Where's my pity party? Or, how do I deal with anger?
 

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.

My kids say I am like a crazy person when I get upset; however, it usually passes quickily and we all laugh about my freakout. These days when I get really upset I pray and ask for guidance on what to do and how to act. I remind myself that as bad as it might seem it would be alot worse if I was drinking. I try to remember that because I am not drinking I am more rational and better equipped to handle bad things when they happen in life. I try to spin the situation and look for the positive in the situation. In your situation I would say at least I have the money to fix the car. In November my then 12 yr old daughter overshot the vault at gymnastics practice and landed on her head. She lost conciousness(sp) for a moment and injured her neck. I was so grateful to be sober at 6pm in the evening and to take her to the hospital. I was so grateful that she only had a neck sprain and not a broken neck. I was so grateful for recovery so I could be the mother my daughter deserved in that crisis. Before AA I would have played the victim and felt sorry for myself. I happily just paid the last hospital bill because my daughter is okay today. Life happens, sometimes it sucks, and you just have to ride it out. At least you won't wake up with a hangover tomorrow.

Thank you Amy. I really needed some perspective - my situation doesn't seem bad at all after reading that. I'm so glad your girl is okay.

Thanks she is doing great and still doing gymnastics. As bad as things seem try to remember alcohol will only make things worse. I think you did the right thing by venting about how you feel. I hope you felt better after writing it all out. Talking about how I feel instead of drinking to cover it up really helps me.

I can't believe how much my attitude changed just by reading your post. Thank you so much. I do feel better now, and I realize I have so much to be grateful for. I never looked at my life from this perspective before. I'm shocked.

I get what you mean about how alcohol gave you an excuse to act irrationally and express all your pent up anger, but does that mean you really wanted to say all the things that may end up coming out? You might hurt you husbands feelings, say things you really don’t even mean. Its funny because I was trying to break down the reasons why I liked to drink so much in the past, and I was thinking about all the silly-fun times I had with friends, when we were acting rather childish and immature for our ages. Its weird because its almost like we WANT an excuse to be able to act like children, and alcohol became that excuse. We could laugh about it the next day, blame it on the booze. Maybe we all need to let down our guards a bit more and live more freely. Express our true thoughts, have fun, dance around…no excuses needed.

As for ways of dealing with anger/being pissed off: Vigorous exercise, alone time (I like to walk near the ocean- has a calming effect on me, I’m sure any large body of water would do), cry, get yourself some ice cream.

It's so true, I would end up saying a lot of really terrible things that I didn't even mean in addition to whatever frustration I was feeling. I would get really nasty with my husband, and I'm ashamed to say it's not always been because I'm drinking.

I think I did want an excuse to be a brat... to have no responsibility for myself. Ugh why?! Thanks for your post, it's super insightful.

I think you just did. :)

Sorry about the car bill, that's never fun. It's gonna suck for a while but you'll make that money back eventually. Money is just money; your sobriety is priceless.

Yessiree, gratitude is the most powerful arrow in my quiver.

I think GFCO knows this story already, but a couple of months ago I was rear-ended on the freeway. Pushed me into the sedan in front of me. My poor little car was the meat in an I-5 sandwich. So several weeks go by, lots of battling with insurance companies, yada yada, and I finaliy get my car back. It's perfect. You would never know anything happened.

Six days later—a.k.a., last Wednesday—I'm stopped at a four-way intersection and — bam!—a woman drives into the back of my car. Pushes me into the SUV in front of me. Damaged worse than before.

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.

No one was hurt in that wreck. Amy's daughter wasn't seriously injured when she took that tumble. You have overcome addiction this past year, and live with your new husband among the beautiful mountains of Colorado.

Ahh, to be young newlyweds, flat broke and loving it... :)

Oh my gosh R&A, I didn't know about that part!

Thank all of you for posting in response... I feel sort of embarrassed now that I was so worked up about it but I'm glad I posted anyway because these are things I have desperately needed to hear for a while now.

I mean, the only reason we have to get the car fixed right now is because we live in the mountains, and that has been an incredible experience. Plus, it's a wonder this didn't happen before when we were broke and I was working in a very unsavory profession that I would have had to work twice as hard at... Or when my resolve not to go back to such a life was weaker than it is now.

We found out how much it was going to be today and 20 minutes later my husband texted me to say the tax refund had been deposited in our account. Gives me shivers now that I'm thinking about it - the good kind. And what the hell am I doing with a huge jar of change when there are people who could use it?? I should know that already, I used to be homeless and literally survived on other people's change. Now I'm hoarding it! What a dummy I am sometimes.

Thank you all again. Love you guys & SR. This truly is a special place and I mean that with all sincerity. This has helped me pry my head out of my butt tonight and that's a hard thing to do.

I am so glad you are feeling better. Your share not only helped you, but helped me remember to be grateful for all the wonderful things in my life and not to sweat the small stuff.

Stay sober, it will increase your resolve to stay that way; you will get through all this!

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!

^^^^^^^^^THAT'S recovery and real sobriety right there - a whole new outlook upon life! awesome.:c011:

I appreciate that, DT. But if someone crashes into me when I pull my car out of the body shop next week, I reserve my right to a moment of silent despair.

:truce

(Now that I said it, it can't possibly happen... can it??)

LOL.......you'd be entitled to it! LOL

.....and I've learned the hard way not to say "that can't POSSIBLY happen" hahahahaha.

......interesting that you're "presuming" you'll be gettin' that car next week. Lemme know how that goes..... LOLOLOL

A little off topic here, but --- that's A LOT of money to fix a car -- you could buy another one (used) for that price. Have you thought about trading the thing in and getting another?

HUH????????????? Battery and Transmission???????? Apples and Giraffes!!!!!! One has nothing to do with the other!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm in the biz, PM me, if you'd like some free advice. Lost3000 has a point, but then again it depends on the parts being used, and the particular vehicle involved.

The Addictive Voice will try anything to get you to drink when nothing seems to be working for it. Your disgust with your AV suggests the separation between your sense of self and your AV is further widening - right on track.:c014:

Lol, I know it's a ton right??? We're considering all of our options.

Girl, I have the same issue. I was seeing absolute red the other day after an argument with my husband. I had a VERY hard time coming down from it. it's like I knew drinking wasn't an option, but my anger had no out! I wonder if DayTrader's suggestions would work. I think with your situation you have some time to sit and calmly consider it. With mine, I was so enraged, it was really hard to calm down and think rationally. I mean, it took me HOURS.

Lost, I hear ya. When I'm angry I have a really hard time snapping out of it. If I'm mad at someone it takes a lot not to go completely nuclear on them. I'm getting better but it's still something I have to remind myself to think about.

This time with the was different - Amy's post snapped me out of that mode immediately and I was left feeling so grateful for what I have. It was a weird feeling for someone who usually goes berserk, at least internally, when stuff like this happens. The next time I get upset I'm going to try to find some gratitude to knock me out of that state.

Good idea. I met with my sponsor last night and told her about my meltdown. Something that someone else told her that you might take interest in: The emotions are hard and fast now, because before we wouldn't let them come, before we smothered it with booze. So now here they are. Sometimes it might seem like a small issue that we have a mental breakdown over, but those might be old emotions we never felt before. My sponsor told me, we need to walk through the river of sh*t to come out good on the other side.

Yep, definitely. All the things I tried to drink away didn't really go away - it turns out I was just saving them for later.

Hey GFC...you know the other best part of sobriety? You can actually start living life like a normal human being, making normal every day decisions, and even tackle thought provoking ideas like -

• I wonder if the car is worth $5700
• If i repair the battery, will the car run at least to the dealership
• Do I think a dealership (e.g. Honda) will give me $1500 for the car; maybe $2500
• Will that $2500 cover a down payment on either a purchase or lease of say a Honda Civic?
• If I lease the car, how far will $5700 cover, assuming my current car is the down payment (even if junky)
• If the lease payment is $250; that will get me to 2 years and change…wonder if my financial position will be better then

Of course there are insurance implications, etc. But the amazing part is that even if that whole thought process amounts to repair and keep the car, the reality is, when i was drunk - i never thought anything through. The only concern I had was: when will i be able to drink again, so I don't have to think about this mess!!

Congrats on the messed up car....or maybe with the dealing with the messed up car!

That/this s*cks!!!!!!!!!!!

GFCO

I have discovered the daily practice of gratitude (see thread section) is very helpful in maintaining a balanced perspective when the blows of life come up. It is hard to be grateful and angry at the same time. So for me the issue is not 'how to express my anger', it is now acknowledging that I am upset and am facing a set back, then doing what I need to do to get back in balance whilst dealing with the issue.

As an example from your post as to what I do with gratitude, I see that

• You have the capacity to be aware and analyse your situation (see alcohol dementia, and Korsakoffs syndrome etc for what it could be like)
• You have access to expert advice when for automotive trouble- which indicates you may live in a funtioning community where many members are productive and make their skills available to others (also 'town' may indicate this)
• You have a home in what sounds like a nice location
• you have access to the internet and a computer
• you can read
• you can type
• You have skills in interacting with others
• you have the ability to change
• you have the ability to think about advice you have been offered

etc etc

Sorry if the last bit was laborious, I am just giving an example of what I do and find very helpful when I get bound up.