Dec 14, 2011 | By Tim Stoddart

My Gratitude Today

Recovery

Gratitude

“A man’s indebtedness is not virtue; his repayment is. Virtue begins when he dedicates himself actively to the job of gratitude.”- Ruth Benedict

Early in recovery I was taught that gratitude would be one of my most valuable assets but it wasn’t easy early on to have any gratefulness regarding anything.  I tried however, I tried to find something to be grateful for in every aspect of my life. I started with where I was in life, at thirty three years old and living in a halfway house acknowledging any type of thankfulness was a task. But I looked back to where I was just four months prior, the streets. Obviously a halfway house was better than being dopesick and living in the gutter, I had to hold on to that. That’s where it started for me, I had to find the difficult things in my life and relate to them by comparing what they were better than. I heard in meetings that we can only keep what we have by giving it away, well all I had at that time was a gratefulness to not be on the streets anymore. How was I going to give THAT away?

Gratitude is more than a feeling.

While moving on with my recovery I started to find more things to be grateful for and the more things I was grateful for the farther in life I seemed to be getting. I eventually got a good paying job and finished my commitment at the halfway house, moved in with another sober guy and made it through my steps. Before I knew it a year and a half after being somewhat confined in a halfway house, I was starting a family, living by the water and was partner in my own company. Life had really improved dramatically in a short period of time.

Being Ungrateful

However lately I’ve been stuck in a funk, I’ve become very resentful at certain situations. I’ve stopped helping other guys and started letting the ego creep in. That brings me to the above quote, I haven’t been grateful and because I’ve lost a lot of that gratitude I’ve had very little to give back. I’m not perfect and I fall short everyday but the key is that I’ve caught this change in behavior now and I can do something about it before it takes me out. I’ve gone back to basics, I want to get that gratitude back and the only way for me to do that is to give others reasons to find their own thankfulness in sobriety.

I find that these feelings shift back and forth. They come and go. As long as I stay grateful, I wont drink. As long as I don’t drink, all of the other stuff will work itself out. The most important thing to do is stay with it. Stay the course.