For a period of about two years, my daily walks became progressively more difficult. A searing pain in my lower legs eventually became almost unbearable. I found that stopping every block or two and sitting down would make the pain temporarily subside. The best physical therapists diagnosed my problem as stenosis (a gradual closing of my lower spine) and suggested I better get used to it.
A close friend in AA suggested that a doctor at a nearby university medical center might provide some help. I was very doubtful but did go to see the man, who suggested that a surgical procedure on my lower arteries might help. It didn’t seem to make sense, but I was cajoled by my friends into the operating theater.
A three-hour procedure which installed stents into my femoral arteries brought about an almost unbelievable change. In two weeks I was walking without pain or strain. I felt remarkable surges of thankfulness as I passed the old “rest stops” without a twinge. I felt real gratitude every day.
About a month later, I found myself home from my walk and in the shower when I suddenly realized I had not noticed any gratitude as I made my round. Nothing had happened–I just had taken the pain-free condition for granted while I thought about other things.
As a result of this experience, it doesn’t seem strange to me that I sometimes forget to feel gratitude for my sobriety. After all, it’s been forty years since I drank, and it has become easy to take a sober life for granted.
This is why I must continue to work with others, to go to meetings, to be of some service to the world about me–not because these are “good” things, but rather so that I can once again be stimulated into the feelings of gratitude for this life I have found. (And which, for an alcoholic, is so easy to take for granted.)