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Old 01-16-2018, 10:37 PM
  # 9 (permalink)  
vikingtwin
Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Polk City, Fl
Posts: 5
First off, Congratulations on 93 days of sobriety. That is something to truly celebrate, & be grateful for. However, while reading your post it struck me that you don't seem to be in touch with gratitude at all.

But hold on now, as I truly do, understand that. Early in sobriety I also didn't realize what in the world I had to be grateful for. I just didn't understand gratitude at all. After all, my life had just basically been ****, and every body else that I compared myself to, appeared to me to have it a lot better than I did.

However my sponsor in AA said that I needed to get in touch with gratitude as it was the key to feeling better. Now I listened to that, because I sure did want to feel better. At the time I had a real lack of "feeling good", and especially of feeling good about myself.

But I didn't have a clue about how to go about feeling gratitude & I told my sponsor that.

My sponsor said, "Well that's easy." When you wake up in the morning just thank your higher power, for waking up, because it didn't have to be that way, I could of died in my sleep. Now that was true.

Then he said, give thanks for the sun shining in the sky, because it enabled life to go on, & as it hit my skin provided me with warmth which felt good.

Or conversely, give thanks for the cloudy sky & the rain hitting my body, for it provided sustenance for the plants & enabled everything to grow and flourish, and also made my body feel alive irrespective of the fact that it could also feel uncomfortable.

In other words start recognizing the little things that we take for granted, because even though we take it for granted, it really doesn't have to be that way, we've just gotten used to it & assume that that's the way it's always going to be..

Then, give thanks for the fact that there are over 61,000 AA meetings every week in the United States, because that meant that there were 1, or 2, or 3 that I could attend today, so I could grow & flourish, which I was desperately in need of, as I, like you, had no friends or people that I could speak to, or share my feelings with, and in AA meetings I found those people that I needed in my life.

Then, give thanks for the fact that I actually walked into an AA meeting, even though I was very stressed & filled with anxiety about doing that, because I was sure everyone would be looking at me & judging me. Instead they welcomed me, and in time I found a comfort that I had not known in my life without using alcohol or drugs.

In time, I even found myself becoming grateful for the fact that I was an alcoholic & addict, because it led me to this accepting & healing place called Alcoholics Anonymous, and a lot of people had other problems, & no place to go like Alcoholics Anonymous.

If we stop drinking & using drugs & that's all we do, we have stopped at the starting place. There is so much more, & it is worth it.

We suffer from the Societal expectation that if we just stop using the substance everything will be alright. It's just not that simplistic.

All we have to do is overcome our fear to walk through the doors of AA, & make a commitment to return to the same meeting for 6 times in a row. It will get easier.

Throughout the years I have told many people that if you want sobriety for a lifetime, go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I have known many who didn't do that, but I have never known anyone who has done that who has gone back to using. It's only 90 days, & I'll gladly refund you your misery.

So the key, I was taught, is start with the little things in life , the stuff we overlook countless times every day. This will give you practice, & in very little time at all, with this practice, I found an abundance of things to feel grateful about having in my life.

And I've gotta tell you Gratitude FEELS A LOT better than anger, bitterness, & resentment.

Actually I've found, that it's impossible to feel gratitude & resentment, or bitterness, or anger at the same time.
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