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Topic of our meeting today was anger, and I have spent a lot of time today thinking about it. I know anger is a normal emotion...but just the whole dynamic of how it works in my family. I feel like I have let go of the majority of my anger and sadness....I know my husband and I will not be together forever. Seems like it really bothers him if he comes home and sees me laughing and playing with our son, or on the phone happily chatting with my mother or anybody....It seems to me that my being happy and detached would make life easier for him. I don't bug him about drinking. I don't call asking when he will be home. I sleep on the other end of the house.
Is anger a normal part of alcoholism? Are they often seen together. I have to do a paper during my mental health rotation, and I think this may be the topic for me. Just looking for some different points of view....
A sign i read recently said something to the effect that, anger is what domestic abusers use to control someone. If you think about how alcoholism and manipulation go hand in hand, AND, control = manipulation, then for some (many?), they have fine-tuned how best to use emotions to get what they want (control/manipulate). Mine was always on the edge of anger, it kept me walking on egg shells, trying very hard not to rock the boat, not to upset him, thankful when we could get through an evening without incident, doing everything his way so as to not invoke his anger - yep, he had me pretty controlled alright. He would get angry if I talked on the phone to anyone, angry if someone came to the door unless it was for him, angry if I stopped to chat on the way home or wasn't home when he expected, angry if I wasn't where he expected me to be, angry if someone waved at our car and he didn't know them - his anger and my not wanting him to be angry worked well for him, made me miserable!
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I am strong in the broken places. ~ Unknown
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another! ~ Anatole France
I certainly have experienced anger especially as part of the drinking years, by my husband.Plus for the 18yrs before I got to Al-Anon for me too, as I had 6 children in that time and although there was never any violence or verbal abuse....the drinking all day, the irresponsibility, driving danger and financial problems it caused were, to me, immense.
It has seemed in the 30 years or so since then....I left, and we reunited 6 months later when he attended A.A...... slowly it has been best for me to stop being the cheerful and chatty one in the relationship because I didnt receive much more than a grunt. My husband chooses not to communicate his thoughts or feelings and for the last 10 years at least has chosen not to share his experiences in his life outside the house. This is a silent house.I did try, with him, counselling about 20 years ago but he was unable to express anything which improved the communication. He is very involved in the community as a volunteer and plays Lawn Bowls and Golf in the seasons and generally enjoys this.
He has not been drinking in the 30 years, however sometimes he is a ball of anger over an incident in his outside world or when he needs to do something that he does not want to do....in other words doesnt get his own way.At those times I try and detach completely, sometimes it seems just too hard but he is attentive to occasionally helping me when I ask....not always with good will but the task gets done.My anger when it arises is wasted as it does not make a scrap of difference to the behaviour in the long run. The Al-Anon detachment and attention to my own needs and volunteer work is what I try and concentrate on.
50 years married next year, I guess you might not get too many in this range!
In reading the above I see that I have left out my own anger...and the walking on eggshells bit....of course..I used to stamp my feet and carry on....waste of time. But I must not make the post any longer!
Aloha Kim and yes not only is anger a natural emotion and can be then found in alcoholics and those affected by alcoholism; anger can be caused by the chemical itself. From my college days and experience with the chemical and also my work as a behavioral health therapist working for a large in-out rehab...think about this;
What the majority of people I have been around, including myself, desire is to always or often be seen "in-control"...however alcohol robs the drinker of control; it takes over and the more the person drinks the less control they have however they continue to want to stay in control while loosing it...(insanity!!). It is called "fighting for control" and the more they fight for it and lose the fight they get angry and angrier at loosing the battle which includes frustration, impatience, shame, guilt, diminished self esteem, paranoia and the like to name some. Lots of people who don't drink and while attempting to have things come out their way get angry when they don't get their desires. They fight it and tantrum and create drama all sorts of things that express anger. I've done this myself with and without a drink in me and at times it is still there. When I inventory the situation I discover again the anger is about not being in control. Only one thing has ever worked for me to rid myself of the anger no matter what it involves and that is acceptance of the person, place or thing for what it is at that particular time and place. I would like life to come out easy for me and just the way I want it no matter if I have stated that or not and when it doesn't I get angry...mad. When I drank the chances of anything coming out the way I envisioned or wanted it was way beyond slim to nil.
Great thread...I'm gonna continue to check the feedback cause this is a constant work lesson for me.
Wow, I certainly can relate to this thread. My AH is angry after one beer. I think it does do something chemical to him.
We went to our office Christmas party tonight and he stayed with the kids and later brought them up to meet me at the party. We argued in the car, over something stupid. Oh, I think it was that I got out of the office as "the last one" and we "are going to be the last ones to the party AGAIN" (because people leave from work to go to this thing and last year we arrived about five minutes after the party started, big deal). He was waiting for me outside with the kids asleep in the car and was angry by the time I came out because he thought we were late (we weren't). He started to say he didn't like anyone from my office anyway and I said you should have stayed home and he said I told him he "had"to go. That's only because they make it a family party and all the kids can go and exchange gifts and its fun for them, too and we had already signed up for a gift exchange. To go without him with my two kids would have been weird. When it ended, it was late, and my kids were the only ones who threw violent tantrums, because they were tired and its what they see at home each and every day. So we argued on the way home as well because he started to give what I call the "angry face" to our daughter (2 yrs) because she was throwing a loud tantrum in front of everyone (embarrassing I know, but oh well), and he couldn't control it. So he gave the kids the threats and pointing of the finger and the mean face and they got even louder and started to cry and run to me. He gets mad when they run to me and says its because I'm being manipulated by them, and I tell him it's because they are scared of him when he gets like that. So we are on opposite ends of parenting and it's a struggle with our kids in between. When he made the angry face I told him to "stop" but not in a loud voice, that he wasn't helping the situation. He got mad and left, leaving me with the kids to take back to the car on an icy driveway. Then we argued in the car, mostly me defending myself, but telling him how I felt about his angry face. Each time I call him on his anger it does absolute no good when it is happening in the moment, because he says I am blaming him again and telling him it is all his fault. I just reply that the anger doesn't help. The hard part is that by the time we've gotten home, he is over it and I am still silently steaming, he will start a nice "did you read the paper today" kind of conversation about news events, and I am careful to reply and just let him talk until he finally falls asleep. No matter what has happened during the day, who has gotten more sleep, no matter if he was even sober, he always falls asleep while I'm talking. Anger is melting away my spirit...
The alcoholic pays attention to what the partner does, not what the partner says. The family pays attention to what the alcoholic says, not what he does.
How does this often "play out"?
a.) The alcoholic/addict 'does it again'. ("It" being drinking/drugging/infidelity/gambling/not showing up for work/losing the paycheck......etc etc.)
The partner gets furious // threatens // yells // cries // lectures him about alcoholism and what it's doing to him and to them....... etc etc
b.) The alcoholic agrees // hangs his head // says he's so sorry // promises to NEVER do it again // says he doesn't blame her if she never sees him again // tells her she's too good for him // says she's the best thing that ever happened to him // tells her he does not deserve her // tells her that she is 'gold' ........etc etc
What happens in a few days or in a few weeks?
a.) Like he never said all of those things ------- instead, now, it's "whaddaya mean, you don't trust me yet?! It's been three weeks and I haven't done anything wrong!"
What happened?
The alcoholic LOVED it when you got angry------and yelled-----and lectured-----and screamed------and threatened.
He KNEW that as long as you were verbal-----------------you were taking no action.
THE ALCOHOLIC PAYS ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU DO----------NOT WHAT YOU SAY.
What about the partner?
The partner of course hates it when the alcoholic does terrible things. The partner understandably wants something to 'make up for' all the bad behavior. (But we are trained to look for words to 'make up for everything'-----not actions). So------ the partner waits for the magic words that will (temporarily) erase all the hurt ------ "I love you".
The three words that we live for.
The three words that we pay an enormous price for--------- why say 'price'? Because when we're dealing with an alcoholic/addict, the trade-off (in reality) for the partner are the words.
Not the actions.
The actions BY NECESSITY, if the alcoholic/addict continues to ingest mood-altering drugs -------- become worse.
Become worse------ because the disease of addiction is progressive. And any amount------no matter how often or how much-------keeps the disease progressing.
And that does not mean 'just the liver' or 'just the brain' --------- the behaviors become worse.
Why? Because the alcoholic/addict's frontal lobe of the brain is toxic.......and that part of the brain decides what behaviors will be acted upon. ----------------------------------
A good friend who was the co-founder of Al-Anon in Baltimore, many years ago, always had this to say--------- "HIS disease made him promise that he wouldn't drink that day, every time he went out the door in the morning. MY problem was that I believed him."
---------------------------------- Why is it important for us to know how this disease works on the brain? One of the reasons is that once we fully internalize this knowledge, then we spend TONS less energy and time, trying to "make them behave" when they are still-drinking//still-drugging.
When we realize that we cannot change their behavior by verbalizing to them about it, we have more time in our lives!
Now, we OF COURSE get angry when they hurt us! And it does not mean that we don't yell or whatever----------BUT it does mean that we realize, deep down, that we are not "reaching them"........ that, DESPITE their talk about 'how much they understand'---------that their 'understanding' has NOTHING to do with changed actions.
Their behaviors can change when and if they get sober and clean. And almost no alcoholic/addict gets sober/clean because they were lectured about it. They almost always get sober/clean when THEY feel the consequences of their behaviors.......not when we scream to them that WE are feeling the consequences of their behaviors.
Alcoholics don't give two hoots if WE are feeling the consequences of their behaviors.
They SAY they 'care'. But the booze takes away all that caring........and throws them headlong into selfishness once again.
As the A.A. Big Book says, "the HEART of the problem of the alcoholic is selfishness and self-centeredness".
------------------------------------------------- Learning all this does not mean there is no more of a roller-coaster in the relationship.......... it DOES mean that the roller-coaster becomes lower-down.
It becomes shorter, has less depth, and we can get off that roller-coaster much quicker when he 'starts again'.
I discovered when doing my 4 th Step that I changed all my feelings and emotions into anger. I could release that anger, blame others and feel releases even for a moment. I learned that tool early in childhood in an alcoholic home.
Learning how to feel feelings sad, confused, unhappy, lonely and not convert to anger was a turning point of my recovery. I believe that this disease of alcoholism from which we are all trying to recover fills us with the results of this anger-sell pity, sadness, resentment etc Learning how to recognize this and "change" has been a Miracle
My marriage was similar to likemyheart's share and it has been very helpful for me to let go of the anger and not live miserably ever after. Al-anon meetings have taught me so many new tools and how to start living again. Great post! Sending you love and support!
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Sending you love and support on your journey always! BreakingFree
Al-Anon/Alateen Family Group Headquarters, Inc. 800-344-2666
" Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."
"Serenity is when your body and mind are in the same place."
its natural. is what i think. but it needs to be let go if its holding you back in your progress. bitterness and anger- feeding and fostering it- is no good at all. but it is a natural and vindicatd response i think. it also gives us the strength to do things we wouldnt normally do.
i normally wait on my son- getting him drinks al the time as he used to be in a wheel chair- now he is walking fine...but im still doing it-lol if i didnt get angry abut it- it wouldnt change.
