Gratitude

Reference

• Two of the exercises—using signature strengths in a new way and three good things—increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms for six months. Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. The American Psychologist, 60(5), 410–421. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.5.410
  • Three good things in life. Participants were asked to write down three things that went well each day and their causes every night for one week. In addition, they were asked to provide a causal explanation for each good thing.
  • Using signature strengths in a new way. Participants were asked to take our inventory of character strengths online at www.authentichappiness.org and to receive individualized feedback about their top five (“signature”) strengths (Peterson et al., 2005a). They were then asked to use one of these top strengths in a new and different way every day for one week.

Why it's important

• Happiness involves having gratitude for the past, enjoying the present, and being optimistic about the future. Telling a miserable story about one’s situation creates suffering. Telling oneself a more positive and grateful story increases happiness. SAMHSA. (2015). Whole Health Action Management (WHAM) Peer Support Training Participant Guide. Includes worksheet on page 29 (“Optimism Based on Positive Expectations”)
• "Many individuals with a history of substance use problems may tend to focus on their current circumstances, problems, and difficulties. A preoccupation with the negative aspects of one’s self and life may not only affect mood, but can also contribute to a “glass-half-empty” perspective and to self-defeating behaviors."
• PRACTICING GRATITUDE: Sex addicts have typically used their sexual fantasies and behaviors to numb themselves for so long that they’ve forgotten how to experience emotions—especially uncomfortable ones like anxiety, depression, shame, fear, and the like—in a healthy way. Sometimes, especially early in the recovery process, sex addicts can become overwhelmed by those feelings and lose sight of what is going right in their lives. A great way to combat this is to create a gratitude list. Writing a ten-item gratitude list nearly always counteracts almost any trigger and halts the addictive cycle. For some sex addicts, every gratitude list begins the same way: “I am grateful to be sober at this moment.” A side benefit of gratitude is that it promotes happiness. As my colleague Brené Brown notes in her book, Daring Greatly, gratitude and joy are inextricably linked. After conducting quite literally thousands of in-depth interviews examining the causes and underlying factors of happiness, Dr. Brown found one primary difference between happy people and unhappy people: happy people are grateful for what they have. Period. People who are grateful for what they have tend to focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses, and they are in general more hopeful, less stressed-out, less likely to wallow in shame and depression, and more likely to recover from an addiction. Weiss, Robert. Sex Addiction 101 (pp. 206-210). Health Communications, Inc.. Kindle Edition. 
• Obviously, the half-dozen tools listed above are hardly the full kit. Journaling, written twelve-step work, ongoing outreach to others in recovery, twelve-step sponsorship (both giving and receiving), reading recovery-related literature, changing old routines, developing healthy hobbies, prayer, meditation, and just plain “thinking it through” are just a few of the hundreds of other tools that sex addicts can use to combat their addictive patterns. Weiss, Robert. Sex Addiction 101 (p. 211). Health Communications, Inc.. Kindle Edition.