Today my husband and I found out that the car battery we needed to replace is actually also a broken transmission - a cost that is equal to our entire 2011 tax refund, our entire emergency fund, our huge jar of coins that was supposed to be spent on something fun, and a grand on top of that - 5700 dollars. We live in the mountains 15 minutes away from town, so we have no choice but to fix it. There's no public transport up here, not even bike trails.
I was feeling cranky and like I wanted to drink a bit, and when I feel like drinking I try to figure out what's really going on so I can understand it and calm the urge.
I thought about it and realized the reason I wanted to drink was so I could have an excuse to throw a fit about this money. I realized that I'm not quite sure what to do when I'm angry. Emotional outbursts were par for the course when I was drunk. I think that I felt like it was okay to express my feelings because drunk people express everything, right? So now that I'm sober I feel too mature or something to get pissed off - I keep telling myself it's doable, that 1k really isn't THAT much, we've been late on bills before, I've certainly been through worse, and how much better it is to be sober and have to deal with this problem, etc... all true but none of it satisfies my urge to scream and punch the sky. We're broke, yanno? We were
finally getting back on track after a really rough 18 months. It sucks.
So,
my question is, how do you ladies & gents express emotions in a healthy way once you've decided that you're a rational person? Getting drunk and freaking out just isn't an option anymore.