When I stopped drinking, I would have said that anger was one problem I didn't have. The last time I'd hit anyone with a fist was when I was about ten and in primary school. But anger was one of the rough edges that appeared after I went off alcohol, the drug that had been my medication for many years. When I was about six months sober, I ran to catch a train together with another member I was going to a meeting with. As I jumped aboard, one of my high school students greeted me with, "Hello, Jimmy." Within seconds, my hands were around his neck and squeezing in front of his older sister and the other member I was going for a dose of serenity with. I was shocked as I'd never done anything like that before, unless it was during a blackout I don't remember, and I would probably been uncapable of such a thing even then. About a year later, I travelled to the US from Sydney, where I was living, to see my family. In the last week of that trip, I met a guy at a meeting who claimed to be a mindreader. He backed off when I went to shake hands saying I was full of anger and resentment, telling me, "Anger is a drug. Think about that." I took a long walk after the meeting to think about what he said and ended up arriving at a church where he said I could meet him if I wanted his prayer for resentments, which he thought might help me. He wrote a list of people and groups I had resentments toward and his prayer on the backs of two doggy bags at the restaurant we went to and told me to say it for everyone on the list for the next couple weeks, whether I meant it or not, and I did. As the resentments lessened, so did my anger. I now tend to think that perhaps those simmering resentments were what was stoking it. I had hardly realised that I was harboring all those resentments. It was a matter of not being able to see the forest for the trees, as I seemed to resent just about everyone. But I couldn't see that because I didn't seem to dwell much on particular ones. It now seems obvious that holding a resentment is like swallowing poison and expecting someone else to die. I found over time that feelings of anger came less frequently, lasted only for seconds and didn't result in actions I came to regret. I recall someone saying he was tempted to check out the spiritual giants he heard in meetings by spilling a bit of hot coffee on them afterwards. I'm not at all sure I would pass that test, but I can say that anger has not been a problem for some years now, but I still have and use that prayer for resentment when I realise I've picked up one. Someone quoted something last week in an email about the physical aspect of alcoholism being the compulsion to drink that sets in after the first one, the mental aspect being the obsession to drink even knowing how self-destructive that is and the spiritual aspect being total self-centeredness. The first two seem to be related to drinking and early recovery, no longer a problem as long as I keep doing things so that I don't get crazy enough to drink. So it would appear that, if what I read last week is correct, recovery is a matter of becoming less self-centered. I'm thinking that this is probably an oversimplification, but it is an interesting thought and probably not far from the truth. I see sanity as the ability to adjust reality and a big part of that is the realisation that nothing revolves around me. |