Wild Turkey
by John James Audubon

It’s Thanksgiving again (or Thanksgivikkah this year, if you will), and around this time it’s inevitable that thousands of recovery meetings will respond with lots of sharing about gratitude. Just about anyone who’s breathing and taking nourishment has something to be thankful for, and it does us good to bring those things out and look at them from time to time.  This is one of those times.

My wife says she’s tired of gratitude meetings until she’s in one, and I agree.  People may be a bit repetitive when they share, but those folks aren’t talking for our benefit, they’re sharing for themselves: their own experience, the strength it has given them, and their hopes for the future. What more appropriate time to do so than on a national holiday dedicated to overeating and football being thankful for the good things life has given us?

Who has more reason to be thankful than us recovering alcoholics and other addicts? We are in remission from a deadly disease, and through the help of a Higher Power (however we may understand it) and the other people in our lives, we will be able to maintain that remission indefinitely, thanks to the skills we’ve learned and the progress we’ve made. People die from this disease — hundreds of them, every day of the year. Thanksgiving, too.  But we don’t have to!

Happy Thanksgivikkah! And thanks for being part of my recovery (you are, you know)!

Related articles

• The Beauty of the Gratitude List (chavonneawright.wordpress.com)
• Finding Gratitude: For Thanksgiving…my Thanksgiving (middlesage.com)
• Adding Gratitude into your holidays (createbalanceandfindinghappiness.wordpress.com)