[laurie6781]

Leslie, I too used to get angry, to the point of going into rages.......now I had had this problem since I was about 5 years old. The rages would be so bad, that all I could hear was a roaring in my ears and I would literally see red.

These continued into sobriety but not as often. Thought I was doing pretty good, and then I had a real 'humdinger' in 1997. That was the 8th one in 11 years sober. Fortunately, the son of a friend who lived on the property behind me, was able to literally 'herd' me into my house, with my injured poodle in my arms. He shut the door on me and told the neighbor whose dog had been responsible for the injuries to take his dog and get away for at least 24 hours. Bill would later tell me he hoped he never saw that look on my face again. He said my eyes were flat, no life, and he could actually see the rage just racing through my body. He was positive at the time, had I been able to get my hands on Danny I would have killed him or at the very least seriously injured him.

It was then I knew that I had to find a solution, I could not live, not knowing when one might occur again. So with suggestions from my sponsor, I started by dissecting the latest incident. Looking back at what had happened. Briefly, the neighbor was a practicng alcoholic, and he had a fairly young blue heeler dog, that would constantly get out of his yard. He was told not only by me, but his landlord that he MUST keep the dog chained in the yard. The dog got out again, got his head and front legs into my yard and grabbed my miniature poodle by the head and started trying to shake him to death. The poodle by the way did recover, but had several holes all the way down to his skull and one that went through the skull.

Where I went wrong was MY EXPECTATIONS. My expectation of another to do the right thing........and every incident of my rage boiling over was a result of my expectations. Now today I realize that others cannot read my mind, rofl, but for a long time I had no idea, that expectations were not only the cause of my anger, but my resentments as well. ie instead of expecting Danny to keep his dog chained in his yard, I should have reinforced my fence to make sure another dog could not get in.

Today, its not so much that I expect the worst of people (because I do not) it's just that I accept them the way they are with all their faults and assets. Thus, it falls back on me.......to build my own self worth, to ask for help when I need it, and to hire help if need be.

Yes, there are certain expectations I am entitled to have, ie if I pay the bill I should have electricty, that if I turn in all the requested paperwork that Social Security requires, it will not take them 2 years and 7 months to approve my claim, etc. Now when these things do not happen, I have legal roads I can take (in the case of SS did take, lol) to correct the problem. I can expect that the lady from the agency that comes to help me with certain things I now have trouble wth will do her job. If she doesn't, I need not rail at her, I call her supervisor, and render a list of problems.

This did not magically happen overnight.......once again I was back in practice, practice, practice mode. Still am. I am constantly aware, today, of my own actions. I am also happy to report that the number of rages that have occurred in my sobriety still stands at 8 and I am 25 years sober now. The one in 1997 was the last one to date.

Like everything else in my sobriety, the above has taken lots of hard work on my part. However, to this alkie, all the hard work of sobriety has been well worth it!!!!!! I have a life today that I could never, and I mean never have imagained.

Leslie I am so happy to see that this episode of your 'temper' has gotten you back to 'workng' on your recovery. It is so great to see someone using their tools, ie identifying the problem and getting into the solution. I believe this thread you started can show many that we are all still stuggling about one thing or another on our Road Of Recovery and that there are solutions.

Thank you so much for starting this thread.

Love and (((((to all))))),