52 Things to be Grateful For

Once again, I've been told to write a gratitude list. A common suggestion when I call up one of my AA supports to complain about how horrible my life is and how terrible how I feel. I usually moan and complain and don't do it - only to be told that it is my own fault that I feel so bad. As if a gratitude list can fix everything. Yes, I have things to be grateful for, and I know that, but being grateful for things doesn't change the things I am upset about.

Today actually, I was told that I was acting like a two year old. I happen to think that a two year old couldn't come up with the clever things that I was saying and the intelligent ways that I apparently rationalize my behavior, feelings, reactions etc. I think at the youngest, maybe I was acting like a 7 year old. Truthfully, I don't much feel like acting any differently than I did earlier, or yesterday, or the day before that. I happen to be rather annoyed at this particular friend of mine and I am really resisting applying any program principles to the things that I am feeling. Every once in a while I experience this extreme resistance to the program, where I just don't want AA to be the answer. I just don't want to admit that it works and it works for literally everything, not just staying sober.

Anyway, I actually hate writing gratitude lists. Maybe because I like to wallow in my own self pity. I guess I just don't like to think about the things that are good in my life. What's wrong with me? I remember the first time I wrote one - I think I had been sober for 6 days. I'd been trying to be sober for a little over a month, but I went and drank a few times. I really thought that I wouldn't have anything to put on it, but I wrote it anyway, just to humor my friend. By the time I was done, I had thought of 52 things to be grateful for. So, in no particular order, and just to humor the people who are bothering me lately about how I feel - here you go:

I am grateful for/that:

My sponsor in Michigan, my sponsor in Chicago, that I got to be a part of Michelle's step study, Tom, Heather, my brother, my sister-in-law, my friend who brought me to AA, my cousins Jodie and Kellie, Ann, Jenny, Carrie, Leah, Claire, all of the people who have reached out to me (I guess I should lump people as one huh?), my job, my financial stability, the people that I work with who have been incredible to me through out this whole treatment process, that I have money saved, that my job is flexible and lets me work from home or wherever I want, that I am alive to write this, that I can feel things - even bad, Ryan - who has taken good care of me during this, the fact that I never hurt anyone else as a result of drinking, that I never got caught drinking and driving, that I never lost my driver's license or a job or a house because of drinking, that I never did drugs, for my cat Emerson - even though he pees on the floor when he is mad at me, that I don't commute to Detroit anymore, that Greg didn't hire me, that I have a good career, that I am educated, that I have the cutest nephew ever, that I have somewhere to go on Christmas if I choose to, for caller i.d., that I have learned to not answer when certain people call (although this needs a little more work), that I have learned to say no when I don't want to do something, that anywhere in the world I go - there will be a community of people who reach out to me, that my job considers family and health more important than billable hours, that I can buy myself anything that I want, that I have had some opportunity to travel, that I have learned to cry in front of people (heck, I cried in front of my boss twice on Sat.), that I have learned to say that I am not okay instead of always saying that I am fine, that I haven't had chronic back pain in over two years, that I have a nice place to live and food to eat, that I am able to help other people and touch other people's lives, that my sister-in-law let me borrow her piano, that my brother talks to me every day from Germany, that when I wake up in the morning I look forward to going to work instead of dreading it, that I never got sick during chemo, that I survived breast cancer with relative ease, that the cancer didn't spread, that I have a higher power who repeatedly shows up for me - even when I don't ask, that I am healthy.

I don't know how many that is - should I keep going?