My recovery calendar page today says “Gratitude turns problems into blessings and the unexpected into gifts.” I am grateful for the reminder of how important gratitude lists have been to my recovery from sexaholism. During the first several months of sobriety, I wrote gratitude lists daily. My sponsor said to put 20 items on it per day. Some days I wrote them down in one sitting. On other days I kept an on-going list as my Higher Power provided the experiences.

When I was first told to write a gratitude list I was not at all sure what to put on it. Being just barely sober, I felt awful much of the time. I was shocked at how continuously I sexualized women, body parts, fantasies, places around town such as motels, conversations with women or men, and even objects in the room. I kept testing my limits by being in uncomfortable or even dangerous lust situations. As some sobriety developed, I saw how often I took drinks of lust from everyday situations and used sexual memories or anger to get drunk. These unpleasant experiences, I realized, were the material for my gratitude lists.

Although I was an atheist, I had heard enough at meetings to know that I needed a Higher Power and finally had access to one. When I began to write the gratitude lists, I decided to begin each one with “Thank You” to my Higher Power. Then I would detail the sexualizing, limit testing, fantasizing or emotion which was disturbing me. My attitude with each gratitude was to thank my Higher Power for the opportunity to surrender whatever it was I could not handle. Over the past several years I have maintained the same attitude, except that now my Thank You is addressed to God as I understand Him. The need for the list is, however, unchanged. Any day I am sober and working the Steps is due to my willingness to let God be in charge. As the Big Book says, if I “trust God, clean house and help others” I will keep getting better. Gratitude lists have been an important part of that process, one day at a time.