Success in Addiction Recovery
Grateful people experience a happiness in their life that individuals who lament their lot in life, find it hard to obtain. Being grateful is not about what material possessions you may have. A 
millionaire may be frustrated and fed up with his life whereas a less privileged person may feel they have everything they need. Gratitude is a state of mind, or mental attitude if you will, that can actually be developed. This is particularly important for folks in recovery who often took an attitude of entitlement during the throngs of addiction.
So What Is Gratitude, Exactly?
Gratitude is the quality of being thankful and the readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness, and can be described as an acknowledgement of benefit an individual received. Someone can for grateful about events that happened, people that were kind or thoughtful, or just a more general attitude of being grateful for their lives.
Thinking Positive
Using positive thinking and being grateful go hand-in-hand, and creates an energy that can benefit, both mentally and physically. It is said that you attract what you think, and if this is so, then positive thinking will attract positive things, events, people! ‘Thanks and appreciation’ are gratitude in full boom and stem from positive thinking.
Have you ever noticed that negative people seem to be stuck in a rut? They see their lives as unsatisfactory, and have a dim outlook of the future. This kind of negative thinking can lead to a slip or relapse. Positive thinking and gratitude can help prevent such things.
People who have incorporated gratefulness into their mindset, experience less depression, feel less stress, and have less conflict with others, however learning to become grateful is a skill that requires both patience and practice. Shedding self absorption and entitlement, and selfishness require attention and resolve in the beginning, and later become second nature after you establish new habits and new ways of thinking. The more gratitude, the less chance of relapse.