Poison

AA – Alcohol and Anger

Those Luxurious Poisons

Anger and alcohol have a common trait that is important - vital really - to an alcoholic like me – because if I ignore it I could find myself in an oblong box. They are both absolute poison. EtOH will sicken and destroy the body and anger will poison and kill the spirit.

As difficult as it can be for some non-alcoholics to understand, alcohol does not cause alcoholism. It is spiritual malady that pulls that task off.

There is a sure sign – a symptom, if you will – of spiritual illness – anger - or more accurately ‘how one deals with anger’. Since alcohol did not cause me to become alcoholic; spiritual illness did it – then I need to be very wary of anger. Not in preventing it — anger will always crop up in some ways — but in ways to mitigate it and dissolve it.

The best way I have found to deal with anger so far is to have it removed. There are things that are far too strenuous and impossible to properly deal with in life. One of them is tree stumps. The other is anger. Tree stumps can be professionally removed and for me to try to do it myself is an asinine waste of energy and time that will likely fail anyway. The same with anger.

No stuffing anger down my shirt. No primal screaming in the woods. No attending anger management classes. Most importantly, no stomping on the feet and toes of my neighbors causing harms through poison tongue or actions.

No mantras. No phony positive affirmations or hypnotic exercises. Nope, none of those. Instead I simply have it removed without hardly much more effort on my part than simply asking.

That is the cool thing about God and having him being so physically invisible and apparently hidden. You have to get proactive or else remain oblivious.

The co-founders of AA, in their Big Book, “Alcoholics Anonymous” call anger the “dubious luxury of normal men”. (66:2) They also give me the solution to any anger problem that I may have – right in step eleven. The co-founders of the AA Society coined a phrase ” It works – it really does”. I used to think that this was just a general reference to AA meetings and ‘fellowshipping’ – that these things would keep me sober. It wasn’t. Did you know that “It works – it really does” – refers specificallyto Step Eleven and the Step’s efficacy against anger?

That’s right. It pays to read and understand that book, “Alcoholics Anonymous.” More importantly it costs to misunderstand and misquote these materials to newcomers whose lives depend on discovering a solution to their problem.

If the solution to YOUR problem is “Keep coming back” or “Just don’t drink” then that is your thing. It may not be a viable solution to another – to a real alcoholic a true alkie.

They may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. Proposing your non-spiritual solution is great for you – but it might kill him.

Anger is not OK . Anger is not inescapably human – if it is then so is homicide, suicide and genocide. Let’s not cosign death certificates.

This is one more example of how out of context Big Book quoting can cause so many of us to not only miss good information but to be to be fed deadly misinformation. The causal observer who is is “Just showing up” planting his fat ass in a metal folding chair at a “Step Meeting” – reading the bulleted summaries of The Twelve Steps off the window shade or flipping to page 58 of the Big Book does not come away with much understanding of what the Twelve Steps are – what they do – or how they work. The egotistical alcoholic or any such self-centered person will think they do – much like a person might think they are an expert in financial matters because they watched Suze Orman on CNBC six times last year. (Don’t cash out! You should be slowly buying in. This is an opportunity to make up for all those lost years of wasted money and bad decision making while drinking and prone to emotionalities! Buy in at these levels – when companies are cheap and prices reflect the herd’s emotions instead of the values they eventually must seek and attain.)

Thanks to these practices I am no I am no longer prone to anger the way I was prior to recovering – even when not drinking. That danger seems to have waned considerably as well.

I have never been characterized by anyone as an ‘angry’ type – not before recovering nor after – but I am by no means a saint. I recall once when I became angry when a mounting situation reached it’s boiling point. I really wanted to let someone - OK it was my wife, Nancy - have a piece of my mind. I was able to bite my tongue for the moment and go for a drive and follow the specific Twelve Step directions – asking God for the right thought or action — to be in line with His will not my will.

Then I phoned my ‘spiritual guru’ to rat myself out and in that conversation realized that it was my will which was threatened. Wonderful right? Good for me – but here is the kicker:

The anger immediately left and I was able to return home like a gentleman, without creating a scene. Then something unthinkable to the self-reliant man happened. I actually found that I was in agreement with what I had previously found offensive.

“DAYUM! Nancy was right! I’ll have my crow with Tarragon sauce thank you very much.”

Don’t that beat all? Now, of course I owe an amends – and it could be gladly proffered too. This is not some fluky occurrence my friend. Experiences like this one happen all the time to we who follow this path and life is a hell of a lot easier that riding through it against the winds and ducking the cold weather and rain in the face.

If I did not have Step 11 in my daily life, this could not have been possible. I probably would have agitated myself without pause and exploded – or I would have stuffed my anger down into the recesses of my chest somewhere and been walking around with a resentment that would eventually cause me to drink later. I’d be ill. Spiritually. Then mentally. Then physically.

There are hundreds of great promises in that Big Book – not only those so endearing and too ubiquitous “The Promises” that some e group shave somehow adopted – and there are Two great Promises of Step Eleven. “We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient.” (88:0) and I will tell you from experience and from a decade of practice, “Yes we are!”

These promises, delivered and constant – have made me grateful to have finally found a design for living that works. “It really does.”

Damn. I should go back to Wall Street now shouldn’t I? Imagine not being a prey to excitement, fear, anger, worry self-pity or foolish decisions – raising a few million and getting back in the money and power game? Hmmmm . . . . NAH!

Peace,

Danny S