Originally Posted by
GirlFromCO 
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.
Sooooooo cool that you were able to see that! So cool. Put a smile on my face, that's for sure. What you're seeing is that the problem really wasn't the alcohol.....but the thinking that proceeded it + the inadequate techniques we've used to go through life.
My false ego (the ego that's "abnormally" inflated.....not a good, healthy normal ego) likes to tell me "I deserve better......poor baby......life's sooo hard on you......you shouldn't have to deal with problems like these.....you deserve a break." In MY history, drinking provided just that break.....but now I don't have THAT tool (nor do I want it) so what do ya do?
Option 1 is deflate your ego. Sorry, I'm no help in that arena. I've not found a good way to just "do" that.
What I can do is option 2 - keep my humility high. An easy way to do that is to try to be helpful to others. Do things NOT for me but for someone else and not look for or take anything in return.....including credit for what I did or praise for doing it. Selfless acts......my false ego HATES that $hit. It's like throwing water on a fire.
As a byproduct of keeping my humility where it should be is the ego gets right-sized, the pity pot disappears and I can look at a situation like yours and say, "wow, how lucky I am to have ALMOST all the money I need for a repair that I MUST get. Good thing that didn't come x-months ago or I'd have been stuck. Thank God I didn't blow the money on that trip or that other thing I wanted or I'd be screwed. Best of all.....with this cool new sobriety, I've got a shot at rounding up that grand I'm short AND I'm not making matters worse by drinking a couple hundred bucks away this week."
So for me, sometimes the best way to deal with anger is to not go at it head-on. (and, fwiw, I think of my anger as just another component of my alcoholISM.....one of the parts of the spiritual dis-ease I have whether I'm drinking or not......and one of the things that if I DON'T deal with it, it's got the power to take me back out to the bottle one more time -- and I sure as hell don't want that!
Originally Posted by
ReadyAndAble
I actually laughed when I called a friend to give me a ride home. It is always something. Just the week before I got a nasty surprise when I did my taxes. Life is full of unexpected surprises, good and bad. And when the bad surprises only involve stuff—a car, money, or anything else that can be solved with time, hard work, and patience—well, I have to count myself lucky.
^^^^^^^^^THAT'S recovery and real sobriety right there - a whole new outlook upon life! awesome.
