Speaker 1You hear people say all the time in recovery, you need to be grateful, an attitude of gratitude. What the hell does that mean? I think about this a lot. This idea of practicing gratitude. Is it just gratitude list in the morning? Is it just being happy about what I have in my life? What is gratitude? How do we practice it? How do we treat it as something that's integral in our program? Because it is. Gratitude is one of those things that will take you out of, it's not going to solve all your problems, but it is the opposite of what addiction thrives on, which is looking at all the negatives and looking at the worst case scenario in every situation. So gratitude is doing the opposite of that and being grateful. What does that mean? How do I practice it? How do I live it? Why is it important? Everyone in recovery preaches gratitude, but almost nobody tells you it can feel completely fake when you're hurting. It's so easy to sit here and say, I'm grateful for the ability to breathe. I'm grateful for my sobriety. I'm grateful for my recovery, which are all true things, but what does that actually mean? How do I actually practice gratitude and show up in my life to live more gratefully, to live more in appreciation rather than what I'm missing, to look at all the things that I have in my life rather than all the things that I need or want or think I need and want? How do I match up my needs with my wants? That is the ultimate goal in my experience, my opinion. Welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud podcast. My name is Anthony. I'm an addict and alcoholic in recovery. I've been in recovery since 2015. I had a relapse at about the seven and a half, eight year mark. I'm coming back. I'm sober again and I am grateful to be alive. And what I mean by that is I should be dead. The way I was using, the way I was partying, the people I was hanging out with, the situations I put myself in, I should be dead and I'm not. So I have a choice. Do I keep living the way I was living and gamble with life, gamble with drugs, gamble with my future, or do I work on my recovery program every single day and give back? I'm going to go with the latter today because I'm happier when I'm living in recovery. I'm going to go with the latter today because I'm happier when I'm giving back. To keep it, you got to give it away. So just to get current, I get a lot of messages on Instagram and I've been talking back and forth with a few people that are trying to get sober, need to get sober, want to get sober. Their life is a mess. They're asking me for advice. I tell them the same thing I tell everybody else, which is what I did to get and stay sober, not what to do because addicts and alcoholics, we don't take that well. I don't take direction from anybody telling me what to do unless I'm absolutely sober. I don't take direction from anybody telling me what to do unless I'm absolutely desperate to do it. It's a learned skill. And this leads me into my next point of, if you ask advice to get sober and I tell you what I did to get and stay sober and your very next sentence is some sort of, yeah, but, or I'm different or I have kids or yeah, but yeah, I have a job and yeah, just stop. Go continue using your drugs and alcohol because you're not done yet. That sounds harsh because it is. Addiction is not, there's no sugarcoating this. You're not done using yet. If you were done using and drinking, you would do whatever it took to get help. So when I tell you what I did, you wouldn't even think twice. Just my opinion, just my experience. When I went back to rehab for the third time, I didn't want to stay 60 days. I didn't want to do any of that shit. I didn't even want to go back to rehab, but I was done. How do you know when you're done? When you're willing to do whatever it takes to stay sober. They told me to go left. I go left. Told me to go right. I go right. Don't question it. Instead of asking why, say what next. That might save your life. Please. I love the messages though. Continue to message me on Instagram. I answer every single one and I'm grateful for all the people that are following along and supporting the journey. So I complain on here a lot and I'm going to get into gratitude, but I want to talk about this first. I complain a lot on here about my life and where I'm at. And I try not to complain, but I'm going to say it's because I try to give solutions to my negative circumstances in my life. Here's something that works for me. Solutions. My problem lately, if you've been following along, thank you. And you know that my problem, something I talk about a lot on here is that I am in fear a lot of future, fear of outcomes, fear of doing the next thing, fear of what if this happens, fear of doing things I ought to be doing because they're part of my recovery program. Even just showing up in life, I'm having trouble. I'm having trouble with my life. I'm having trouble with my life. I'm having trouble getting motivated, which is a very dangerous word or very, I use that loosely because motivation is not something that you should look for. It's not something that lasts. Motivation is a quick flash in the pan that gets you started. The spark that gets you going, you go to a meeting and you get motivated. You listen to a podcast, you get motivated. Motivation isn't going to see you through to the end. I've been unmotivated to do the things I ought to be doing in my life, social situations, but also recovery events. I have this narrative in my mind that says, I don't really want to do that. That's going to suck. That's going to be this way. I have to do this. I don't want to do this. Something that's been working for me is acting as if I am someone who wants to do that thing. Okay. It sounds simple and maybe stupid to you, but it works. It's been working for me. Act as if you are blank. So for me, it's acting as if I am someone that loves doing recovery stuff that gets enthusiastic about doing recovery stuff. Someone that loves having plans, social gatherings, whatever the thing that I'm struggling to do is act as if you are that person. What would that person do? And it's a small, quick mindset shift in the moment when you're struggling, when you're going through it and you don't feel like it and your brain is telling you this and that it's going to suck. And I can't, it's a quick mindset shift where it's, Hey, what if I was someone that actually wanted to do this? What if I was someone that actually wanted to do this? What if I was someone that was excited about doing this? And that's been working for me. Honestly, it's, it's so simple, but just that quick shift brings me out of self. What can I bring to the event? What can I bring instead of what can I get? I talk about that a lot in my selfishness episode, be a giver, not a taker and it works. Okay. Back to gratitude. What this video is and isn't it's not be positive and your problems disappear. Definitely not that it is a real look at gratitude as a tool, what it really does, why it's hard and how to practice it without lying to yourself. By the end, you'll understand why gratitude is one of the most underrated tools in recovery and have practices. They can actually, you can actually use. Okay. Section one, what gratitude actually is in recovery. So I think there's a difference between gratitude and then this performance version of gratitude where we're putting on a show to show people that we're grateful and maybe it's, it's smoke and mirrors. There's no substance behind it. There's no depth and weight performative versus real gratitude. Performative equals I'm blessed, grateful for everything when nothing behind it with nothing behind it. Hashtag blessed. Remember that that might still be a thing. Now, real gratitude is noticing something true, even something small, especially when it's hard.
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Speaker 1the fact that I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a situation where I'm in a I was at a meeting the other day where the girl was talking about how she could walk down the TTC stairs. Now, when she couldn't do that for a long time, she couldn't walk downstairs because alcohol had made her body so weak at one point that she was unable to get downstairs. What a gift. I can walk downstairs today. What a gift. So this is the difference between posting a gratitude caption on your Instagram or Twitter X. Facebook and actually feeling grateful for a quiet morning. You didn't drink through. Remember when is an important one here. Try to remember some of your worst memories in addiction and alcoholism. What did that look like? What were the look on the faces of the people around you? I remember when I was 23, one of my first treatment center coming home three in the morning. Our flight was at five in the morning to go to Minnesota from Toronto. My mom hadn't slept that night. Obviously I was coming home. I was coming home from a bender and I'll never forget the look on her face when I walked in that her, the sheer terror on her face. I have to get my son to the airport, to a treatment center. He might disappear. He might die. I can't even imagine what was going through her mind. I tried to, but being a parent is hard and I have no idea what it's like. Be nice to your mom and your dad. They've been through a lot. If you're grateful, if you're lucky and grateful enough to have them alive still, be grateful that you have parents. If you do, I put my mom through hell and my dad and my wife. Be grateful that they haven't left if they haven't left. And if they have left, nothing is permanent. First of all, just keep doing what you're doing and maybe they'll come back. I'm not going to sit here and promise that recovery gives back all relationships. I've seen it give back a lot of relationships and repair a lot of damage. Not all. We drag people through the mud. Don't ever forget that. Own your shit. Clean your side of the street and don't worry about anyone else forgiving you or healing because you can't do it. You're powerless over other people's healing and their journey. Give it time. Be patient. Okay. Next gratitude is not denial. It doesn't mean pretending the hard stuff didn't happen or doesn't hurt. You can be grateful and still in pain. Both can be true at once. This is something that separates gratitude from toxic positivity. You can be grateful for your pain. I'm grateful for my rock bottoms. I'm grateful for a lot of the suffering I went through. On my Instagram the other day, someone commented, I see this a lot, where I post about cocaine psychosis and drug-induced psychosis and people say, this never happened to me and I've been using coke for 70,000 years. Weird flex. Okay. Super weird flex to brag about using coke. And not hitting psychosis. I wouldn't put that on my resume. Just saying. I almost feel sorry for those people. And I don't mean this in any condescending way or that I'm better. Could you imagine if you never suffered some of the bottoms you've suffered? You wouldn't be in recovery. You would just be floating along the middle low potential line the rest of your life. Most people will not have enhanced performance with drugs. Actually, I might go on a limb here and say probably 99% of people are hurting their true potential by using drugs. And I'm not including medication and stuff like that, but you never know what a punishment and curse to use cocaine for the rest of your life or any drugs for the rest of your life and not have consequences. That's just the way it is. That's just my opinion anyways. I'm grateful for my consequences. They brought me into recovery faster. They gave me a toolkit and a spiritual connection. My life is amazing today and it's not perfect and it's not something I would write home about every day and sunshine and rainbows, but fuck is it better than the way I was living. And fuck did I under sell myself and my abilities. I wouldn't have been able to do this without recovery. I wouldn't have been able to start a podcast. I wouldn't have been able to do this without recovery. I wouldn't have been able to start a podcast. I would have been run by fear and that voice saying, what's the point? Don't do it. It's too much work. What a gift. What a gift to have consequences as a result of your addiction. Be grateful for it. Gratitude is a practice, not a personality trait. Some people aren't naturally grateful. That's fine. It's a skill you build with reps like anything else in recovery. Yes, this is me. 100%. I am not naturally grateful. I don't gravitate toward all the good things in life. I don't wake up in the morning and say, oh man, I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to go to that meeting. That person's going to be so excited to see me. What a beautiful day. That is not my default thought when I wake up or in most situations. My default is noticing all the wrong or the potential negative outcomes in every scenario. I'm like a movie screen projector projecting the director's cut and 30 other negative cuts onto the screen everywhere I go. I have to force myself to build this skill over and over again, whether it's through gratitude lists or reminding myself that I have it pretty fucking good. Thinking about things. I heard this on a podcast the other day. Gratitude for this guy. I think it was Hormozy that said it. He practices gratitude by thinking about something that he has. So let's say your relationship with your husband or partner or wife or your kid. And then think about losing it. Whatever that thing is. And then think about the fact that you haven't lost it yet. And he says that that space is gratitude. That gap is gratitude. Realizing that you have something and you realizing that you could lose something and then coming back to reality and seeing that you do have it is gratitude in his mind. I like that. I don't love it. I like it. Like anything else, gratitude is a skill. Most of us aren't naturals at it. Like most, like anything, you're going to be a beginner at it, at it. You're going to struggle at the beginning. It's not going to come easy. Got to work at it. Okay. Section two, why it matters. What's the point of gratitude? Why should we care about gratitude? Why should we practice it? What does it do for me? What's the point, Anthony? Tell me, please. It, so first it rewires what you pay attention to. Addiction narrows focus to the next fix, next escape, the next relief, the next party. Gratitude widens it back to what is actually here. So think about it like a bird's eye view. Gratitude is sucking up at 300,000 feet above ground. And you're looking down at all the beautiful things in the world. You are reframing the circumstance to look at all the possibilities or all the positives instead of that's bad because it's going to hurt me. It's going to ruin my life. It's not going to benefit me. And that's why it's bad. End of story. This sort of black or white thinking this catastrophizing. What's the point? It's going to be bad. I know it's going to be bad because we're mind readers and future tellers, fortune tellers. Think about how many times in your life, something really terrible has turned out to be actually a gift. Life is lived forward and understood in reverse. You might have to think hard at this one, but I guarantee you, you can. My addiction is a perfect example. I thought this was a curse. I thought my life was over. It turns out to be pretty good. I met my wife because of recovery. I met a lot of cool people in recovery. The job I have now is in recovery as a result of recovery. I met a lot of cool people in recovery. The job I have now is in recovery as a result of recovery. I met a lot of cool people in recovery. I met a lot of cool people in recovery. I got promotions at work the last time as a result of my recovery program. I've been trying to do this thing lately where I just say yes to things and show up and follow the thread. Jen talked about this on my podcast last time on the episode with Jen B and Generation Women. She talked about just following the thread and just showing up to things and having them turn out to be bigger than she wanted to be. The connections as a result of her showing up to said thing were just mind-blowing and opened her eyes and opened the opportunities to so many other things. What are you not saying yes to in your life today that maybe you should be saying yes to or ought to be saying yes to? You never know where showing up could lead to, what it could lead to, what outcome, what person you might run into that you haven't seen in a while that might benefit you both down the road. You just never know. Say yes. Gratitude practices are broadly associated with improved well-being and lower negative emotion in general populations. This is a study from Emmons and McCullough's work and it's a usual citation that we use for this. Gratitude as a scientific outcome in study. One more, one point I like about this gratitude thing and why we do it is I want you to think about this. If you have so many beautiful things in your life that you, you stand to lose. So let's say you come into recovery. You've been doing this for a while. You built a life that you don't want to escape from anymore. And you have these things that if you were to relapse, you would lose 100% without a doubt. Relationships, houses, cars, kids. Gratitude forces me, forces us, to look at all the positive things in our life that we stand to lose if we relapse or if we stop working a recovery program. If you have all of these things in your life and you have a connection with a power greater than yourself that I choose to call God, you can call it whatever you want. If you have a connection to a power greater than yourself, your community, your, the sun, the stars, whatever, there's nothing that alcohol can fix in your life. Think about that for a for a second. Today, my life is good enough to the point where I don't have to fix anything with drugs and alcohol. There's nothing in my life today that a drink won't make worse. There's nothing to fix because I just have the usual human problems that I'm spinning on myself. All of my problems are of my own making. I don't have problems. I have a bad perception today. I am looking at things through my lens only. Being in debt is a good example. This past year, I have learned to budget. I have learned what is important in my life that I don't need Amazon things. I don't need shoes or clothes to be happy. I've proved that to myself now. I'm the kind of guy that needs to be beat over the head repeatedly to prove a point to. I have to scrape my knee many times before I finally accept that. If you build a good recovery program and connect to this power, you will notice that you have nothing to fix. Alcohol cannot fix anything in your life because there's nothing to fix. There's nothing to escape. You love yourself so much that you don't want to escape yourself. You are whole. You are connected. Why would I drink? Why would I do drugs? What's it going to do for me? Think about that. All right, section three, why gratitude is hard, especially early or after a relapse. There's a lot of resistance here. So early sobriety can come with flattened mood, reduced ability to feel pleasure, which is anhedonia. Gratitude can feel mechanical at first, and that's normal, not failure. Shame gets in the way. After a relapse, gratitude can feel like you haven't earned it. A lot of people feel it, and think they're alone. So I mean, yeah, there's nothing to earn here, right? I don't deserve nice things. That's the other thing that happens with me. I don't deserve it. And maybe it's on a subconscious level. You might not even realize that you're doing it, but shame can get in the way. Your brain is literally rewired after you're using drugs. Your mood is flat, and that takes time. I wanted to use cocaine every day for three months when I came back this time. I had to call my mentor every single day. At some points in my three months when I came back. So it was two months after rehab. So it was my first three months out of rehab in 2025. I was thinking about doing it every day. Where does that come from? It comes from my brain is still wired to think that cocaine will fix all my problems. What are my problems? Me, my emotions, my thoughts. I want to escape. It's uncomfortable. My skin is on fire in early recovery. You're not doing it wrong. Gratitude's hard. It's easier to look at all the negative things in my life than to the positive. That's the way we're wired. We're scanning for threats constantly. It's a human. We were scared of bears at one point. That was why our nervous systems were wired to run from bears. And now we get anxiety from group chats. It's not, our system isn't lined up. We're getting anxiety from a reel on social media. We're scanning for threats in messages on text message. That person isn't doing it right. They're not doing it right. They're not doing it right. They're not doing it right. They're not doing it right. They're not doing it right. They're not doing it right. They didn't text me back. And now I'm in fear that they don't like me anymore. This is the same nervous system that had to face a beer, a beer, a bear thousands of years ago. Give yourself a break. The fake gratitude trap. So forcing it can backfire and feel like lying. The fix isn't to force harder. It's to go smaller and more specific. Get real specific with the things you're grateful for. I'm grateful. I don't have a heart condition after all the stimulants I used. I even went to the hospital because I was having a panic attack one time. Turns out my heart is okay. Probably shouldn't be like that the way I was using, but it is gratitude. Okay. Section four, how to actually practice it.
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Speaker 1Go specific, not generic. Not, I'm grateful for my life. I'm grateful for my recovery. Try this. I'm grateful. I woke up without a hangover and remembered last night. I'm grateful. My friends trust me again with their cars, their babies, their plans. Specificity is what makes it land instead of bounce off. This is why gratitude lists are so important. Writing it down, getting it out. Gratitude is hard in the moment, not just the good day. The real rep is finding one true thing when everything feels bad. Not stacking a list when you're already fine. Yeah, it's easy to be grateful when things are going well. It's also easy not to need God when things are going well. And that's why a lot of people relapse. I don't need this recovery program. I don't need a higher power anymore because I'm good. Look how big my life is. I did all of this. Honest gratitude lists. So if you journal, be honest about it when it worked and when it felt like homework. Don't sell the journal as a magic fix. Yeah, this is not a fix that is going to change your life. But if you take the time in the morning to think about all the specific things you're grateful for that you stand to lose, if you pick up a drink or drug, write them down and look at that list and just really pause and reflect without distraction on your phone or TV that you made it here to this point. Okay, let's get into the gratitude as an action because I think it is an action. It's not just a feeling. Gratitude toward people. Telling someone directly, adjacent to a man's work but lighter. Naming what someone did for you in early recovery. Hey, Brittany, I'm really thankful that you showed up for me and took me to a meeting that day. Hey, Tommy, I'm really grateful that you drove me to that detox that one time. If someone pops into your mind that helped you along the way, write them down, call them, reach out to them and tell them you're grateful for them. Gratitude as an action. Give back what was so freely given to you. If somebody showed you how to get sober like me, now bring it to the next person. Be a mentor to somebody else and you don't need to be in 12-step recovery to do this. Find someone that's struggling, whether it's at a meeting or at a treatment center or detox and offer them a way of life that was given to you. Give back what was so freely given to you. Gratitude is an action. An attitude of gratitude. Gratitude for the boring wins of sobriety. Sleep, money in the account, phone with no texts you have to be afraid of, no apologies you have to make the next day. The unglamorous stuff is often the most real. The fact that you had enough breakfast this morning. The fact that your air conditioning has been working. The roof is over your head. Get specific. Section five, traps to avoid. Gratitude as bypassing. So using it to skip past a feeling instead of a real feeling instead of sitting with them. Comparison gratitude. At least I'm not as bad as them. It works in the short term but not the long term. Yeah, this is at least I'm not poor thing. Never. Don't compare yourself. Comparison is the thief of joy. Forcing it. Back to section three, the answer is smaller and more honest, not louder. In conclusion, today we talked about why addicts are so ungrateful by default. What to do looking for how to actually practice gratitude. What traps to avoid. Real gratitude isn't denial, isn't performance, isn't forced. It's noticing what is true and it's a skill built over repetition, not a mood. If you're not following the podcast yet, please follow on Spotify or any platform that you're following on. Message me on Instagram at recoveringalloutpod. I love to see the messages. Keep up the good work, everyone. I love to see the day counters. Fires me up. I'm grateful for my audience today. When I started this podcast, I didn't know what was going to happen. I did it to stay sober and to maybe help one person. Today, we're almost at, we're at 4,000. I'm not going to 4,000 followers, which is cool. And we're getting, we're growing, right? Not every day is, I look at it way too much. If I'm being honest, I'm way too upset. obsessive about results right now. And I need to focus on inputs, not outputs to work in progress. So I just, I'm grateful for every single one of you listening. I'm grateful for everyone that's following me and messaging me and sharing their experiences. And just, I'm grateful for people that are trying to do things differently. If you're not happy with the way your life is going, move into action instead of contemplation or ideas or looking for, waiting for motivation. Just go and do one right thing. And you know what the right thing to do is. We all know what the right thing to do is. It's fear that keeps us stuck. So go and do it. If no one's told you this yet today, I love you. Recovery is simple. This episode is brought to you by TXU Energy.
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