Habitual Gratitude

Today I am grateful for my feet and where they carry me, indoors and outdoors. I am also grateful for the winter gear that helps me safely and comfortably move outdoors this time of the year. Two "R" words are on my mind this morning for my list. Resenting and resolving. Resenting is treacherous territory for those in recovery, and really for anyone who wishes to know peace. If not recognized and released, resentments can lead back to a drink. If not a drink, ongoing pain and a pity party for self. Enough time in that state, and many will look for the soothing substance that used to numb them. Or they will keep blaming others, remain unforgiving, and stay stuck. Letting go of resentments requires work, some of the hardest work to be done in recovery. Honesty. Fully feeling and accepting. Letting go and moving forward. This won't likely surprise anyone who knows me, but my biggest resentment in life has been directed at ---me, little old imperfect, flawed, selfish me. ...

Today I am grateful for good songs and working ears to listen to them. I am also grateful for the different pace to days when on a break from work. "Q" on this recovery A-Z gratitude list is for quality over quantity. There are times when quantity may count more than quality, but I can't think of a good example now and it certainly is not the case when it comes to recovery from alcoholism and addiction. Yes, it is important to add up days, weeks, months, and more when it comes to continuous sobriety. It is the only way to learn the lessons of recovery that will allow for lasting health. But if all a person is doing is adding another day of being white-knuckle sober, another day of "I'll show you I can handle this," that is not quality. That is survival, that is existing. Existing was hard enough when I had escape into the bottle from time to time. Take away the escape and existing becomes more miserable, unless I am healing and constructing the life I ...

Today I am grateful for safe travels, pleasant time with extended family, and an enjoyable holiday in our own home. I have never been one to get too caught up in presents around Christmas time, those I receive and those I give. It is only a part, not the main part, of this holiday. Presence is valued over presents. Yesterday, though, I got an idea for a present I wanted to get myself and hadn't thought seriously about in years. Too busy. Too little time with too many other projects to work on. Too cluttered in my head and heart. So when I got an urge to do a jigsaw puzzle, I went with it. Selection was limited, so I got a six-pack of puzzles and am well under way with my first 500-piece challenge. A six pack of puzzles or a twelve pack of beer?  The choice is easy today. The puzzles pull me in for a healthy break from everything else. Tiresome thoughts ad expectations shut down as I zero in on the next piece to be added to a growing picture. I am looking forward to how many...

Today I  am grateful  for early morning conversation with my husband Darcy and for anticipation of family time and a break from work. The word of the day on this "A-Z living gratefully in recovery" list is OBSTINATE. It is defined as: stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or chosen course of action, despite attempts to persuade one to do so; very difficult to change or overcome.  Synonyms include:  stubborn, inflexible, bullheaded, self-willed, headstrong, recalcitrant, unmanageable, rigid, unrelenting.  Alcoholism  is an obstinate disease and alcoholics actively using or on a dry drunk are pretty darn obstinate as well. Don't tell me what I should do. I can handle this myself. I'm strong enough. I'm right. I'm wrong. So wrong.  You get the idea?  So it is better for me to consider antonyms to obstinate: surrendering, willing, flexible, yielding, cooperative, obedient . These all help me ...

Today I am grateful for my son Sam and the person he is. I am also grateful for the energy of middle school students nearing a holiday and a break, and that I can meet that energy with my own. "Never" is one of those absolutes that need to be used carefully. Never say never. If newly sober drunks heard “NEVER drink again” as the key message of recovery, many would probably never give recovery a fair shot. Never drink again?  That doesn't seem feasible in early sobriety, when drinking has been a go-to escape and survival method for too long. Don't take a drink today? That may be possible. Just for today. And with help and support, ways to get an alcoholic or addict out of their most dangerous place--their own minds. A "never" I am comfortable using is "never stop working on recovery." Alcoholism is a patient and subtle foe. Daily work for a daily disease. Don't take a drink today. Do some work in recovery. Let go. Accept. Feel emotions. ...

Today I am grateful for the ease of phone calls and how they keep me connected to family and friends across the miles. I am also grateful for eggnog as coffee creamer during the holiday season. Magnificence. What a spectacular word, a large word. Glorious. Notable. Wonderful. Striking. It is a word that would have garnered some contempt in my actively alcoholic mind. Magnificence? What do I know about that? When will I ever see it? The deep and dark pit of alcoholism doesn't let much light in, much less any awe or magnificence. A most striking feature of quality recovery is that such feelings and experiences as a glorious elation and a notable moment of clarity are possible. It takes time, effort, and plenty of support from others and a Great Spirit, but climbing out of that dark pit is possible. One of my drinking poems captured this effort prior to recovery. I would get close to the top of the pit, almost ready to throw a leg over and get out. But someone would step on m...

Today I am grateful for what healing can bring. It takes work, and it comes in various forms--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual--but it makes all the difference. I am also grateful for the presence of loved ones and a loving Great Spirit in my life. Today's word is lonely. A truly dangerous word for alcoholics and addicts. If we are lonely, we drink, we use, we get sicker. Some of us eventually die, alone. Alcoholism is very selfish. It wants all of the person. The disease wants to isolate you and get you to depend only on alcohol. Then it turns on you. And the loneliness is like none ever experienced. It is piercing and painful and it begs for a drink to ease the discomfort. It continues to beat and batter, and we continue to drink. The isolation and our own sick thinking close us off from hope even more. One of the many amazing gifts of recovery, and absolutely necessary for ongoing growth and continued sobriety, is gaining a sense of belonging. I am not alone Th...

Today I am grateful for overall health and for this earthly vehicle I reside in, scars and losses and all. I am taking a break from the A-Z "gratitude in recovery" list to focus on a milestone, an anniversary to mark today. I have been reflective and emotional in recent days as I approached a milestone in my cancer journey. It was ten years ago today that I woke up with two intact breasts and later that afternoon came out of anesthesia minus them both. Ten years is worth marking with "then and now" photos. The one on the left was taken just days before my mastectomies on December 17, 2008. The one on the right was taken this weekend, in the same location as the first one, but in a much different place emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. A good place overall. A place rich in gratitude and acceptance. The white shirt I am wearing shows the flat terrain of my chest clearly. It also happens to be the finisher shirt from the 2009 Kansas City ...

Today I am grateful for the beautiful sunrise this morning and for the beauty of words coming together in my mind and heart. Okay, so I skipped right over the letter "J" the other day, going from "I" to "K."  Oh well. Good to laugh at ourselves and our mistakes. And this was one that carried no ill effect. Speaking of laughing, how about a joke for the letter "J"? How can you tell the difference between a social drinker, a problem drinker, and an alcoholic? "When a social drinker gets a glass of beer at the bar and there's a fly in it, they take it  back  and  get a new one. When a problem drinker gets a beer with a fly in it, they take the  fly out  and  d rink the beer.   When an alcoholic gets a beer with a fly in it, they pick  the fly up,  shake it, and say "spit it out, spit it out!" This joke always makes me chuckle, and always gives me pause. For someone who may not understand what alcoholism is like...

Today I am grateful for my fingers and toes and gloves and socks to keep them warm. I am also grateful for the fellow recovering alcoholics who encourage and enlighten me on this journey. So when I was pondering "k" words for this A-Z list, I landed on kindred. The people I share recovery with, and them with me, truly are kin to me. We are allied and connected in ways that I am not with my own family and blood relatives. We come together through our common disease, each battered and beaten by addiction in ways that may differ in detail and depth, but are very similar in patterns and perceptions. We grow together by being honest with ourselves and each other, by changing our actions to help change our thinking. We laugh together, cry together, watch light bulbs go on for one another. We learn to give and give back. My recovery family includes cherished friends and fellow travelers. My own family supports me in my recovery as well, and for that I am most grateful. That ...

Today I am grateful for so many abilities and capabilities I take for granted much of the time. Things like being able to breathe, eat, walk, drink, use my hands and fingers. The list goes on. I am also grateful for intuition that I can trust today. Active alcoholics and addicts don't tend to trust their intuition. Their addiction fools them into trusting their substance of choice more than themselves, at least some of the time.  Healthy hunches, true instinct, good sense are possible in recovery. They take some time to find or find back, but they do come. And they are true gifts. Another "I" word on my mind is intensity. The intensity of the negative feelings in my active drinking years replaced by the intensity of feelings and thoughts that are actually good, genuine, positive. The pain and self-hatred were intense, captured in the recesses of my mind and in some of the poems I wrote during that time. The intensity of joy, gratitude, peace, self-acceptance that I ...

Today I am grateful for other people's insights into the human desire and need for stillness. (In this case Pico Iyer and Krista Tippett in an "On Being" podcast.) I am also grateful for the fuller understanding of honesty that I am continuing to learn. Honesty is an essential and loaded word. Essential to deeper living and more fully realizing our own potential. Loaded because we can be masterful deceivers of our own thoughts and feelings. Inability to be honest with ourselves can be fatal to alcoholics and addicts, perpetuating use and continuing the downward spiral. There is no cure for addiction, only ongoing recovery/remission or eventual death. Rigorous honesty helps brings us out of the sick thinking and spiritual malaise that is really, in my opinion, at the heart of this disease. It helps brings us out of the powerless victim mentality into the light of solution-focused living. It takes hard work. It takes the help and support of others. And their honesty...

Today I am grateful for the awe of stars in the morning sky and how that sense of awe helps me feel connected to a wider universe. Grandiose is the "g" word on my mind today. It can be defined in a variety of ways. Excessively grand and ambitious. Bold. Overambitious. High-flown. They all fit. I especially like high-flown. It fits the elusive feeling I sought with each drink I took. Alcoholics and addicts are grandiose in our thinking, especially when we are using. It may not last long, but it's a powerful grandiosity when it hits. It usually hit me a few hours into my drinking and not long before I bottomed out or passed out or blacked out, or all three. My drinking days were well before cell phones and social media, and I am most grateful for that for a variety of reasons. But I was known to pick up the phone and call a few select people when I was in that grandiose mindset, late at night. I had it all figured out and I wanted to talk about it. "It" wa...

Today I am grateful for my grandmother's holiday cookie recipes and the enjoyment of making them with my family yesterday. I am also grateful for pauses in my day, to be present and pay attention. I used to think freedom came in a bottle or a can. Escape into alcohol and intoxication. Freedom from my loneliness, fears, limitations, and inhibitions. Freedom from the reality that I existed in but that fell short of what I wanted. Freedom to let go and be more social. Freedom to pursue what my shy self may not have been able to. I looked forward to this escape, this freedom. But somewhere in there, before I even left high school, it turned on me and enslaved me. The freedom became necessity. The escape became more of a prison. We fought for a few years, alcohol and I. There were times I thought I might have the upper hand, but I was only fooling myself. With defeat and surrender, with lower lows, I became more teachable, more open to the idea that my drinking was not the answer....

Today I am grateful for a pleasant day experiencing the holiday spirit yesterday. It started with a chilly but satisfying run with Darcy and included a little gift-wrapping, holiday letter sending, time taking in the holiday decorations and lighting at the Mall of America, and classic holiday TV viewing. I am also grateful for what my life's experience has taught me. Drinking experience didn't make me a better drinker, it made me more obviously a problem drinker. In my drinking days, my experience was literally showing me the progression of disease. Some of that I could only figure out in hindsight. Some became obvious in the deeper pain I was feeling and trying to numb, more concerns in my own heart and more raised by others who care about me. Experiencing anguish and turmoil helped me reach a point of surrender and seeking help. I wouldn't be in recovery today if I hadn't been in that dark spot then. Another "e" word came to mind as I considered alco...

Today I am grateful for our dog Oliver and how he joyfully takes off running sometimes. (Though this morning he may have just wanted to get back in the house out of the cold.) I am also grateful for good actors in good TV shows. (In this case I am referring to "Mom.") As far as diseases go, I do believe I am powerless over alcohol, but I do have some say in whether or not my alcoholism is active or in remission. Active alcoholism or active recovery? I can influence which is active with my choices, thoughts, and actions. But I need help too. Plenty of it. It takes daily discipline directed at the disease, and daily guidance and direction from recovery friends, spiritual advisors, the Great Spirit in my life. And also from those closest to me who aren't on this recovery path, but who support me on mine. Day in and day out diligence and vigilance. Practices. Prayers. Exercises of the mind and soul. Spiritual growth. Writing. Working. Sharing. Serving. It is different...

Today I am grateful for the soothing color and glow of our Christmas tree lights, and for the opportunities to say thank you to others at work. Sobriety starts with getting a clear head. No more drinking and no more hangovers. I had many tough hangovers physically. I would sometimes force myself out for a run to sweat out the residuals. I treated the physical symptoms as the price to pay for the escape and "freedom" I got. Recovery takes more than just a clear head though. It takes clarity of thoughts and feelings as well as spiritual clarity... the ideas that I am not alone, that I need help. When I do daily work for my daily disease, moments of clarity come. Not every day, but they come. And they are my best teachers, teaching me what I need to know for ongoing recovery. Surrender. Acceptance. Hard work. Humility. Feeling fully. Patience. Gratitude. Moments of clarity can touch me to my core, to my very soul. It is when I truly know that recovery works, that right act...

Today I am grateful for sweat and endorphins to help center my mind and body to start my day. I am also grateful for some morning conversation with my husband Darcy. Beer. It was my drink of choice. Cheap for a high school and then college student. I pretty much would drink anything with alcohol in it, but beer was the most readily available so it was my go-to. It also fit the way I liked to drink. Once I started, it was continuous and in significant quantities. That wouldn't have gone well with more highly concentrated alcoholic beverages. Pause. Plenty of gratitude that I didn't succumb to alcohol poisoning. There were certainly times I could have. Now, in today's culture, there is such a trend of microbreweries. The community we live in has a new brewery downtown. Even in the rural area where I grew up, Winneshiek County, Iowa, there are three breweries. One is already internationally known. Part of me is a bit jealous of this and the popularity of trying all the...

Today I am grateful for the HIIT routine my niece Katie provided me years ago. I bring it out in the winter months. I am also grateful that my body is able to complete the exercises, though a little rusty to start out with. A is for Acceptance. Acceptance that I have a disease, not a weak will. That is where it starts. The disease itself wants me to fight and deny the disease idea and blame myself for just being a weak fool. I did that for years. As far as the disease was concerned, it worked. I kept drinking, kept going back to it each time I quit. It took many types of trial and error, many close calls, hard knocks, and more to help me become open to the idea that I have a disease and I need help. It took significant pain, self-hatred, the depths of despair. Other people also played key roles in getting me to seek help. Deep gratitude to these integral people--people with names like Sheila, Deb, Sarah, Leonice. A is for acceptance. That is where it starts. And never really fini...

Today I am grateful for the safety of my sister Aileen, her husband John and stepson Peter and all impacted by Friday's earthquake in Anchorage. I am also grateful for people who step up in so many ways in so many different situations. Aileen had just flown out of the Anchorage airport not long before the earthquake. I consider what it must have been like in that 30-40 seconds for those who experienced the quake. It is not unusual for Alaskans to feel some of the many quakes they get each year, but this one had to be pretty scary. A few seconds can be life-changing, or just a few more seconds going by unnoticed. Sometimes life happens to us, sometimes we make it happen. I have been pondering an A-Z gratitude list for my blog for a while, going back and forth on whether or not to do one. It was Aug./Sept. of last year when I last did one. They are enjoyable and give me focus to my posts for a few weeks when they otherwise tend to be random. There's nothing wrong with ran...