In the Naranon meetings I attend, Gratitude Lists are strongly encouraged. It's so easy to lose sight of the good things in our lives when we're struggling with the addiction of our loved one and all the attendant issues.
My Gratitude List was a lot different when I first started out in Naranon, than it ultimately became. Initially it was a list very focused on my son...grateful he was still alive, that he hadn't OD'd, that he wasn't using as heavily, or that he was still in his right mind if he WAS using.
Over time, my Gratitude List focused on me, which for the purposes of a 12 step program is most appropriate. The more I focused on what I was grateful for, the more I realized that how many good things were in my life in spite of my son's addiction, which can so easily be an all-consuming issue overshadowing everything else in life, which is a very common problem with the loved ones of addicts.
So today, while I continue to be grateful, every single day, for my son's sobriety, I am also grateful for an abundance of other things....the unconditional love and support and protectiveness of my wonderful fiancé, the close and loving relationships I have with each of my children and grandchildren in spite of distance and other barriers (like addiction) that could so easily corrupt the relationships, and my continued good health which gives me the gift of being able to engage in the things in my life that I love to do...dance,and hike, and zip line, and ride the harley and paddle board and kayak and a myriad of other active hobbies.
The addiction of my son was wretched and awful and horrible and I thought I would lose him so many times, thought I HAD lost him several times, but it gave me a far greater appreciation for life than I would have had under other, more normal circumstances.
...........and I ran my mouth again...sorry. This was supposed to be a simple response and here i went and waxed poetic about stuff. Again. <sigh>