How do I stop being so angry at my spouse? I am so full of rage not just anger when he is drinking. I cannot even stand to be around him. I am currently tapering off of the antidepressant I have been taking for the past 2 years and I can feel a difference right now in how I am dealing with him. I cannot tolerate it at all. Not that I ever could very easily. 

Aloha Scarlet and welcome to the board...good that you have found us and hope you will put your trust in the power of this family to help you.  The Al-Anon Family Groups are a fellowship of Family, Friends and associates of Alcoholics and the majority of us know where you are at and what you are going thru...we have been there and as often as angry and rageful as you are now.  Alcoholism is a progressive disease and as hard as it might be to accept this now they are not bad people though they are very very sick people.  We accept that they are sick and do sick stuff as much as we also do as victims of the disease.  Alcoholism is a disease of the mind, body, spirit and emotions, can never be cured; only arrested by total abstinence.  It is also a fatal disease that if not arrested by total abstinence results in insanity and death.   

One of the understanding that we learn in Al-Anon that gives us hope is that we didn't Cause this, cannot Control it and will not ever be able to Cure it...that is referred to as the 3 Cs in Al-Anon.  The opposite of anger is acceptance and when I learned it meant acceptance of the fact that my alcoholic/addict wife and I had an incurable disease and not acceptance of the sick things that were going on in our life I went on to find out as much as I could about the disease and my role in it.  Yes we play a role and I had to learn what that was and how to stop it.

Each of our stories are same and different.  We don't all suffer the same pain in the same way and we do learn all of the tools to get our peace of mind and serenity back regardless of how that comes out.  We don't get a guarantee that it will be perfect and for me I could never have guessed or believed that my life would turn out the way it is today what every happened.

I suggest you look for the hotline number for Al-Anon in the white pages of your local telephone book and call as soon as you can to find out where and when we get together in your area and then come out as early as you can.  Also keep coming back here daily and read the responses of the membership here to each other because we help each other heal...get well from being very sick.    Keep coming back...this works when we work it.  (((((hugs)))))

My anger came from my unrealistic expectations and my lack of understanding of alcoholism. So i believed he could stop drinking, change his behaviour, behave as i desired, a proper father and husband as i interpreted these to be. I believed he was choosing drink over me and our children and i expected him to stop because of his love for us. The constant disappointment, drama and chaos that was our life left me angry, bitter, resentful. All the things that stop real living, so i was like a living dead person. I didnt know about the disease of alcoholism and that i was badly effected and not living in reality so my expectations and demands were not based on the reality of my situation so what i wanted was never possible so on and on it goes. I came to, woke up in alanon, working this program opened my eyes to reality.

Hey Scarlet Begonias, welcome! Beautiful, evocative name you've chosen for yourself, gorgeous!

I wonder if you could express and release some of your rage in an angry run or jog or brisk walk. Or go to a kickboxing or boxing class with the intent to release some of the excess rage from your body. The exercise will help with your anti-depressant withdrawal too. You could do the old 'scream into a pillow and punch it' method too.

I think it is a positive that you are actually in touch with the rage, even though rage hurts and can be uncomfy. Don't even get me started on how dreadful it is when I repress and disallow my rage! Omg. Stuff of nightmares.

Although we've been taught that anger is distasteful, and although as mammals we automatically try to protect ourselves from unpleasant feelings, anger itself is really very useful. It tells us where our boundaries lie, what we will and will not tolerate, what honors us, where we're being violated, and what we do want. All of that is very important information if we're going to live in our integrity, creating lives that reflect our true, wise selves - lives we can be at peace with. Anger can be a blueprint we can transmute into peacefulness and navigate from, but that takes some healing and bravery and gentleness and time. Additionally, anger provides huge energy to fuel us towards taking action. A lot of the time, many internal walls stand between us and our willingness to take responsibility and go after what we want deep down - demand it, even. Particularly as women!! Our conditioning minds give us many reasons why we can't use our god-given minds, hearts, hands and feet to build our lives the way we want them to be. When that's happening inside us, the internal friction is incredible. In that state we are powerless, we need others to give us what we want or others to set the ideal conditions for our lives, and then we fill with frustration when they inevitably don't. If that rage is not processed, it toxifies, turns inwards, and becomes depression/anxiety. We also project all the blame outside of us onto other people or conditions that we are powerless over, which keeps us perpetually stuck in a frustrated rage cycle. We do all this automatically because we have not been taught the tools to do otherwise. We learned powerlessness as youngsters, and it's reinforced consistently by the outside world. Being powerless victims makes us so angry. We sense in our souls that 'powerless victim' is the total opposite of who and what we really are. But how the heck do we access our resources? It can get so confusing and painful.

Sometimes I think that the core of anger is self respect. If I didn't have that surge of anger existing in me, I'd have literally nothing sticking up for me and my interests! I know anger gets distorted into violence and crime, but I think in its original form it might be an essential part of us.

I think it might be useful for you to release some of this built up rage physically, because when it swirls around in us all day, it hurts us and its messages get scrambled. What do you think?

If you're not up to a run or boxing session, I wonder if getting a professional aromatherapy massage might start to soothe your body and calm you. You do deserve it. It's worth the investment for your longterm health. You might have been physically frazzled and on guard for a long time without fully realizing it.

Maybe you could set aside some quiet time for yourself and invite your rage to write about itself, write letters to people, or draw pictures. You can burn the writing afterwards which is very symbolic of transformation, to the subconscious mind.

If we start letting our anger express itself honestly without hurting others or ourselves, everything can start to settle down.

Maybe, if you're up to it, after you've expressed some of it and let it out of your muscle memory and cells, you could dispassionately and objectively listen to some of the messages your anger has been trying to give you. This might be something for you to do down the track. Your anger may have to shout less if you begin to listen to your truth? In my experience, your truth will always be empowering to you, it will always be the 'next right thing' to do, and the focus will not be on other people but on you and your marvellous ability to nourish yourself and take yourself where you want to go. You might see that all of your angst has nothing to do with your alcoholic, and everything to do with you. This is great news because where do you have the power to change? Not over there in him. But in you. Freedom awaits. I'm not invalidating how sh*t it is to live with an alcoholic or how angry and hurt they make us when they act exactly like alcoholics will. It is OK and healthy to feel the anger, and to direct it at the people who have hurt us as symptoms of their dysfunction. After a while, though, it's time to get off that thorn that goes nowhere and to give ourselves what we need.

Living with alcoholics is crazy-making. Maybe you have too many betrayals and lies and abuses and traumas built up, for you to serenely sit next to your bloke any more. Maybe your whole aura is blaring alarm bells at you to get away from him/kick him in the shins. I've been at the stage where I just cannot handle being around my qualifiers any longer so I know how that feels. It came down to me having a break or me losing my mind. I couldn't take any more wounds at that stage, I was at my limit.

Is there Alanon where you are? Is there counselling? We are pack animals, we need other people who are friendly to us, and what you have lived through with your alcoholic is very isolating.

In my experience, 'how to stop being angry at your spouse' involves really paying loving attention to what you need and opening up to nurturing, nourishing, being kind to yourself. The rest of the tools are in Al-anon, so keep reading and be gentle with yourself. Do what emergency things you need to do to get through today while you learn and recover.