girl_from_oz

Hi everyone, just a quick question. Has anyone gone through times of being really angry? Today is day 4 for me, withdrawl symptoms have luckily been very little... ocasional headaches and sleeplessness. However for the last two days I've become very angry about general things.

These are things that id get a bit angry about in the past but usually id try to forget about it and then when I drank that night it would dissapear alltogether. I do understand this was just self medicating my feelings however.

But right now I just cant stop being angry. Unfortunately its affecting my general mood and the way I act towards people and what I do. I feel like its so controlling as usually im a very nice, happy person and always up to doing things (non-alcoholic things i mean, like going for a coffee with a friend).

Is this just a learning process... learning how to deal with being angry without using alcohol as an out?

Has anyone had experience with this? An if so, is it just a phase? does its generally get better as the process goes?

CarolD

Yes...it's not uncommon
Yes...you will balance out with sobriety.

Please read this link for info

http://www.tlctx.com/ar_pages/paw_part1.htm

Congratulations on your sober time!

Tazman53

I have gone through some angry days, but I was still in detox on my day 4 so I was still pretty doped up. Emotions in genral, including anger seem to be exagerated including anger in early sobriety, it took me months of sobriety before I started to learn how to deal with emotions. I cried at the drop of a hat and got frustrated easily. I have never angered easily, but in early sobriety I did.

The longer I have been sober, the better I deal with emotions, the steps helped me the most with anger, guilt, shame, & fears. Time helps with it all, emotions were totally new to me once I got sober, I no longer drank away any of it so early on all emotions were very raw.

Hang in there, it gets better with time.

Pinkcuda

About the first 6 months my wife would comment that she liked me better when I drank. Thankfully I never listen to her.

WLDKATZ

I actually went to jail because of my anger...............it was so out of control on my job( I was working on city council then) I went after the mayor after he turned down one of my proposals.............mood swings are quite common from what I hear:ghug3 But I promise it does get better!!!!!!!!!

Emimily

i think everyone who responds to this is going to say "yeah, it's common, it'll pass." from my experience, it did pass. i was angry for the first 90 or so days of sobriety. when i was drinking, i was happy-go-lucky emmers. no cares in the world, everything rolled off my back, because i was getting drunk that night so whatever happened was cool. once i got sober, i knew that i didn't have an outlet waiting for me at the end of the day. i had to process my feelings, my actions and my reactions, and i was livid most of the time. plus, i was driving a van for DHL in the summertime in northern colorado, which didn't exactly alleviate any stress. i remember being SO ANGRY in my van once that i called my friend holly from AA and just went off on her, and asked "wtf am i supposed to do with this, i'm so effing angry!" and she said "honey, you pray. when you're hungry, you eat. when you're angry, you pray. when you're lonely, you call someone, and when you're tired you sleep." so i prayed to have god remove my anger, and y'know what? it was still there. so i prayed again, and again, and again, and it gradually lessened. i loosened up a bit, and got out of my head a bit, and things felt better, bit by teeny tiny bit. AND (most importantly) i stayed sober. and darlin, if i can do it, anyone can. you're doing it by reaching out and sharing and asking for suggestions. now it's up to you as to what you'll do with those suggestions.

oh yeah, one other thing-it'll pass, it ALWAYS does. hang in there, you're doing just fine.

Missymae737

Anger was the one emotion I would run from my entire life...

As a child...It was not acceptable to show anger.

As a wife...I was long suffering...

As an employee...I was the very best, I believe it was called perfection and did what I was told no matter what....

Something amazing happened...Whenever I was under the influence of ANY mind altering substance, I became a raging lunatic... Gee, I wonder why??

I have had to learn how to FEEL this emotion in a healthy way...Today because I am sober, I CAN work through any anger....

GrouchoTheCat

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Say over and over again, like a mantra.

mike_mass

Anger comes and go. After you've sobered up a bit you might want to look into a stress relief program.

Missymae737

I love the LOOKS I get when I say this prayer out in public, when someone ticks me off...

Thentram

For me I haven't gotten to the point of anger, but boy do I get irritable. I tried not to drink right after work, so I would tend to hold off until around 7:30 or so. This made me very irritable until then as I would be just thinking about that arbitrary time when I would let myself drink. I noticed that when I stopped I would still tend to get very irritable around that time of evening every evening even though I had absolutely no desire to drink. Its frustrating because it shows. Even if I'm trying really hard to act laid back I still come off as completely distant, uninterested, and slightly annoyed.

I really hope it pass as I don't see myself as that type of person, quite the opposite in fact.

Fenian_Man

As well as praying and calling, I'm grinding out another 4th Step.

Also, I like to go to the gym and work it out - while on the elliptical trainer I call up all the things I'm obsessing about and visualize them as fuel. I try to bring up the feelings as strongly as possible while working the machine, When I'm done I've disspated a lot of supressed negative energy.

snowgoose

All sorts of feelings - many of them uncomfortable - will come up as your body is detoxing. Not easy, nobody said it was. But it is simple: don't drink and go to meetings. (When you get that part, we'll give you the next part, hee hee.)

Thanks for posting and best wishes from the Snowgoose.

girl_from_oz

You have all given some great advice!... also some things to think about aswell. I suppose it was a bit hard to come to terms with the fact that these angry stages wont go away as quickly as the physical withdrawls have. I suppose I was a bit naive in thinking it'd be as easy as getting over that first stage. Its going to be a long process but it seems that so many have managed it and I know that its possible.

Btw, Grouchothecat I really loved the mantra. Quotes and things like that, really lift my spirits so im definately going to use that one in the future to bring myself back down to earth a bit. Thanks!