A Story of Recovery:

Gratitude in Hard Times

Gratitude is a grand and wonderful thing; I love the way it feels and the effect it has on the people around me. I find it easy to practice gratitude when all is well and things are going my way. The challenge comes when all is not well and things aren’t going my way. Lately, that has been my story.

In addition to my husband’s unemployment and other smaller inconveniences, I have been experiencing some severe physical pain, and there is nothing like pain to capture my attention. Pain is not unlike a two-year old (or this food addict before recovery!)—demanding, self-centered, selfish, relentless.

A few months ago, I started the practice of making a gratitude list every night. I keep a notebook by my bed, and after I get on my knees, I write down a minimum of five things that have happened that day for which I am grateful. I usually have very little difficulty coming up with five things, and more often that not, the list goes beyond five.

In the throes of severe unrelenting pain, the practice has been a lot more challenging. Several weeks ago when this all first started, the last thing I felt like doing was making a gratitude list. But one of the many invaluable lessons I have learned in this program is not to base my actions on my feelings. I had made a commitment to do this list every night, not just when I felt like it. I also know about practicing gratitude even when I don’t feel it, and that the simple practice of gratitude usually evokes the feeling.

So every night I have made my list, through tears of pain and frustration, through fatigue, self-pity, and wondering if it would ever stop. Some nights, what had been taking just a few minutes might take half an hour. At times it was a real stretch to find something, but I was always able to. Sometimes I would read the list to my husband and we would have a good chuckle….like one night, when the only thing I could come up with at first was the fact that my gas pedal had not gotten stuck that day (I drive a Toyota).

I had a lot of help from my Higher Power in this process. With that help, not only were there at least five things on each and every list, but also I was able to relax into the warmth that is gratitude, even if the day, up until that point, had been dominated by pain. This would not have been possible had I been eating. Nor would it have been possible had I not been in FA. Left to my own devices, I would have been marinating in hopelessness and self-pity and attempting to pull others into the pit with me.

I am grateful to my Higher Power, people in Program, and the daily practices that I have learned in FA. I thank God that I am not left to my own devices, that I have choices today, and that I do not have to act on each and every feeling that happens to come my way. And I am very grateful for the fact that at no time during all this did it occur to me, even once, to medicate with food. Today I have a solution; it is called FA.