Gratitude and Acceptance

Recovery

By Donc on November 18, 2022 • ( 3 Comments )

In the U.S. next Thursday, November 24, is a national holiday called Thanksgiving. The beginning of what would ultimately become a National Day of Thanksgiving in the United States began in 1621 when the Pilgrims celebrated their first autumn harvest in the new world.  The colonists feasted on the bounty they had reaped with the help of their Native American neighbors, the Wampanoags. There was a history of the colonists in New England (America) and Canada observing “days of prayer for such blessings as safe journeys, military victories, or abundant harvests.”

Next Thursday for me is not about feasts. My disease doesn’t take holidays. It’s about being grateful for all my blessings. At the top of a lengthy list is freedom from the disease of compulsive eating and food addiction. That freedom that I ultimately found after surrendering to the OA 12 step program 40 years ago is phenomenal. OA showed me how to arrest the disease that almost took my life, and then how to build a new life.

Sometimes I say I’m a grateful compulsive eater.  Why grateful?  I don’t really mean I’m glad I have a disease.  What I mean is that because I have the disease, I was led to OA, and in OA I found a new way of thinking and living that was so much better than I ever dreamed possible when I was in the prison of the food.  The 12-steps, 12 traditions and 9 tools led me to freedom from the obsession and freedom from the self-destructive ways of thinking that plagued my past – truly a second chance at life.

Learning this new way of thinking has given me the courage and the power to face and handle life as it is, rather than how I think it should be.  It’s given me the courage to grow, to try new things, to live rather than just endure.  I no longer need to drug and comfort myself with excess food.

Some of the freedoms OA has brought me:  free from the need to use food as a mood altering drug; free to change; free to be flexible rather than rigid; free to not need to figure everything out and accept the mystery of life; free to be who I am; free to say what I want to say rather than what I think you want me to say; free to not hide the parts of me I don’t want you to see; free to love and to accept love; free from paralyzing resentment; free to deal with the world as it is; free from paralyzing fear; free to live life fully rather than simply endure;  free from excessive concern about what others think of me; free from paralyzing doubt; free to let others be who they want to be; free to accept the insecurity and injustice of life – it just is; free to leave the future to God; free to make choices; free from shame; free from needing others’ approval to feel okay about myself.

I began in 2002 to accumulate my daily gratitude lists. It’s impossible to come up with new things every day but every time I find a new one, I add it to the cumulative list. There are 359 items on the list as of today. Believe it or not, reviewing this list periodically is medicine for my soul. Every time I review it, I come back to that word, grace. All this could not have simply been luck or random or chance or serendipity. Gratitude and acceptance are two giant words in my 3 decades of recovery. I started this posting intending to write about both subjects. Let’s see if I get to the acceptance before my fingers wear out. If not, that’s the next posting.

Some non-obvious examples in the 369: A brain that still works; A.G. (co-founder of OA), beach dunes, escape from suicidal depression, God as I don’t understand him, Heritage Museum, laughter, meeting Lois Wilson at Steppingstones, Mozart, my special connection with nature,  second chance at life, something in me bigger than me, the many times God chose to save my life, not being sent to Vietnam while the rest of my battalion was, all those who have carried the message for 62 years and all those continuing to carry the message.

Journal Notes On Gratitude and Gratitude Lists

• I think God the spirit of the universe loves me even if sometimes I do not. He gave me the spark of life, he gives me air to breath, the sun to warm, the earth to produce food, the rain to nourish the crops, animals for domestication or food, parents, and people to care for me until I could care for myself, a brain to use, the gift of being able to love and be loved. He brought me – feeling disillusioned, worthless, purposeless, hopeless, and trapped – to a 12-step program and ultimately gave me a gift of being able to help others do what I did – transform their lives.
• Yes, I am a grateful compulsive overeater.  OA has given me a design for living that really works.
• Live in gratitude. Gratitude/thankfulness is an attitude, an aura that positively affects us and everyone around us.  It puts us into a positive state of mind that makes our life so much better.  Dig deeper if you can’t think of anything for which to be grateful.  There is always something. Without an attitude of gratitude, it’s easy for some of us to self-destruct into depression and feelings of meaninglessness.  When gratitude, an ‘I can’ attitude and faith are combined, we are empowered to fully live.
• Do a gratitude list every day without fail. It’s invaluable to me. Gratitude can displace self-pity, anger, and fear. Thinking about what’s good in my life crowds out the bad.  The gratitude list calms, helps put things in perspective, and somehow nurtures my spirit. I instantly feel better after doing a gratitude list. Like all the rest of the eleventh step, the gratitude list helps put me in a positive frame of mind to move through the day. It’s easy to get lost in a problem and let it color my entire life view. A gratitude list reminds me there are also many good things in my life.
• Finding things for which I am grateful improves negativity, pessimism, self-pity, depression, sadness, and changes my perspective. Look for positive things from today AND the past.
• A gratitude list not only brings perspective, but it can displace self-pity, anger, resentment, envy, fear, pride, sadness, and anxiety. It also promotes accountability.
• A gratitude list every morning is a reminder to be grateful for all I have, all I’ve done, and that I still because of my OA recovery have the opportunity to be useful to the still suffering.
• Life is a gift. I need to remember that every morning when I awake. Every day we make a choice to whether to focus on the positive or the negative. My morning eleventh step process moves my spirit from a negative charge to a positive charge. I am reminded to focus on all that I have rather than focusing always on what I don’t have – starting with being alive and free. A gratitude list is as important to my Daily Treatment Plan as prayer, meditation, reading and writing.
• It is remarkable, breathtaking, and extraordinary to weigh what OA has given me. I must continue to keep repaying by passing it on. People wonder why I do so much service. This is why. It gave me life.
• Don’t forget to be grateful for all those who have helped me along the way, and those helping me now even if it’s only by example.
• In recovery life is often better than it was even before the disease took over, thus inspiring people to say they are ‘grateful compulsive eaters.”  It’s not the disease they’re grateful for; it’s the life they have been given because of having the disease that led them to the 12-step rooms.
• Feel for God in the mountains and valley, rivers, and oceans. Therein is nourishment for my soul. Feel for God in the mind I have been given which can learn, think, and remember. Feel for God in the body I have been given that heals and renews itself. Feel for God in the spirit within me that is bigger than mind and body. God is all around me and in me. I have been given great gifts. What do I choose to do with those gifts?

Acceptance

Time has expired, so I’ll write on acceptance in the next post. I’ll leave you with three thoughts – one from the Big Book, and two from Don.

• Serenity is directly proportional to acceptance of others as they are, and the world as it is, and my situation as it is.

• I can’t control the wind, but I can adjust my sails.

• Life is insecure and unfair. Accept it, deal with it. Do my part, then let go and let God. I’m not in control of anything except my attitude and actions. Face and deal with reality rather than playing victim and eating.

Categories: Recovery