am powerless over alcohol and that my life had become unmanageable.