My best friend Sam is rearranging my living room. He says I need to swap my lampshade for something more modern. "It is modern. Mid-century, you know," I say, mockingly.

"It's the colour of wee. It looks like you've chain-smoked next to it for 20 years," he says.

When he's finished moving, straightening and chucking things out, I look around. It's amazing – why didn't I do this ages ago? I have a lack of spatial awareness, money or energy, but a few simple changes have made the room look bigger, better and very different.

My brain needs a bit of a rejig too, but that's my job. I have help, support and most of the tools to hammer down the wall of doom. I am once again reengaging with helpful people and beginning to practise the things that will save me indulging further in self-pity and hopelessness.

It's always good to see Sam. His father is crazy, his mother is dead and he was recently diagnosed with a serious disease. Yet he's a very positive person.

I would be hard pushed to say that I've enjoyed rolling around in the despair that is often a byproduct of a relationship with an alcoholic. But negativity can be slightly addictive, something that could define me if I'm not careful. "When will it get better?" I have asked myself many times. Never is the answer, unless I work hard.

Aphorisms can sound a little too slick or godly to some, but I've started storing them in my head, like song lyrics: "One day at a time." "Easy does it." "Let go or be dragged." Yes, they could be slimming-incentive stickers from the pages of a diet magazine, but when it comes to dealing with problems such as addiction, they can be useful. They are easy to remember and seem to make sense.

I'll start with the idea of gratitude. The right reaction to a situation can turn most crappy situations around into something more positive. It is fine to recognise shit (life is full of it, and it affects everyone at some point), but surely that's more reason to pay more attention to the good stuff. Faced with a dilemma, I'm going to try to focus on things I have, rather than things I don't have.

For the past week, I've been doing an exercise that R and I were advised to try together when he emerged from rehab. It's called highs and lows. Before we went to sleep every night, we wrote down five of the best and worst parts of our day and read them aloud to each other. They didn't have to be colossal, life-changing things: just personal little triumphs or disasters.

Recently, I looked over my first entry from a few months back. The lows:

1) Extension of overdraft refused by bank.

2) Found mouse droppings in the toaster.

3) Mum postponed visit.

4) Have cystitis.

5) Completely lost my rag with the children at dinner.

The highs from the same day:

1) Chicken Kievs, mash and peas for dinner.

2) Read three chapters of Heartburn in the bath.

3) Finished work before deadline.

4) Was given a crème brûlée by a friend.

5) All children in bed by 8.30pm!

You don't need to live with an alcoholic to scribble down daily high or low points. It's a pretty useful exercise to do whatever the weather.

At the moment, the lows would be:

1) We all have nits.

2) On our way to school, I failed to give a clear answer to my son's question: "When is Dad moving back?"

"Maybe never, darling" I replied, then son called me stupid.

3) The bottom of the back door is broken and there is now a massive draft.

4) I have £20 to last three days and have booked a much-needed haircut tomorrow.

5) I can't find the nit-comb.

And the highs:

1) The fridge is full of food.

2) I gave myself a lunchtime orgasm.

3) Met a lovely woman at Al-Anon meeting and we swapped telephone numbers.

4) Answered boring telephone survey even though I didn't want to, but it made the man at the end of the phone very happy.

5) When one of my sons came back from school, I talked to him about separation. Explained that R and I love him and his brother and sister very much and that we will do everything in our power to make things OK for everyone.

It's all about practice. Like my pelvic-floor exercises, I have to make gratitude lists or jot down my highs and lows regularly if I want to feel the benefit.