Yes

Today I am grateful for my sense of touch and the range of temperatures my skin feels, from the cozy warmth of my sweatshirt to the biting cold of a January morning. I am also grateful for the poetry of other poets.

"Yes" is only three short letters, yet there is a lot of significance packed into those three letters.

Yes, I am an alcoholic. Yes, I always will be. Yes, there is a way out.

I have committed many prayers, affirmations, one-liners, mantras, and such to memory in my years of recovery. They are go-to tools to keep my brain and my heart in a healthier place. In early recovery, this was one such phrase:

"I say yes to life, love, happiness, peace, and serenity. I say yes to today."

I had to repeat it over and over, and over time. I didn't regularly know what all of those felt like. I didn't fully grasp that I was capable of experiencing them. Sometimes even all at the same time.

Today, this frame still runs through my mind at times and I take comfort in the affirmative "I say yes!"

I also take action. Daily action. Onward in recovery and living gratefully!