Giraffegirl2013

Tonight was rough. One of my family members has been staying with us (he abandoned the family when I was 9 and recently made peace with us) and he made a nasty comment to me. Well I was struggling with not drinking tonight and I stormed out of the room like a child. I never became outwardly angry with people until after I started drinking. Getting angry while I was intoxicated is one of the many reasons why I stopped drinking. I thought that would stop when I became sober, but I still get angry especially when I'm having a tough day staying sober.

Here I was worried about drinking tomorrow while my family is gone and I was caught with my guard down tonight. After a few minutes I jumped in the car and just started driving. I parked and started looking up liquor stores that were open. This is the closest I have come to drinking since I became sober. It scared me, but luckily I still had SR open on my phone. As soon as I read some of the comments, I started thinking about the consequences of drinking tonight. I had promised to help someone out tomorrow morning, I had to focus on staying sober while my family is out of town tomorrow and I'm starting a new job next week and I can't afford to lose the little confidence I have built with my sobriety. I would've ruined all that if I drank. Plus it would mean 47 days down the drain and for what? One drunken night?

This is tough and tonight I just wanted to punch a wall. I just don't want to be an angry person. For the majority of my life, I never learned to let go of things that hurt me. Instead of getting angry towards people, I always took it out on myself. First it was an eating disorder, then pills, then alcohol.

I just hope one day I can learn to deal with it in a healthy way. I don't want to be angry and I don't want to take it out on myself anymore.

DontRemember

May I ask;Why you didn't stand up for yourself in a calm/cool manner? You know...talk it out as sober adults..

Lava256

Sorry, Giraffegirl2013. If you do really have anger issues, have you considered getting therapy for it? Or trying meditation or anything else that could help?

Good for you for not drinking. It is so important to stay sober and fight those urges. 47 days is a great achievement and they say it gets better, easier to stay sober once you've racked up a good number of days. You are well on your way. Stay the course.

Gottalife

AA experience is that anger is very dangerous. It is said that resentment kills more alcoholics than anything else. They also talk, in their section on symptoms that precede a relapse, about being restless, irritable and discontent.

I found this when I tried to get sober on my own. I have come to see it as the spiritual malady, the longer I stayed dry, the worse it got, until drinking looked attractive again. Drinking was my solution to life. When I stopped drinking I had to find another solution in order to stay stopped and get some enjoyment in life.

2ndhandrose

47 days sober is fantastic, gg, but 47 days is very early days, also.

I hope you have settled in your heart that drinking is off the table, no matter what. Life is gonna keep happening, good and bad and in between. People are going to be hurtful and make you mad, at times, but whatever you do, please don't drink AT them. It will never make anything better and I think you know that.

I was prone to raging when drinking and my anger didn't just go away on its own when I quit. It took time. I learned to accept that things wouldn't always go my way. People would disappoint and hurt me. Situations would be out of my control. I read a lot on SR and I went to counseling. It didn't happen overnight and I am still a work in progress but I have seen the change in myself, from a quick to anger person, to someone who can calm myself down in healthy ways, by stepping away, taking some deep breaths and understanding that another person's behaviour isn't about me even if it is directed at me.

It takes time and work but you will get there, one day, one step, one incident at a time. You will build on your repeated healthy choice to NEVER pick up in the face of ANYTHING.

You can do this, you will do this, gg

tekink

I find it's really easy to become angry at this point in sobriety.

What does help me is knowing that it happens so I can tell myself I'm just freaking out because I'm on edge from sobering up.

I'm an emotional roller coaster, the thing that made me feel this way isn't going to help. I just need to ride it out and the longer I hang on the closer I am to the end.

NoahJ

Good job on not drinking.

I agree with tekink that "it is really easy to become (insert negative emotion here) at this point in sobriety." It's just where we're wired to go in early sobriety, it seems.

People tell me its not just days, but working skills and coping into the mix. That's still a work in progress for me, but good luck to you!