I’m grateful for a little fun and excitement. I’m grateful in advance for some basketball this morning. I’m grateful for time with a sponsee and a chance to deepen my own understanding. I’m grateful for the chance to do the work and for what the work has accomplished. I’m grateful for cinnamon rolls and coffee. I’m grateful to be sober today.
One of the many things I love about living here in New York, and particularly the Upper East Side, is that there are dogs roughly everywhere1 and since I love dogs, this is mostly a good thing.2 Here’s another thing that’s mostly good:
As they say, Tommy brought the thunder to Breakfast with an Alcoholic. One of the things that we talked about and that will be discussed in the Liner Notes in more detail, is the idea of praying for one’s enemies. Tommy mentioned that one of his favorite passages in the Big Book is this:
If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent you will be free.
Big Book, p. 552
Of course, he made me underline that passage.
When I first started hearing people talking about the idea of praying for your enemies, I thought it was just more evidence of exactly how insane and random Alcoholics Anonymous was. I had a very difficult time seeing how doing all of this stuff3, was somehow going to keep me sober. Oddly, that belief coincided with a rather long period of alcoholic drinking. Now, I see that it’s a very similar exercise to writing a gratitude list. It’s not sunshine and kittens over here every day and there are plenty of mornings when I sit staring at the screen wondering what the f*** I’m going to be grateful for.4 The gratitude list has become, for me, an important way of reframing things, keeping the right perspective, turning that frown upside-down.5 Finding a way to be grateful for things that I really, really didn’t want to happen is not easy, but it has also become a lynchpin of my sobriety.
More on that on Thursday when the Liner Notes will definitely be released.
Thanks for Letting Me Share
Note to those visiting NYC: This means that there is also dog poop roughly everywhere. Sorry!
I’m not 100% sure about this, but think I was probably a dog in the last life and I think that worked out great and I got promoted. Or did I?
I probably called it “nonsense.”
No, I do not write these in advance. I sit down here with my cup of coffee around 6:30 most mornings and get to work. I have heard suggestions that my frequent expressions of gratitude for coffee are simply a way of filling space. Or, I really love coffee and it’s an important part of my life. You don’t hear me going on about my gratitude for any other kind of juice or sports drink, do you?
In that spirit, I should probably apologize for footnote 4, it was kind of harsh. Sorry.
You’re manifesting positivity with your gratitude each day!!
Manhattan, melting pot of people, also dogs....noted!