Topic for 9/2-8, 2010 GRATITUDE Hello, family. I'm Vic and, today, I'm a pretty much a grateful recovering addict. It is an honor to be your discussion leader today. I love the new online 'searchable' literature posted on the World Service Office website. If I need to find guidance on a particular topic, I type in 'gratitude' and find out how that is used in one of our books. It Works: How and Why is one of my favorites, and when I'm working a step, I tend to read and re-read and then read again that chapter. If there is a question within my home group or in other areas of our service structure, I can find how our traditions offer the insight I (or we) need. The book is a wonderful addition to introduction of the steps or traditions already recorded in the Basic Text. So, let me start off by taking a moment to be grateful for 1) this new technology, 2) what our literature says has to say about gratitude, 3) the addicts who wrote these words under the guidance of 4) their Higher Power, and "As a result of working the Ninth Step, we are free to live in the present, able to enjoy each moment and experience gratitude for the gift of recovery. ...Our lives stretch out before us like a limitless horizon. We may stumble from time to time, but the Tenth Step gives us the opportunity to pick ourselves up and keep walking forward. Our Higher Power has given us an invitation to live, and we accept it with gratitude." - It Works: How and Why, pg. 68, 'Step Ten' "The spiritual void we felt at the beginning of our recovery has been filled with gratitude, unconditional love, and a desire to be of service to God and others." - Pg. 85, 'Step Eleven' "Our gratitude for the gift of recovery becomes the underlying force in all we do, motivating us and weaving its way through our lives and the lives of those around us." - Pg. 88, 'Step Twelve' "Our anonymity, our integrity, our faith, our sense of simplicity, our acceptance of responsibility, our gratitude - together, all these things spell freedom." - Pg. 135, 'Tradition Seven' Wow! I didn't expect any of those. Sure, I had an idea of how gratitude works throughout Narcotics Anonymous. But each one of these quotes were fresh perspectives for me on how to recognize, express and act upon gratitude. Hell, when I was using, I never thought I'd be capable of being part of a group's 'integrity, faith, simplicity, acceptance, and responsibility' - much less being grateful for that! I did learn early on that I was grateful for recovery, but the notion that this could be an underlying principle upon which I build my life was beyond me. I wanted 'freedom' from active addiction, but I didn't yet know I'd find it exactly the way it works in Step Twelve. I knew I hurt. I learned through the sharing of other addicts that this pain was often the result not just of the drugs, but of feeling my whole life that I had something missing - a void yawned wide inside my heart. Could I fill that hole with gratitude? And not only that, but with unconditional, unfettered, no-strings-attached, ever-giving and unselfish LOVE? I knew I wanted that, but I wasn't sure it really existed. Not for me. I wasn't worthy of unconditional love, so how could I reach the day when I'd be grateful for that love being a part of every day of my life? My, how sick I was. A very wise man once told me that the act of writing a gratitude list stops cold the obsessive and compulsive ways our addictive minds work. We're trapped in an endless cycle of fearful thinking, and can't get the committee in our head to stop yelling at each other. But he suggested that was the very moment to stop and do a gratitude list. It silenced the committee. It soothed the fear. And the decibel level of addiction between my ears was lowered and soothed. What gratitude does, he said, was give us the gift of perspective on our lives - which is one of those lines in 'Just for Today' that stood out for me early on and continues today. "I'd like some perspective on my life, please." And one powerful tool to realize that, he said, was simply to be grateful for a few moments. Try it next time when you're in need. Sounds corny, I know. Well, to those who've never done it. Still sounds corny to me sometimes even today. But I do it anyway. I figure out I'm grateful for something, and I can see my day in a more healthy and rewarding way. It isn't always easy. Sometimes we are in such pain, and the suggestion to do a gratitude list is almost an insult to our pain. "How dare you simplify my problems into a cliche like that?" we hurl back at the person trying to help. Sometimes I have to face the challenges of life before I can become grateful again. And I would never suggest that gratitude is the one and only answer to an addict's questions. There's acceptance, action, love, self-care, service to others, and a whole toolbox full of solutions to my pain. Gratitude is just one of the most powerful of my spiritual tools. And it is always available to me, no matter where I am or what I'm doing - no matter what life has thrown at me that day - cause life does keep 'showing up,' as a friend of mine says. Gratitude is, for me, still a come-and-go thing. I went to my home group here in Covington, GA the other night and we had a gratitude meeting. Thank you, Higher Power, for that amazing meeting! But an hour later, gratitude felt far away, and the night seemed endless and full of things that go bump in the dark. I'm not there yet. I never will be. Recovery is a way of life, not a destination. And along the way, I can sing my joy sometimes for all the things I'm grateful for. I'll close now. Your turn. Stop and maybe pray or let your thoughts still, and think of a few things you are grateful for today. I hope it helps. Helps me, and that's the only thing I have to go on. Well, that and 1) our literature online, 2) what I find there about being grateful, 3) the people who wrote it, 4) my Higher Power, 5) the fellowship of other addicts, and 6) what they share with me so freely - 7) their unconditional love. Oh, and I'm grateful for GRATITUDE. Ready to Share on this week's topic, or where you are in your recovery today? You can share on this topic through September 8th, so as to be included in Earth Group's eMeeting, which is sent out the next day. There are now two ways to share! You can email Jim at mailer@earthgroupna.org. Or you post a reply under the 'eMeeting -Topic' section on Earth Group's Forum at http://www.earthgroupna.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=5 Either way works!
5) the world-wide fellowship of recovering addicts who bring us NA's 6) collected wisdom.
I'm also thankful for the service structure at NA that makes all of this possible. See?
When I need to find gratitude, there are blessings everywhere, IF I choose to see them.
Thank you for letting me share.
~