Moreover, gratitude can make you more positive and more proactive in every area of your life. Doing so will also help you feel better equipped to work through difficult times throughout your life. During times like these, it may be especially tempting to resort back to old, familiar ways of coping that involves drug/alcohol abuse. However, if you have already been consistently practicing gratitude, these moments may not cause you to falter as they have before. Gratitude allows you to realize that, despite unfortunate seasons, your life still has so much good; and that is well worth feeling positive about.
Research into the benefits of regular gratitude practices shows an increase in the body’s ability to fight illness including reducing the risk of heart failure. As mentioned, when a person begins to think negatively it often just grows and grows until they are upset, angry, bitter, and eventually resentful. When you begin to think good thoughts they too will grow and grow. This is true for both negative thinking, positive thoughts, and gratitude. When we begin thinking negative thoughts or finding something wrong with a person or situation, these thoughts grow.
How Gratitude Can Help During Addiction Recovery
You stub your toe on the way out of bed or you spill your coffee all over your clean shirt? For a lot of people, this seemingly negative event sets off a train of thought and then everything gratitude in recovery seems to go wrong for the rest of the day. You’ll hear people say, “I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning.” This reflects the negative thinking that just draws more and more to it.
- But instead of viewing recovery as an endless road with an invisible finish line that’s hundreds of miles away, you can set recovery goals to help you move forward with focus and ease.
- This self-absorbed mentality often stays with an addict throughout recovery.
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- However, if you are able to take that negative event and laugh it off or just forget about it, the day often turns around and is a good one.
- Integrating gratitude into your daily life can bring positivity and happiness.
- This can help you counteract the negative thoughts and emotions that fuel addiction.
- You can set goals that help you reframe your thinking, set up healthy habits and create positive outcomes in your life.
Say positive affirmations to yourself in the mirror, or write them down on sticky notes and place them around your home. The more you repeat these affirmations, the more you will internalize them and feel their effects. Try setting a consistent schedule for your gratitude activity by doing it in the morning when you wake up or at night before you go to sleep.
How to Practice Gratitude in Recovery (and why it matters)
When we honor and appreciate other people’s assets, we create a safe environment where they, too, can feel happy and grateful, and they benefit from our presence. In active addiction, we struggled with https://ecosoberhouse.com/ the concept of having enough. Moments of quiet contentment were few and far between because our brain was often demanding alcohol or other drugs, and our addiction gave us little choice in the matter.
What to Expect at Your First AA Meeting – Verywell Mind
What to Expect at Your First AA Meeting.
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Choose to go to new, drug free places rather than old hangouts connected to your addiction. Find new friends instead of people who are still using drugs or alcohol. Make a deliberate effort to replace old drug related behaviors and thoughts with new, positive ones.
Learning to be Grateful
It turns challenges into valuable life lessons and problems into opportunities. It also ensures that the loving, helpful people around you aren’t being overlooked. Although some people seem to be naturally gracious and optimistic, being grateful is a choice that you can make on an ongoing basis. The chips that you earn at AA and NA meetings are examples of performance goals. They celebrate your success in staying sober for specific increments of time.
Additionally, it can foster a sense of spirituality, which can be a source of strength and guidance for many people in recovery. These conditions can make recovery more challenging and increase the risk of relapse. Research has found that gratitude practice reduces psychological distress, such as stress, anxiety, depression, and anger. Gratitude can help you cope with the difficulties of recovery by boosting your emotional resources and strengthening your coping skills. Take time to look at yourself and your life and be grateful to yourself.
Myth 4: Gratitude is hard to practice
Incorporating gratitude into your daily life doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. By making small changes in your mindset and habits, you can reap tremendous benefits that will improve your mental health and overall well-being. By doing something kind or helpful for someone else, we not only bring happiness into their lives but also cultivate feelings of joy and satisfaction within ourselves.
