***The Gratitude Attitude Challenge***

I'm grateful for a slow start to the work year, an opportunity to practice compassion with my peers at work, 4 days sober, an appointment with my therapist today, central heating, the health to do more than 10,000 steps each day.

 

Today I am very grateful for discovering the powers of cold shower..
I am grateful for having the courage and willpower to engage in important social situations today despite having internal resistance.

Grateful for a third solid day without any PMO or screen abuse or even sextual fantasies..

 

I am grateful for the freedom to sleep late and get a good night's rest, cuddles from my wife, the treadmill and ability to exercise at home in the cold, starting the new year with more acceptance and patience.

 

I'm grateful
- that I survived Thursday without a relapse
- for day 12! (probably the second one in in my life)
- for my hobbies that drive me through nofap journey
- for the people on this forum
- for low urges

 

I am grateful for

• having capacities to go to the gym
• my NoFap motivation
• this thread being vivid

 

I'm grateful
- for the return of motivation
- for a clean night
- for the sunny morning which affects my mood positively

 

I'm grateful:
- for surviving a day that was full of unreasonable anxiety
- for going to the dentist
- for meditation
- for La Casa de Papel that helped me distract myself during day from resetting

 

I' m grateful
- that I'm calmer than yesterday
- that it' s my day off so i' m gonna pursue my personal goals
- for meditation

 

New here. Posting my first post in this forum. I relapsed after a 14 day streak. The one before that was 18.
1.) I am grateful that I have gotten to a bi-weekly frequency and will continue to make even more progress.

I wanted to just quickly explain why I am on this forum and then I will stick to the only gratitude-based comments.

Here is a quote from my accountability board:

"I relapsed at say 9/10ish and after being a sleep for 3ish hours, I woke up to one of the most bizarre experiences I've had in my life. It felt like there was a literal presence in my room. I had what felt like a cold anxiety attack on one half of my body. I then had a minor anxiety attack for about 2ish hours; body chills, shortness of breath, chest tightness, tiredness. I do not know if this was a 'relapse symptom' as opposed to a 'withdrawal symptom' that was going to come anyways with or without the relapse but... it was one of the scariest experiences I've ever had. The uniqueness and just how absolutely bizarre the experience was I cannot put in to words. I think this is the first time that I was able to see a truly addictive-related response. Like, I SEE YOU NOW. I mean, urges are one thing. To go through an experience that almost feels as if reality itself is revolting against me and using my body to do so... it was frightening and totally bizarre. The experience that I had was unpresented and literally ineffable.. I don't have the vocabulary in the English language to properly articulate what exactly it is I went through."

After articulating that response, I looked up "night terror." I found a comment on this board describing a night terror. It was left by BushidoWarrior... FROM 2015! Everyone on this forum, sharing in their transparency, are helping people almost a decade or more later! That's amazing!

2.) I am grateful that, being 40 and handicapped as a the result of a medical misdiagnosis that did not identify severe permanent nerve damage that forced me into a career change, having to leave behind almost two decades of skills and work experience, I still have the opportunity to pursue new skills in an area of interest (current comp-sci senior) and redeem me life in the face of other people's mistakes doing tremendous damage. Some people end up homeless/severely addicted to opioids/etc. because of the random tragedies that hit person A and not person B for no given reason other than we live in the world we live.

3.) Piggy-backing on 2, I am grateful I do not live in a war-ravaged area or am born into situations like the war-torn Hamas/Israeli conflict area. There are so many other ways we could all articulate similar sentiment. Being born with cancer, etc.

4.) I am grateful that, because some of the above points, and others, I have the opportunity to create another life for myself that I can then use to help others who are down and out.

5.) I am grateful that I truly am blessed with a family that loves me and has always been supportive - it wasn't until I got older that I was able to REALLY see this for what it is and appreciate it.

6.) I am grateful that, as I work to overcome this struggle, I do not have on top of that, the typical amount of responsibilities that I'm used to having on my shoulders.

7.) I am grateful that God in Christ, revealed himself to me at the darkest point in my life (when I was 29) and saved me from my philosophical-materialist nihilism and gave me hope, identity, purpose... all the things that absolute and final redemption brings.

8.) I am grateful for a forum such as this one and all those who participate in it through their transparency and their pursuit of a better, cleaner, and more positively impactful version of themselves.

 

I am grateful for this forum and for the change to learn from and grow with others and to draw inspiration from their efforts and progress.
As SAA puts it:

I put my hand in yours and together we can do what we could never do alone. No longer is there a sense of hopelessness. No longer must we each depend upon our own unsteady willpower. We are all together now, reaching out our hands for a power and strength greater than ours; and as we join hands, we find love and understanding beyond our wildest dreams.

 

I'm grateful for the book by Stefanie Stahl about the inner child. I bought yesterday after advice from someone on the forum. I woke up with a chaser but instead of resetting I started reading and taking notes. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day for me - but I want to score a clean day. Good luck, everyone.

 

I'm grateful that God gave me everything i have:
I'm grateful I live in country without a war
I'm grateful I live i nice city where i have comfortable apartment for me and my family.
I'm grateful I have wonderful wife and its a shame I'm unable to create a better relations with her
I'm grateful for my 2 fantastic kids. Grate daughter and son.
I'm grateful for my decent health and look. For my good education. For my job.
I'm grateful for having still both parents that tries always to support me.

 

I am grateful that I can, at any time, (as I did yesterday) go for a walk with my Father who loves me very much and walk his dog at any one of many near by parks that are safe.

This single point of gratitude stands ON MANY other things I can be grateful for:
1.) Having a family that truly loves me,
2.) having access to many different forms of leisure/enjoyment,
3.) having the kind of relationship with family where we can talk about my anxiety in a supportive/non-judgmental context,
4.) having civil development,
5.) civil engineers,
6.) the necessary local bodies that organize, manage, and maintain this, allowing it to be a reality,
7.) a government that is not so corrupt that this is possible (of course no government is perfect),
8.) and an economy that functions well enough and allows all these things to be possible.

I'm sure I could rattle off a few dozen things to be thankful for. I won't... tomorrow needs some gratitude too!

This forum, asking me to exercise gratitude, has really shown me exactly how much I have to be grateful for. As one additional thing to be grateful for, this process is have the natural effect on reframing my thinking. It's doing it in such a way that I don't have to 'follow the therapists rules,' sit down and actually be intentional about exerting the necessary effort to reshape how I think. It's happening as an effortless by product!

What a great forum! One more thing... I'm grateful that I am not the only one on this forum. I am grateful that all of you participating in this forum get to experience the benefits of said forum. I'm grateful that we get to witness one another participating in this forum - being positively influenced by one another and what we read that has been written by others.

Thank you all for your participation!

Blessings and encouragement!

 

Its been a few months since I have been on here. Good to see the thread active!
1/30
Today I am grateful for...

being able bodied.
going to mass.
a bed to sleep in and a roof over my head.

 

2/30 Today I am grateful for...

nicer weather.
hearing the birds singing.
eating nice food.

 

3/30 today I am grateful for...

hope.
getting through a tough period.
the gift of life.

 

4/30 today I am grateful for...

60 days on my counter.
the gift of sobriety.
a new day.

 

I am grateful for a few days of sobriety, nothing like beating the chasers to give one a little more optimism and motivation

 

5/30 Today I am grateful for...

getting onto the next stage of a possible new job.
hearing the birds singing this morning.
a cup of coffee.