Estimated read time: 7 min
I have heard and said I’m grateful for the people in my life and the things that I have. But I started thinking (usually, a scary prospect for me), how would anyone know I am grateful? What about me and how I go through my day shows that I am grateful? Or even worse am I really grateful for anything?
Being grateful in and of itself is not natural to me. I constantly want more than I have, dream of being bigger and better than I am, and can pick out flaws in things around me as quickly as I glance from item to item. Seriously, I can ruin a perfect, sunny day at the beach. You know the ones where the sand doesn’t burn your feet on the way to the water, which is cresting with picture-perfect crystal blue waves. When every soul that comes in contact with such a sight feels lighter and somehow more connected with the world around.
Yes! That perfect image gets crushed under the weight of how-long-before-rain-clouds appear (because they have to you know). Or, even better, I hope we don’t stay too long or the wait at the restaurants will make dinner take forever. I have even propped back in a chair staring at the sheer beauty and power of the natural world around me and whined that if the waves were bigger, today would be fun. And that is a simple glimpse of how my mind can cloud out beauty– even when I’m sober.
As a good, old-fashioned drunk, nothing ever fit right. I could never find anything that I could just enjoy for what it was at that point in time. It was like I was looking at a hill all the time and knew, deep down, that if I could just make it to the top, there was something so much better on the other side. I spent decades disappointed with the things I had, embarrassed by the company I kept, and most of all loathing myself. No matter how hard I tried, I could not measure up to the myth I constantly created for myself and others. It felt like I was trying to piece together a puzzle of the sky but every piece was the malformed rejects left on the factory floor from 500 different puzzles. The truth, though, was even more dastardly. The problem was ME.
Prior to completing the first turn on the spiral that eventually led me to treatment, I was an award-winning educator and coach living in a two-story house with a pond out back. I was respected in my profession. I had friends who looked forward to seeing me, and I would often get stopped when I was running errands by people who knew of me and just wanted to talk.
But, I knew that everyone who met me saw that I didn’t deserve any of it. I was a fake and a fraud racked with fear that at some point someone would see me as the emperor without clothes that I saw every morning. And my solution, as always, for every problem or feeling was to drink it away. And, as every alcoholic knows, for each problem you try to drink away you add two more problems. Problems with alcohol are like gremlins with water; they just keep multiplying.
I would like to say that in treatment, I learned to be grateful for at least being alive. I would like to say that in my first year of sobriety I began to truly accept myself for who I am, and I began to appreciate the people around me. But, I try to be honest today. It would take practice. Literally, years of practice to finally, truly, be grateful for anything. It started with just being happy to be in the company of other alcoholics and addicts. I can remember finally feeling at home around my people. Then, building on suggestions from others, I began writing lists of things I was grateful for each day and sharing that list with friends.
At two years sober, I could finally, honestly, say I was grateful–hell, I could list it. But, I still couldn’t figure out how to show it. Sitting on a porch before a meeting and talking with a few alcoholics one night, I mentioned how much I disliked “gratitude meetings.” I think 15 to 20 people saying they are grateful to be alive and sober gets a little repetitive.
And that’s when an old-timer just mentioned, “That’s not gratitude. Gratitude is action.” Very much like the first time I heard that all I have to do is not drink today, blew my mind, and changed my life, that gruff statement from someone sitting on a porch before the meeting gave me the moment of clarity I needed. And, I realized that I had been practicing gratitude before I even knew it.
I SHOWED I was grateful by showing up to meetings early and making sure I greeted people with a smile and a handshake. I chaired meetings, picked up newcomers who could not drive, and sent those lists to others. I began to find other ways I could show gratitude. I began to smile and ask coworkers how they were doing and wait for them to respond.
I listened to others instead of thinking of my response after their first sentence. I worked to stop automatic negative thoughts by replacing them with new thoughts that didn’t cast judgment. I began to thank people for doing things for me whether they realized they were doing them or not. I would ask others if they needed a refill on coffee, actually refill their cups and bring them back, instead of walking off in mid-conversation to fill my own cup.
I stopped looking for differences between the people around me, and my perception of myself, and started looking for things we had in common. I practiced these few little things each day and I noticed I no longer felt like a fake and a fraud. I found some contentment with who I am as a person and the life I now lead.
But, most importantly, I became truly grateful for the people I have in my life today.
More and more I cherish moments with family and friends no matter where or when these moments happen. That doesn’t mean I have this gratitude/grateful thing whipped. I still have my moments when nothing fits right and all I want is to be somewhere else. I still catch myself taking things for granted. I still occasionally start gazing in the distance for that hill that I know holds all the secrets to happiness. When I catch myself, or most often my wife catches me, sliding back toward an old pattern, I know what to do…
I start by looking around at all of the good things in my life, and I also look back to the misery of the life I led when everything I saw was skewed by the bottom of an empty bottle.
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