so angry and agitated
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 415
so angry and agitated
I don't even know what the hell im even mad about.. I've just been pissed off all day about everything. Ive been being a total a-hole to my mom which I feel bad about but im just so agitated and I wanna get frigin high. I called my sponsor but he didn't answer so im posting here.
Guest
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: The Deep South
Posts: 14,636
It might be a good time to go off by yourself with a journal and pen (or laptop) and start journaling what you're pissed off about.
I had rage for a long time. And when I say rage, I mean actual rage. It has taken me a few months to decompress and deal with the feelings and thoughts they were fueling my rage.
Last year and the year before I took up running and signing up for races as a way to deal with the rage... It backfired on me. I relapsed and drank for months. It turns out I had to deal with some unwanted emotions and thinking patterns.
Sent from my iPhone using SoberRecovery
I had rage for a long time. And when I say rage, I mean actual rage. It has taken me a few months to decompress and deal with the feelings and thoughts they were fueling my rage.
Last year and the year before I took up running and signing up for races as a way to deal with the rage... It backfired on me. I relapsed and drank for months. It turns out I had to deal with some unwanted emotions and thinking patterns.
Sent from my iPhone using SoberRecovery
Member
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: East Coast, USA
Posts: 22
Jake, I feel this way sometimes, too. Just pissed off for no particular reason at all. Sometimes if I can make myself just get up and get out for a walk I feel better. Gets the endorphins going through my veins-also, as I walk sometimes what was making me mad will become apparent-then I can think it through. Now that we are sober-we have to deal with things as they are and not through the veil of whatever we were using before. Sometimes, even just being outside, petting dogs, watching kids play, whatever, has a calming effect. Give it a shot! Let us know how you make out.
EndGame
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Geez, rage is a tough one.
After years of suppressing our feelings with alcohol, we are in an emotionally vulnerable place during recovery. Our feelings come at us like silent assassins, seemingly bent on killing us or driving us back to drink. Most people don't manage anger well when they're not feeling well. A simple headache can provoke global warfare. These feelings very often trigger relapse, since we are emotionally and physically exhausted in recovery from the effects of alcohol; alcohol compromising our psychological and physical health.
I've seen people comment here that withdrawal lasts for a couple of days or so. This is technically true, at least in terms of potential seizures. Yet many of us experience withdrawal symptoms for weeks and months. Years, even.
It may be helpful were you to approach someone you hurt with your anger to immediately apologize and offer a brief explanation for your anger as soon as you understand what's happened. Such acts of humility help us and others to manage your rage down the line. Also, as SoberJennie suggested, it's often a good idea to take a time out in order to collect yourself, allow yourself to accept that periods of emotional turmoil are to be expected, and that these episodes don't define you as a person. When you feel as though you're moving to the breaking point with your anger, explain to whomever you're with at the time that you're not angry with them, that you're going through a difficult stretch, and that you need some alone time.
We can't expect others to understand our anger in recovery, and it's not their fault that they walked into your line of fire when you're not feeling well. One of AA's strengths is that it provides us with an opportunity to be with people who both understand and accept our feelings, in part because they've been through the same exact thing. You don't need to buy into the higher power deal, nor do you even need to believe in God to reap the benefits of fellowship in AA. Also, talking about your feelings with sympathetic others can bring you to a better place. Even a few moments of solace in recovery can have both an immediate and lasting therapeutic effect.
Learn to be gentle with yourself, as though you're someone whose just had heart surgery, and someone who both needs and deserves time to heal. I cant know when things will change for you, but I do know that this will not last forever.
After years of suppressing our feelings with alcohol, we are in an emotionally vulnerable place during recovery. Our feelings come at us like silent assassins, seemingly bent on killing us or driving us back to drink. Most people don't manage anger well when they're not feeling well. A simple headache can provoke global warfare. These feelings very often trigger relapse, since we are emotionally and physically exhausted in recovery from the effects of alcohol; alcohol compromising our psychological and physical health.
I've seen people comment here that withdrawal lasts for a couple of days or so. This is technically true, at least in terms of potential seizures. Yet many of us experience withdrawal symptoms for weeks and months. Years, even.
It may be helpful were you to approach someone you hurt with your anger to immediately apologize and offer a brief explanation for your anger as soon as you understand what's happened. Such acts of humility help us and others to manage your rage down the line. Also, as SoberJennie suggested, it's often a good idea to take a time out in order to collect yourself, allow yourself to accept that periods of emotional turmoil are to be expected, and that these episodes don't define you as a person. When you feel as though you're moving to the breaking point with your anger, explain to whomever you're with at the time that you're not angry with them, that you're going through a difficult stretch, and that you need some alone time.
We can't expect others to understand our anger in recovery, and it's not their fault that they walked into your line of fire when you're not feeling well. One of AA's strengths is that it provides us with an opportunity to be with people who both understand and accept our feelings, in part because they've been through the same exact thing. You don't need to buy into the higher power deal, nor do you even need to believe in God to reap the benefits of fellowship in AA. Also, talking about your feelings with sympathetic others can bring you to a better place. Even a few moments of solace in recovery can have both an immediate and lasting therapeutic effect.
Learn to be gentle with yourself, as though you're someone whose just had heart surgery, and someone who both needs and deserves time to heal. I cant know when things will change for you, but I do know that this will not last forever.
Re-Member
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Colorado Springs, Colorado
Posts: 7,583
You wouldn't be here if you didn't know that using makes the anger go away temporarily, then add more to be angry about tomorrow. Good decision coming here. I agree, 17 or any age, is a good time to quit.
Saying we all go through it only lets you know you can get to the other side of it as we did. I agree that there is much you can do. Remember we can't control our emotions, only how we act on them. We can exercise them into perspective. When the body is relaxed the mind can and will easily follow. If you are healthy do pushups until you can't do another, then start doing reps every time you feel about to vent on another. It will abate because you will be on the drugs called endorphins that are safe and natural.
If you are not healthy, then do anything you can do. Progressive muscle relaxation that you can look up and learn online free works as well as you do to use it. In other words find something you can do anywhere, anytime.
Just remember the emotions are normal, and cannot be controlled, but can be acted on by resolving the cause, or using any technique that can be used to work off the non-specific kind some of us get. I got angry and fearful over my seemingly illogical feelings of anger in early recovery which seems funny now. But at the time drove me into anxiety panic attacks which I never had in my life. What kept me from using my DOC? I was more afraid of the results of using than I was working through the fear and anger, and fear of anger. I just worked it out instead of acting it out. Having temper tantrums because I was having temper tantrums just wasn't working for me.
Coming here was enough after using local face to face free help in meetings and my doc and counselors SR was all I needed to keep moving towards full recovery where I am now.
Remember, it isn't easy until it is, like all applied learning. Reading and not doing, knowing but not changing is not learning. That is just data if we can't apply it. Learning is always a change in behavior. People tend to not really change until they have no choice, and/or motivate themselves. One can read a book on swimming but when thrown in water will still drown if there is no effort and change. Not using involves one simple change. Not using. Everything else is dealing with symptoms, and change. With repetition we can all make it. We get our strength from others in meetings and on places like here on SR, because we see the incomprehensible sobriety and peace can be done. Some just won't, not can't, keep dealing with first a week or six of physical discomfort, then the emotional maturing we stopped when we started using our respective drugs of choice.
Congrats on moving in the right direction!
Saying we all go through it only lets you know you can get to the other side of it as we did. I agree that there is much you can do. Remember we can't control our emotions, only how we act on them. We can exercise them into perspective. When the body is relaxed the mind can and will easily follow. If you are healthy do pushups until you can't do another, then start doing reps every time you feel about to vent on another. It will abate because you will be on the drugs called endorphins that are safe and natural.
If you are not healthy, then do anything you can do. Progressive muscle relaxation that you can look up and learn online free works as well as you do to use it. In other words find something you can do anywhere, anytime.
Just remember the emotions are normal, and cannot be controlled, but can be acted on by resolving the cause, or using any technique that can be used to work off the non-specific kind some of us get. I got angry and fearful over my seemingly illogical feelings of anger in early recovery which seems funny now. But at the time drove me into anxiety panic attacks which I never had in my life. What kept me from using my DOC? I was more afraid of the results of using than I was working through the fear and anger, and fear of anger. I just worked it out instead of acting it out. Having temper tantrums because I was having temper tantrums just wasn't working for me.
Coming here was enough after using local face to face free help in meetings and my doc and counselors SR was all I needed to keep moving towards full recovery where I am now.
Remember, it isn't easy until it is, like all applied learning. Reading and not doing, knowing but not changing is not learning. That is just data if we can't apply it. Learning is always a change in behavior. People tend to not really change until they have no choice, and/or motivate themselves. One can read a book on swimming but when thrown in water will still drown if there is no effort and change. Not using involves one simple change. Not using. Everything else is dealing with symptoms, and change. With repetition we can all make it. We get our strength from others in meetings and on places like here on SR, because we see the incomprehensible sobriety and peace can be done. Some just won't, not can't, keep dealing with first a week or six of physical discomfort, then the emotional maturing we stopped when we started using our respective drugs of choice.
Congrats on moving in the right direction!
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