Anger and Recovery

I never expected to feel such a steady storm of anger in recovery.  I wish I felt more joyous as I approach my first abstinence birthday.  Instead, I am irritable easily and often lately.  I am frustrated - a combination of sad and mad - that my recovery is taking so long.  I am angry that my past haunts me, that depression lurks to darken my days, that some days just being is very hard.

I know the Big Book says we have to let go of our angers, our resentments:

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.  The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us.  They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for [addicts] these things are poison. [Big Book, p.66]

Being angry about the past is not only useless, it is harmful to my recovery.  My future depends on setting aside past hurts, past resentments -- not because it was right or fair or just that they happened - but because it is in my best interest to let them go.

The Promises talk about how we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it [Big Book, p.83].  I am not there yet.  Some days I am.  Some days, the past hangs over me like a smothering wet blanket, blocking all light, all progress, all life.

At this stage in my recovery, anger is not even a luxury, it is a force that threatens my abstinence.  Even justified anger, as I work through a legal process resulting from someone else's inattention damaging me, is harmful to my serenity, my equilibrium, my ability to move forward unaltered by self harm or self abuse.

The AA 12&12 is helpful, I find, on anger.  In the discussion on the daily inventory, Step 10, it reads:

...we have found that justified anger ought to be let to those better qualified to handle it.

Few people have been more victimized by resentments than have we [addicts].  It mattered little whether our resentments were justified or not.  A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective.  Nor were we ever skilful at separating justified from unjustified anger.  As we saw it, our wrath was always justified.  Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely.  These emotional 'dry benders' often led straight to the bottle.  [...]

Nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen.  We must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious, power-driven argument.  the same goes for sulking or silent scorn.  These are emotional booby traps baited with pride and vengefulness.  Our first job is to sidestep the traps.  When we are tempted by the bait, we should train ourselves to step back and think.  for we can neither think nor act to good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic. [AA 12&12, pp. 90-91]

...we begin to see that all people, including ourselves, are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong, and then we approach true tolerance and see what real love for our fellows actually means.  It will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless to become angry, or to get hurt by people who, like, us are suffering from the pains of growing up. [p.92]

And I am reminded of the passage in the OA 12&12 about Step 1 where it says "we never grew up".  Well, I'm growing up now.  With all the pains, tantrums, storms, and learning that comes with it.

Blessed be.