I was awakened this morning by a phone call from an old friend. What he told me was my story. He had gotten angry with someone and needed to talk about it. I almost laughed. I had done the same thing the day before and there was a common theme to both of our stories. And the solution was the same for both of us.
Anger has been such a bug for me over the years. And it’s always the same. I have the same outrage for everything. It doesn’t matter how slight the provocation might be. It could be just someone passing by and not speaking. Or it could be something far more serious. But the degree of anger is always the same. Someone once wrote about their anger and said that they had no nuance in their loss of temper. Their anger wasn’t proportionate to the seeming cause of their loss of temper. Nor is mine. There’s something really wrong with my reaction.
I know what causes me to lose my temper. It’s my injured pride most of the time. My ego. It always trips me up. It is a trap to get me into self pity and resentment. Not a pretty picture. I know what it is I have to do when I’m unprepared and seemingly provoked. It usually comes from my not being prepared to practice these principles in all of my affairs. I know that when I am on fairly good spiritual footing that it doesn’t come up. It’s when I’m not aware and have forgotten about these major character defects that I fail.
Fortunately I have learned not to respond in general. Occasionally an unnecessary response comes out of my mouth. But, for the most part I practice keeping my mouth shut and my hands in my pockets.
Yesterday, when I got angry, I went aside and sat down and did a quick inventory, after I had cooled down. I knew that I had to cut off the resentment that was beginning to grow inside of me. Almost immediately I knew that self centered fear had stirred up my false pride and self image. “You can’t talk to me that way! Don’t you know who I am?” Of course I didn’t say that. But that’s what’s going on down inside. The seeds of justifiable anger. And the seeds of thinking and acting like a drunk.
At that point I had to ask my higher power for help. By myself I know I can’t take care of any of this. Never have. I had to swallow that false pride. Ugh! And I had to begin my day all over again.
I have learned this over and over through the years, that if I want to stay sober, I have to take care of this kind of stuff as soon as possible. My sponsor taught me that over and over. He showed me how much wasted energy and time I spent on my anger and resentments. It was always the same. It was the same kind of stuff I grew up with as a kid and spent so much time on when I was drinking. Of course he gave me the greatest example I ever saw on how he dealt with his own anger. One night he came to a meeting and stopped the meeting. He told how he had lost his temper and was in grave danger of taking a drink. Then he sat and listened to what others said in reply to his story. It was a lesson in humility to me. I never forgot that night.
My primary purpose is to stay sober. My sponsor taught me that it was why I came here in the first place. Anger and resentment are, for the most part, not only a waste of my sober life, but can trigger me back into a drink. I don’t ever want to drink again and have to remember how to deal with this character defect and its cause. As the BB points out that enternal vigilance is the price of sobriety.