GIVING THANKS
With the Thanksgiving holiday in mind, we asked these clean and sober individuals how gratitude shows up in their sober lives
BY PAULO MURILLO
MY FAMILY
“I’m so grateful I’ve been able to stay sober no matter what. I’m mostly grateful for getting my family back—not just my blood family, but also family through marriage. My family is in Chile and El Salvador, so my husband’s family has stepped up. They have literally adopted me and taken me in, and we celebrate the holidays together. We go to Viselia and we actually go to meetings there. It’s a beautiful thing. Drugs gave acquaintances, but they never gave me real friends or family. My holidays before sobriety were me waiting around for you to be done with your families, so you could knock on my door looking for drugs. I didn’t have any family here. There were no Thanksgiving meals because we didn’t eat [laughs]. Today I’m gratefully for the family I’ve gained and I gained that family by staying sober one day at a time.”
—Mike Cativo, sober since May 10, 2009.
A GOOD PLACE
“Gratitude plays a big part in my sobriety. I can easily become discontent with where I am in my life. All I do is turn on the news and I see everything that is going on around the world and I think about how I have a roof over my head. I’m not in the middle of a hurricane. I’m not being drafted to go to war. I’m not in a country where I feel oppressed. Even though things aren’t that great here, it’s still way better than other places. I find myself doing a gratitude list to ground myself and remind myself that I’m in a good place. I’m going back to school, so I’m grateful I can do that, because there is yet the moment I’m not in gratitude, I can be a place where, ‘is sobriety even worth it?’ Gratitude was not in my language before I got sober. I spoke the language of complaining. There was a lot of comparing and contrasting, and a lot of jealousy.”
—Luis Pineda, sober since January 13, 2021.
THE MIRROR
“Whenever I feel like I’m in a place of no gratitude, or I have a resentment, I can quickly do a gratitude list and I remember where my life is today. I quickly have some compassion for those I resent. I’ve achieved a lot in sobriety, not just material, but personal. I have a huge life today and I owe it all to sobriety. It has helped my life. Every time I have a problem, I walk through it with my sponsor, and I ask for help. There is always someone in recovery who has gone through what I’ve gone through that can help me and I get to pass that experience to someone else. Life is always in session. We all have good days and bad days, but as long as we stay sober, we can get through it. When I think about gratitude, I think about how I’m happy with the person I’ve become. I like who’s looking back in the mirror. That hasn’t always been the case.”
—Mike Hanehan, sober since October 10, 2021.
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