Counting Our Wins

 Before recovery, I would have described myself as more of a pessimist.

I tended to see the glass as half empty.

Looking back, I can see that much of this was learned behavior. My mother could be very negative, and she seemed to take pride in it. Without realizing it, I learned to look at life through a similar lens.

One of the first things I learned in recovery was the practice of making a gratitude list.

For many years, at the end of each day, I would write down the things I was grateful for.

At first, it was simply an exercise.

But over time, something began to change.

I was training my mind to look for the good.

Instead of focusing only on what had gone wrong, I was learning to notice what had gone right. I began to see that even on difficult days, there were things worth appreciating.

Journaling became another powerful tool.

When I put my thoughts on paper, I couldn’t hide from myself quite so easily. I began to see my patterns, my assumptions, and the negative thinking I hadn’t even realized was shaping my life.

Writing helped me become more honest with myself.

And that honesty opened the door to change.

Today, I’m using those same tools in a new way.

I’m learning to count my wins.

As I navigate my current health challenges, I keep a list of positive things that happen along the way.

Yesterday, one of my wins was taking a walk in the evening.

It might not seem like much to someone else. But to me, it mattered.

The wins don’t have to be big.

Maybe I’m able to do something I’ve been avoiding.

Maybe I respond to fear differently than I did yesterday.

Maybe I have a moment of peace, a little more energy, or a reason to smile.

They all count.

I’m not trying to convince myself that everything is wonderful when it isn’t. I’m simply learning that the difficult things aren’t the whole story.

Pain may be part of my day, but it doesn’t have to be the only thing I notice.

There can be disappointment and progress.

There can be struggle and joy.

There can be uncertainty and hope.

Perhaps this is another way of teaching my mind to see life differently—not by ignoring what is hard, but by making room for what is good.

I’ve spent a lot of years learning how to work through the difficult parts of my life.

Now I want to become just as good at recognizing the moments when something goes right.

So I will keep counting my wins.

The big ones.

The little ones.

The ones no one else may even notice.

Because every step forward deserves to be acknowledged.

And every small win is evidence of resilience. It reminds me that even when life is painful or uncertain, I am still moving, still adapting, and still finding ways to meet the day.

Hope does not always arrive as a dramatic breakthrough. Sometimes it is as quiet as taking a walk, resting when I need to, or noticing one peaceful moment in the middle of a difficult day. Sometimes hope is simply choosing to look again for something good.

When we count our wins, we are not denying our struggles. We are reminding ourselves that our struggles do not define the whole of our lives. We are gathering proof that strength can exist alongside pain, and that hope can take root in even the smallest moments.

And sometimes, when we begin to count our wins, we discover that there is more hope in our lives than we realized.

She Will Rise

 We have all faced challenges in life. And while we don’t always get to choose what happens to us, we do get to choose how we meet those challenges.

As a child, I didn’t see my strength or resilience.

I was too busy surviving.

I was trying to navigate a world that often felt frightening and uncertain. I didn’t realize how much strength it took just to keep going.

But today, when I look back over my life, I see something I couldn’t see then.

I see a woman who has been through a great deal.

A woman who has faced addiction, loss, heartbreak, and physical pain.

A woman who has had to begin again more than once.

And a woman who is still facing challenges she never would have chosen.

To my surprise, I have that there is a very strong, determined woman living inside me.

She doesn’t always feel strong.

She has bad days.

She gets discouraged. She doubts herself. Sometimes she wonders how much more she can handle.

But there is something about her that I am learning to trust.

She keeps going.

Not always with certainty.

Not always with a plan.

And not always with the answers she wishes she had.

Sometimes she keeps going by resting. Sometimes by asking for help. Sometimes by simply getting through the day.

I’m beginning to understand that strength doesn’t mean I never struggle.

Resilience doesn’t mean I never fall.

And courage doesn’t mean I’m never afraid.

It means I can experience all those things without losing sight of who I am.

When I think about the little girl I once was, my heart fills with compassion. She had no idea what life would ask of her. She couldn’t have imagined the losses she would endure, the lessons she would learn, or the woman she would become.

She was simply doing the best she could with what she had.

And somehow, she made it here.

To this moment.

I wish I could go back and tell that little girl something.

You are stronger than you know.

You will face things you cannot imagine right now.

You will have days when you feel broken, and days when you wonder if you can begin again.

But you will discover strength you never knew you had.

You will learn to love yourself.

You will learn to ask for help.

And you will learn that you don’t have to be fearless to keep moving forward.

I don’t know what lies ahead, and I no longer need to pretend that I do.

But I know this woman who lives inside me.

She may bend.

She may stumble.

She may need time to rest and find her footing again.

But she has not given up.

And at the end of the day, no matter what life brings, there is something deep inside her that knows:

She will rise.

My First Answered Prayer

I’m sure I reached out to God many times before I came into recovery.

But if I’m honest, I think I often called on Him when I was in the foxhole—when things were bad enough that I needed help getting out.

My first truly sincere attempt at prayer came just a short time before I got sober.

By then, I had reached an emotional bottom so deep that I couldn’t see a way out.

I had tried so many things to make the pain go away. I had looked for comfort in relationships, in alcohol, and in anything that might help me escape what I was feeling inside.

But nothing worked.

The pain kept getting worse, and I finally reached a place where I knew I couldn’t keep living the way I had been living.

I didn’t have a plan.

I didn’t have an answer.

I didn’t even know what to ask for.

All I knew was that I needed help.

So I got down on my knees.

This time, something was different.

I wasn’t simply asking God to fix a problem so I could go back to doing things my way. I was reaching out from a place of genuine desperation. I had finally come to the end of what I knew how to do.

I needed help beyond myself.

And within a month of that prayer, I was sober.

Looking back now, I see that moment as the beginning of a relationship with God that would change my life.

I didn’t know then what recovery would bring me. I couldn’t have imagined the healing, the lessons, the people, or the spiritual growth that would become part of my journey.

I only knew that I had asked for help.

And somehow, my life began to change.

Was it an answered prayer?

I believe it was.

Not because everything suddenly became easy, or because I would never struggle again.

But because something opened inside me when I finally became willing to surrender.

For the first time, I was no longer trying to find my way out entirely on my own.

I had reached for a lifeline.

And I was willing to take hold of it.

That was my first answered prayer.

And perhaps it was also the beginning of learning that I didn’t have to do this life alone.