heavenlyone

I just watched a program about alcoholics living in a rehab home who are TRYING TO quit drinking.

One guy relapsed and drank again.

He ended up in hospital.

He got told "you will die if you keep drinking like this"

I thought to myself - "Good"

Oh my god.

What a horrible thing to think.

Will my anger towards alcoholics ever lessen???

Picky

Why are you so angry?
I have accepted that it is a horrible disease - one I don't fully understand, but a disease nonetheless. I used to be angry, to think they are weak, but I have seen and read enough to realise that alcoholics have an all-consuming utterly desperate need to drink, and that until I have been there, and experienced that physical dependency, I can't possibly judge them or their choices.
But you are right, being told "if you don't stop drinking you are going to die" is good, in a way; good for them anyway. It's a shock tactic that works. Sometimes.

basIam

my experience is - rarely.

"frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices"

All quotes from the bb ed 1.

AWEDA

When we watch what has been done to ourselves and our children,yes sometimes we say good.
I remember saying when I was in that situation " I will never have peace until he dies" I felt horrible for saying it but only someone in our situation could fully understand.

I work with a woman whose daughter has left her AH and her life has become a living hell with the husband stalking her daughter.
Mind you this is a small quiet woman who came to me and said " You know I could take a gun and kill him"
I completly understood what she was saying,I just held her and said things will get better it;s a long road,I have been there,I know my family wanted to hurt my EXAH as much as he hurt my kids and I.

I know how ill my ex is. I am lucky he is in prision now,but when he gets out I know the harrassment will start again.

So yes it is a terrible thing to say however we have seen the worst of the worst.

Some Alcoholics cannot recover and the family pays the price.

heavenlyone

Why am I so angry?
Perhaps because alcoholics use and abuse people with lovely hearts and leave them bitter and angry.
I can't see it as a disease.
I just can't.
I have a real, physical "disease" that affects me daily but I do nothing to bring it on, nothing...they do everything.
Sure, perhaps I don't understand it, but I sure do understand that I would (and do) do ANYTHING to stop my real, physical disease from inflicting as much pain on me as possible.
I will never get it.
Perhaps they are all just narcisstic personalities

Picky

Sorry, I do know where you're coming from. I'm just at that point where I don't believe that the pain they inflict could possibly be deliberate. And the person I'm dealing with has most certainly got narcissistic personality disorder. They are arseholes, but I would like to believe that they are areholes who would be better if they could be.

nelco

I lived with an alcoholic for years and my life was a sad desperate attempt to change him. I was left broken and torn. I was very angry!! we had a child there was always one more promise one more chance to change.

I drank on occasion and often got drunk but was able at that point to take it or leave it. As my pain got worse I eventually started drinking with my partner and before I knew it was in the height of addiction myself.

My partner got sober through a 12 step program and I was horrified I could not stop drinking. each time I tried I failed....I said things like "I will just have one" I meant it and I NEEDED that one! but once I got that one I was off again. I was so ashamed and broken AGAIN but this time it was me.
Just as I was powerless over my husbands addiction I was also powerless over mine.

I also hated alcoholics and had suffered at their hands for years. first my father then my partner and yet here I was also alcoholic. I was more effected as a child from my mothers behaviour to the alcoholic than the alcoholic himself. my mothers still a very angry woman who never sought help so the family suffer at her hands. always shouting and in bad form. as a child I remember her cancelling holidays cause my father drank! we all suffered!
However back to today .....I eventually got sober and stayed sober. we live a very happy life today. both of us in long term sobriety.

I learned some valuable lessons.
I cannot change anyone else! I can only work on my own issues and that includes my own anger. I must own my own feelings regardless where they might be coming from.
Alcoholics are NOT assholes they are sick people. They do not choose to be alcoholic.


If you wish to help an alcoholic, start by taking care of yourself. That was my experience at least.I Decided what I need to do for me. decide if i can live in the situation or not.
I am powerless over an alcoholic just as the alcoholic is powerless over the drink!

Two of my brothers are alcoholic and I choose to stay out of their lives. I just will not be around the crazy stuff. If they ever get sober they are welcome back into my life . I pray for both of them every day even though I sometimes recieve their nasty calls. They are sick and do not choose to be so unhappy.

WE HAVE CHOICES.

JenT1968

Is just a thought, and a fleeting one at that, anger is just a feeling. They just are, there is no judgement attached to them and they do not define you. You are not horrible.

I know sweeping generalisations are dangerous, but do you seriously believe that there is a person alive, a real human being, who has not had the odd thought like this, about someone? Did you act on this thought? Does it harm the person in the treatment centre? (whether the TV programme exploits them is another question altogether). Frankly "hating" someone on a television programme, (who may as well be a soap opera character to all intents and purposes as far as your ability to interact with and affect them goes), is a fairly benign outlet for your anger.

Anger is important, and very human, it is what we do with that anger that can be damaging to ourselves and others. I have problems using and dissipating anger in healthy ways.

One thing your post got me thinking about was when I thought about "alcoholics" as a group. For me (in retrospect) it feels like I was using that to resist recognising that the person I loved was responsible for hurting me: I was directing my energies into hating the actions of "alcoholics", a whole nameless, faceless bunch of them, safely out of my sphere of influence. If I was doing that I wasn't accepting that it was his behaviour towards me that was doing the damage, and therefore I held a responsibility for putting myself back in the firing line.

as far as I am concerned no-one IS an a**hole, but sometimes people sure do act like the dictionary definition of one. Being sick and acting like an a**hole are not mutually exclusive. I am behaviourly at my worst when I am sick.

I feel angry less and less about things to do with alcoholism, I have had counselling, I have worked on my self esteem, and where I finish, I have stopped living with an alcoholic. But it was traumatic, at times HUGELY traumatic, in a way I would challenge even the most super-enlightened person to not be affected by, and at times I still experience some of that anger. I think it would be unrealistic to expect other than that.

honoryourself

I too am very angry at the way my AH has treated me after 'all I've done'. The funny thing is he says/feels the same way about me!

Finally I'm coming more to terms with the fact that, not only did I allow this in my life, this treatment and behavior, but I enabled it and participated in it myself. If I had had enough strength , had been less codependent, had less of this idea that I could make this man into the man of my dreams, had not engaged in the crazy yelling matches, had not come back after he said the worst things possible, had not blindly accepted that his alcohol or drug use was more than a factor of the environment we were in, etc etc etc... I would not be in this position today.

So I am also angry at myself, for being sick.. I'm angry that his sickness or addiction and personality affects my life in the way it has.. but angry that I allowed it through my own issues, to continue.

Sometimes that helps take the hideous anger out of me. But then, ask me again after the next time I get attacked verbally by my AH for no good reason other than him being drunk.

Linkmeister

Over the past couple of weeks, my anger level has risen as once again, I got caught up in the drama that was exABF's life - job, family, us. He told me he'd never heard me so out and out angry. Hurt and frustration at being treated this way - for "all I have done" has a way of turning into anger -in my case, the pounding headaches, clenched jaws and knotted stomach told me that there ws a volcano of anger brewing inside of me.

Things came to a head this week-exABF has been drunk since around the last week of November and the more he called or messaged or emailed when he was like this, the more I dug in my heels and backed away. But, for some reason, I still cared, I gave a damn enough about him, I loved him enough to wonder if being suspended from work would be enough to knock some sense in him - he wanted to quit work to focus on recovery. But, the workings of the alcoholic mind somehow convinced him that if he did that, he would lose me, I'd think less of him. He called me a couple of nights ago to tell me that - from a bar - why? because he was lonely. That did it for me - I let the voice mails, the IM's the emails pile up, went over to see him and told him it was over, to get out of my life and stay out. TOld him to look to his bar friends to provide support when he needed it. I let it all come out-anger, hurt, frustration......and I walked away.

Someone in Al-Anon told me that my anger was at myself for letting his addiction affect me. It's just as unhealthy as the anger directed toward the A. While it's OK to feel anger, not to repress it, self-directed anger is the worst form of abuse you can do to yourself. I have read and re-read Co-Dependent No More - the chapter on anger and it has helped me to understand this so much more clearly.

Understanding the source of my anger helps but it still does not excuse the anger of others when it's directed toward you. At that given moment, it's hard to rationalize those concepts when you're being verbally attacked. It's hard not to get caught up in it by responding back. It's hard to understand that the person attacking you has an incurable disease.

I'm still getting my brain around this concept and it's not easy to walk away - old patterns of arguing are hard to break and the only way I can work through all of it is to get through my life now one day at a time.

honoryourself

I argue back because there's a fighter in me who wants to win still! I try to keep that voice quiet because, and as I keep telling myself.. NO one wins when WE argue. They have never been productive arguments. There's a BIG difference.

Linkmeister

I always had to have the last word when we argued. It was the fighter in me as well. No one was going to get the better of me. I had (and still have) to learn to walk away because as you say, honoryourself, no one wins in a argument like that......

LaTeeDa

I had a lot of anger toward my XAH, too. What I've come to understand over the years is that most of it I either contributed to, or caused myself.

The anger (and subsequent resentment) was mostly about my expectations. I wanted him to be a certain way, do certain things, in other words--my way. He had his own way, which I didn't agree with, but he was entitled to that. Instead of figuring out we were on different life paths and leaving him to his while I pursued mine, I poked, prodded, scolded, begged, yelled, shamed, and manipulated him to do things MY way. The more I tried to control him, the more he resisted. It was a classic power struggle.

Then, one day, he said to me "you aren't going to tell me what to do." And I said "you're right. You're a big boy and you can do what you want. And I will do what I want." (This was after some months of therapy) And there he was, mouth open, not knowing what to say. And I meant it. I let go at that point. The constant knot in my stomach went away after that.

I still had and still have twinges of anger sometimes when I remember certain incidents or when something triggers me, but I can let it go. Feel it and move on. It doesn't wreck my day, or my life. It's just a feeling, like the weather, it will change.

And I find when I quit expecting life to be anything other than what it is, I am a lot less angry.

L

kv816

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree with you.

Not all alcoholics are abusive and I don't feel their intentions are to use us.

The fact is, they have their way. The struggle, the difficulty, the anger, the resentment, all of it stems from the fact that they aren't doing things-living life-the way we need them to in order to fulfill our happiness and desires.

That's why I'm bitter and angry anyway. Because I know deep down xabf is an awesome, incredible, smart, functioning, intelligent man and I wasted two years of BOTH of our lives trying to get him to see that. He didn't want to use me. He just wanted me to be a part of his life. I wanted him to be a part of my life. It just so happens they were two totally different lives. THAT'S the bitterness and anger .... the broken dreams and hopes.

veracious

I am new to this whole situation but i understand the anger. I have found that i am more and more angry lately! I already hate who i am becoming.

FindingPeace1

I think the part where we get confused is thinking the anger is BAD.
Anger is a feeling. That's all. It doesn't have to hurt us.
Now if we act on it, if we suppress it, if we let it sit and burn and grow and engulf us...that's different.
But the work is, in my opinion, to just allow it. Feel it. Observe it. Note it. Maybe journal on it or meditate on it.
Create a space of loving compassion for your upset.
You're okay. You're mad. That's okay.
Feelings are normal, human emotions.
Let them in AND out. Let them pass through while you watch and learn.
What are they telling you?
My upset tells me I am not setting a boundary where I should.
My upset tells me I have strong feelings around the subject that need to be explored and honored and cared for.
My upset tells me about the behavior of others and if I think its okay or not.
Feelings are a gift. They are a messenger from you to you.
Don't beat yourself up for that gift.
Use it.