When we first get sober, it can be a struggle to just to feel okay. Confronted with problems that began while we were active in our addiction, trying feel glad about anything was a challenge. And yet those of us just starting the recovery journey have so much to feel grateful about. As we walk our road to recovery, feelings of gratitude begin to firmly take root in our lives.
What is gratitude?
Gratitude is expressing or feeling an emotion for something in your life. That something can be a person or object or even an idea. What’s important is that it is something you have and not something you wish you had.
Gratitude: How to express it
If you are feeling grateful for a person in your life, letting that person know that you are grateful—through words, a letter, or an email—is a powerful expression of gratitude. Many us who are active in our recovery express gratitude by thanking our higher power for helping us to stay clean and sober each day. Another excellent way of expressing gratitude is regularly writing in a gratitude journal.
The Benefits of Gratitude
There are a whole host of benefits to expressing gratitude. People who regularly express gratitude have strong immune systems, lower blood pressure, and tend to exercise more while taking better care of their health. They have higher levels of positive emotions and are feel more alert, alive, and awake. They are more optimistic, experience more happiness and feel less lonely and isolated.
Recovery and Gratitude
For most of us, our addiction left very little room for gratitude in our lives. As we recovered, however, we began to connect with a higher power and allow that power to replace ourselves as the guiding force in our lives. We began to learn that this power wanted us to experience happiness and joyfulness as the direct result of being of service to others. We began to feel thankful for things that previously seemed meaningless.
As we made amends with those whom we had harmed, the damage to past relationships with friends and family began to mend. We started to experience a powerful sense of relief that we no longer have to micromanage our lives. We began to help others not grudgingly, but with great enthusiasm, and in so doing became thankful that lives had become firmly rooted in recovery.
The life we have today really is filled with gratitude, and it is a life that is 100% open to you! If you are suffering from addiction, please know that there is a solution. Contact Alta Loma Recovery at 866-457-3843 today!
