Gratitude is a core concept in recovery circles. It’s one of those things a sober person is encouraged to demonstrate. For those who work a secular program, the concept of ‘gratitude’ merits closer examination.

If you have migrated from a traditional Twelve Step recovery into a secular program, it’s hard to shake some of the old tropes. For believers, gratitude is directly connected to the idea of grace. We often hear ‘grateful to my higher power’/to God’. The slogan ‘But for the grace of God (go I)’ stares down from its vaulted position on the back wall, reminding believers that the unmerited gift of recovery is earned through submission. Well, that doesn’t fly with the rest of us. In secular recovery, we often circle back to such core concepts in order to put a secular spin on them.

Let’s take gratitude back and make it a fundamental aspect of our personal investment in self-care, rather than being a conditional obligation of dependency on a higher power. We can feel grateful for the good things in living sober, and that’s that. The process of recovery returns us to sanity and creates fertile ground for good things to grow in our lives. This is an organic process of life, it is natural, and no supernatural power is required.

Next, we can adopt new actions to reflect this feeling of gratitude. When I wake up after a sober night’s sleep, I can set a moment aside to pause and acknowledge the fact that I am sober and this is good. I can account for the good things I’ve worked for. These are acts of gratitude to start my day. Anyone can do this simple act to engage in gratitude practice.

I like to think of gratitude as a muscle. When we start out in recovery, feeling grateful is heavy lifting. The gravity of our situation makes it a challenge to get out of bed on some days. Yet through doing our daily reps we develop strength and soon we’re practising gratitude with very little effort involved.

Sure, we draw from others and from the program to find the power we need to recover, but we’re also cultivating strength—power from within—as we learn and grow in recovery.

As I’ve mentioned before, there are different kinds of power. The traditional Twelve Steps work within the paradigm of ‘power over’, as evidenced by the concept of “higher power”. But there are two other paradigms of power: ‘power with’ and ‘power from within’. We discover ‘power with’ when we recover together and ‘power from within’ when we grow in recovery. We can experience both without perpetuating the narrative of powerlessness that comes with submission to a power greater than ourselves.

If gratitude is a muscle, then going to meetings, doing service, and acknowledging how much better life is now than before is just like going to the gym. You feel better if you work it!