The Problem with Anger

Nearly everyone has at some time used anger to defend against painful feelings.
The problem comes when you make a habit of it, when frequency and intensity of your anger begins to affect your health and relationships.
The person who at root feels bad or worthless learns to blow up at the slightest provocation rather than experience a moment of self doubt.
The person who is afraid to feel fear, sadness or anxiety learns to attack and blame rather than endure.

The person whose judgment is clouded by drugs or alcohol turns to anger more frequently.

The first step

To begin to manage your feelings in different ways think about your experience of anger:
How often is anger your first response?
What about your anger works for you?
What about your anger does not work for you?
What does your anger response look like i.e. list the behaviors you most commonly do when you are angry.

What is the difference between when you are angry and intoxicated or angry and clear headed?

If you do the effort to follow through on these questions, the chances of anger getting out of control and leading to relapse and another round of drug or alcohol rehab are greatly reduced. Besides whether you have been in rehab or are just considering rehab, these exercises are good advice for everyone. A lot of most good drug treatment programs are just good advice. Addiction is like a lot of other problems in life, hard work and honesty go a long way towards a successful rehab learning experience.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 4th, 2005 at 12:33 pm and is filed under Drug Addiction, Drug Rehab. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.