Grouchy? Cranky? Get a Gratitude Book

Guest blog post by John Prin

Photo: Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

You can probably name in five seconds someone in your life who grumbles, grouses, and gripes as a habit. They’re in a rut and can’t, or won’t, get out. Maybe someone bitter toward anybody or anything contrary to their way of doing things—"It’s my way or the highway!” 

Certain people habitually moan and groan about all kinds of circumstances and difficulties. Result? A stinking swamp of negative thoughts that pollute a person’s moods and attitudes. The root cause of many complainers’ anger is often deep ingratitude. 

This post offers AA wisdom for folks gripped by ingratitude and its partners in crime, resentments and self-pity. You don’t have to be an alcoholic or addicted, or a member of any 12-Step group, to benefit from the tried-and-true practices of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous, estab. 1935). 

Before I attended my first AA meeting in 1996, I was up to my neck in my own stinky swamp. I carried inside me a running list of hurts and grudges. Things began to change when each meeting began with 25-30 men standing in a circle and praying aloud the Serenity Prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot  change. . .” STOP, my mind would cry, stop right there. Did I have serenity? My drinking had squeezed the possibility of its rewards to zero. Too many things were unacceptable in my life, several of my own doing. How could a sad mess like that change?  

Se-ren-i-ty, noun: the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled. A positive state of mind wherein you won’t feel as troubled by life’s ups and downs; serene, tranquil, unclouded.       Oxford Languages

One evening, my sponsor “Jack” warned me that other members were aware of my grouchy, cranky demeanor. He asked, “Do you have a gratitude book, John?” I stared at him as though he had spoken gibberish. “Your pent-up anger is working against you,” he added, “and if you don’t face it and deal with it, it will undermine your sobriety and you’ll be back at square one.” I fired off a well-rehearsed list of grievances: hangovers, black-outs, two failed careers, marriage troubles, a sore toe, the economic recession, icy cold winter weather, and my own failure to control the damage of too much booze. He told me about his own history of ingratitude and spoke of the success to unburden his angry emotions that had resulted from following his sponsor’s advice.

Fast-forward six years. Now I was a Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor with six years of life-changing sobriety without a relapse. At the out-patient recovery clinic where I worked, a new client named “Kevin” made others uncomfortable with his nasty remarks and a brooding temper like I had once behaved. Having experienced the wholesale changes from keeping my own gratitude book and practicing each of the 12 Steps, my personal transformation from following Jack’s advice had led to a more peaceful and upbeat manner—definite periods of serenity. I now saw the opportunity to pass on Jack’s same guidance to Kevin.

“It works like this, Kevin,” I said. “Go and buy a small, hand-sized, spiral-bound memo pad that fits in your pocket, then write on one side of one page just one thing you are thankful for each day. Don’t try to use too many words. Carry it with you wherever you go. The goal is to notice, to pay attention to, to be aware of the times you feel grateful—for a beautiful sunset, a kind comment from a stranger, your wife’s cooking, a co-worker’s good deed. You get the idea. It’s about getting outside yourself and developing the habit of appreciating some fact or reality of daily life, either big or small.” 

We then turned to page 62 in the Big Book and I asked him to read aloud: “Selfishness—self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. . . Above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us!" (1)

Kevin was skeptical. He delayed starting his own gratitude book, participating instead in group therapy sessions and science-based lessons about neurotransmitters in the human brain. A few days later I learned he had made a list of grievances instead. To get him to focus, I showed him examples of jottings in one of my own early memo pads (to demonstrate how the habit developed of looking for reasons to be thankful), and the importance of taking time to write down such kinds of things. Kevin’s interest really revved up. We then flipped to page 64 and he read the following: “Resentment is the ‘number one’ offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.” (2)

Something clicked for Kevin. He hooted and said, “That’s gotta be it. Resentment! I’ve been told that so many times!” I showed him how the root word of “resent”—“sent” means “feel” in Latin (think sensual, sensitive, sensational)—thus ‘re’ (means ‘again’) added to ‘sent’ equals “resent” which means to refeel past painful abuses and disturbing emotional injuries. Clearly a break-through occurred for Kevin as he experienced the feeling of freedom from letting go of his burdensome grudges and, later, choosing to change his thinking. 

The clincher came when he showed me one of the grievances on his list: “Those no-good Twins missed the playoffs again this season.” As a tried-and-true fan of Minnesota’s MLB baseball team, the Twins, Kevin railed on about his history of disappointments, which we identified as long lingering resentments. “How can their season end so miserably year after year? It’s so infuriating. What better reason to get drunk?” Then came the light-bulb insight: “Whenever I’m reminded how they blew it, that’s when I refeel the anger and letdown. Well, no more!”    

Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

With this understanding, Kevin’s burden of ingratitude began to lessen. He turned his attention to writing down each day the new positive things he noticed which he felt thankful for in his own gratitude book. The success of this process was confirmed two years later when he visited me at the recovery center with a fancy cake to celebrate his second year of successful, relapse-free sobriety. 

Aren’t we all walking wounded at some point in our lives? Perhaps that disgruntled person is you. But allowing one’s mind to stay in that dark cave is unhealthy. It’s up to us to change, and the good news is we can choose whether or not to—because we control how we think; our thoughts don’t control us (they definitely don’t have to). 

The Big Book of AA has wise advice for people who complain or whine too much (that’s whine, not wine!). Open its pages and read about practicing gratitude, and the blissful feeling that often follows of “serenity.” Ask yourself, “Am I missing out on this positive state of being?”

Who do you know that could benefit from releasing their anger and resentments by discovering the freedom of brighter emotions and attitudes with the gift of a $2.49 gratitude memo pad from you? 

Part 2 will explore the role of Step 4 and “Acceptance” in boosting gratitude, for example: “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.” (3)

* * * 

Footnotes here are from The Basic Text for Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th edition, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 2001, ISBN 1-893007-16-2, USA.

1. page 62.
2. page 64.
3. page 417.