When I first was admitted to treatment, I was told to find a higher power.

“You have got to be kidding!  That is the very thing I gave up on!”

The difference this time was that I wasn’t told to find God.  I was told to find a higher power of my own understanding.  I didn’t even know what that meant.  You can just pick and choose? I didn’t know you could do that. I just knew that the religious God, the one that decided if you go to heaven or hell, the one who constantly stood judgment against me, the one who asked me to pray and didn’t answer anyway and the one who caused my suffering (or allowed it), didn’t work for me.  My assignment was to write down all the things that I didn’t want in a higher power, which was the easy part.  Then I was instructed to write down what I could understand a higher power to be.

I was told to throw away anything that I ever believed about God.  We were going to start over.  I think my family and especially my teenage children had a difficult time with this.  It appeared that I had turned my back on everything that I taught them and everything that I believed in.  Maybe I did for a time.  But for me, it was like building muscle.  In order to get stronger you have to break it down first.  The beginning of finding a higher power of my own understanding had to be rudimentary.  God is love and understanding.

Over the years my understanding has developed and deepened.  Today I maintain that if I can define God, then God is too small to keep me sober.  For me a higher power is all encompassing.

One of the first things I was taught in treatment was that I am not a victim.  Very few of us are.  Children are victims.  As adults we are usually not victims, we are volunteers.  Today I have problems with any religion that tells me that I need a savior. I quit thinking of myself as a victim a long time ago. I think that my higher power has given me all I need to save myself.  He’s already done it all and given it all.  I think that pain is a part of life, but suffering is optional.  I get to decide.  Once I think of myself as a victim, a drink is close by.  I think of my higher power as energy that I can tap into at any time.  I can also shut it off.  I can’t define it.  I can’t see it.  I know it’s there because when I consciously choose to tap into it, my path is enlightened, I feel inspired and I’m at peace.  When I choose not to tap into it I develop resentment, I become whiney and I begin to think of myself as a victim of society, my job, my family.  I always get to choose.

It took me years to learn to tap into it.  It began by choosing to notice the things that I was grateful for.  I’m an ingrate by nature.  When my heart is grateful for what I have, I no longer have to worry about what I don’t have.  When my heart is grateful for what I have, it’s easier for me to let go of those things that I don’t really want in my life, jobs, relationships or junk around the house.  Gratitude makes the path clearer and makes forgiveness easier.  I’ve never seen anyone unhappy that is truly grateful for what they have.

It is easier said than done.  I began by writing a gratitude list every day.  I wrote down my small one bedroom apartment that I lived in with my three children.  I didn’t feel grateful for it, but I wrote it down.  I wrote down my old minivan that I was paying high payments on with a 9.9% interest rate.  I wrote down each one of my children individually and that they were experiencing good health.  I wrote down that I was going to college and that I had a part time job. I wrote down that I was grateful for my ex-husband and the part that he’s played in my life. In the beginning I really thought that I deserved better and that I should have more.  After writing the same list every day for about 6 weeks, I began noticing a shift.  I actually felt grateful.

It’s a funny thing about gratitude, in the laws of chemistry as well as the laws of life, like attracts like.  Shortly afterward, I was able to move into a bigger apartment.  My relationship with my oldest son improved.  My ex-husband and I became friends and began working together instead of against each other. My part time job started paying more money. My life continued to improve from there.

Now whenever I find myself wanting something, I begin to achieve it by first counting my blessings.  Make no mistake. Gratitude is the conduit that ties me into the energy of my higher power who I choose to call God.

So just for today, I think I’ll count my blessings.