Oh of course there is gratitude for troubles overcome!
The most in my life is ...
Cocaine.
I am grateful to have overcome that trouble.
I remember how it was before. Before the overcoming. I remember how life was. I remember lying to people all around me because I was using all the time. I remember making up stories about why I missed work. About why I looked like shit or why my nose was always running down my chin. I remember being broke all the time and always blaming something else.
I remember the darkness of 4 am, with the sound of my heart pounding in my eardrums. I remember the lonely that it was.
I remember feeling like I could never really be happy without it. Without that fake substance putting me there. I remember thinking I would do my thesis on Freud and how he was right ... cocaine does cure depression.
I remember slowly dying. I remember going nowhere. I remember really wishing for it all to just be over already. All the while putting on a smile, a gummed out, numbed out smile. To party on, dudes.
I don't remember coming out of it, exactly. I do remember it was a lot of work.
I know it was years before I felt somewhat stable.
I know once it came, though, the actual happiness, there was no going back.
I am grateful for my daughter coming to me. I am grateful for my stance as pro-life. I am grateful that God put her here to stop me. To force me to save myself.
I am grateful for the chance to love her. And to be loved by her perfectly in return.
I am grateful for the chance to have a daughter, and form the bond I never had when I was young.
I am grateful for everything drugs took from me. And I am grateful for the space left in that place.
I am grateful for the life I found after getting high.
I wouldn't go back for a moment, not for anything.
I am lucky. I am blessed. I am grateful for it all.