You're listening to the Love Over Addiction Podcast. Hi this is Joe and before we in, I just wanted to say a couple of quick things.

We know that it's almost Christmas Day, and when we thought about you and what kind of episode we wanted to give you today

gratitude came to our minds. So today we're re-releasing an episode that we

recorded last year and it's all about reasons to be grateful for addiction.

We incorporated voices from our own community so we encourage you to listen with an open mind and see if you can find your own ways to be grateful.

I know that for those of us in this community who love someone suffering from this disease,

most of us can raise our hands if asked the question, do you feel slightly depressed during the holidays? Or do you feel

anxious over the drinking or the drug use over the holidays. I know for me, even though a part of me was really, really

excited to celebrate with family and with my kids, there was always the other part of me that was incredibly

worried about what was going to go on, will I get embarrassed, how can I help my husband stay sober. So it's a difficult time of

year for us and so often I fall into the trap, and maybe some of you guys do this too,

where we check out social media, or we look at like the latest magazine. I used to be a big fan of

Martha Stewart so I would look at her which I don't know why I still love her but I never do anything out of her magazines like I'm not a crafty person

So why did I subscribe and I still subscribe to her beautiful magazine when all I do is look at the pictures and go, oh I

should do that, I should bake that from scratch, I should sew that, but I don't know how to sew and I don't do I don't have like a

glue gun or any of spring you know what are those I call them see this is how uncrafty I am

they're not sprinkles, they're sparkle at least.

Whatever, anyways, you guys.

Point is, where am I going with this?

I am saying that it is very common for us to compare our lives which sometimes can look really

dysfunctional and we can be hot messes to the Martha Stewart's of the world, to whatever lifestyle blogger, you know,

Instagrammer and go, my life, you know, will never be that good. So here's what I want to do because for those of

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