I Am Angry With An Alcoholic-How Do You Cope With Being Angry

Have you ever been caught totally off guard and suddenly you were furious about something the alcoholic did or didn’t do? What are some of the ways you deal with your anger?

Just the other day I had a horrible bout with feeling angry about several things. Actually, I was furious to the point of not being able to have much self control. My emotions were way off balance, so much that I felt intense anger for about ten hours. I was overtaken and extremely uncomfortable with what I was feeling and just couldn’t seem to shake the negative emotions. I lost a lot of sleep, said things I shouldn’t have said and caused hurt and pain in someone that I really love.

Here are a few of the things I did  in an attempt to relive my frustrations:

  1. I went to an Al-anon meeting. If you’ve never been to Al-anon consider going. It’s an organization designed to help people like me and you deal with alcoholics.
  2. I wrote in my journal. I wrote in it several times because I could not get rid of the anger.
  3. I went for a very long walk with a friend and talked about the things that were bothering me.
  4. I attempted to discuss a few of the things I was angry about with the person I was upset with.
  5. I accepted that what I was feeling was okay.
  6. I screamed out loud a couple of times, once in my apartment and the other was while driving in my car.
  7. I treated myself to my favorite breakfast meal, bacon, toast and two over easy eggs.

Anger is an emotion that should be felt. We can also accept that it’s okay to be angry. How we deal with the anger is the important thing.

One of my favorite blogs to keep up with is called “So What I Really Meant.” In one of Alison Paulson’s articles about being angry she writes this:

“Anger can be a powerful emotion. In threatening circumstances, anger can be a potent means to scare away others, to command action, or to maintain your boundaries.

In many circumstances, however, showing raw anger prevents understanding and perpetuates pain or loss.”

How do you deal with things when you get very irritated? Do you isolate or get really depressed when intense negative feelings overtake you? Do you scream at people when you are mad at them? Do you write letters to people or emails in an attempt to resolve issues? Do you release your frustrations verbally through cursing or spouting off? What is it that you do to finally overcome being angry at an alcoholic or anyone? Is anger just a symptom of a problem?

Please feel free to leave a comment below.

 




56 comments to I Am Angry With An Alcoholic-How Do You Cope With Being Angry

  • R.D.

    Mariel, I got to Al-anon and it helps me cope.

  • C

    We have one time on this wonderful Earth! It is so important to learn and enjoy – to make friends and thrive. Living with an alcoholic as a child or spouse/gf/bf is almost impossible at times. When their moods, drinking and acting out begin to make you sick, then you must take action. Actually, it is better to go to Al-anon or a therapist before the stress is overwhelming.

    This past month, our small town buried 3 men under 56. One was 46. All were drinkers and thought they would live forever! Alcoholism takes some at an early age – others die of old age but they almost take someone with them!

    Always get support from someone who is trained in supporting the partner/child of an alcoholic. I don’t think we can keep our sanity without it!

  • K

    Mariel, I wish there was some magic to keeping you life free of anger.

    Firstly, anger would control my whole life if I let it. I really got
    tired of being mad at the alcoholic and mad at the world. I did not
    want this and like you did not need it.

    I stopped letting the mean statements from the ah attack me personally.
    That is hard to do when you love someone deeply like your mother. I
    do not accept the guilt trips. Your mother has failed to realize
    what she is doing to her life and to yours. This is where the
    word disease seems to qualify as an answer to the problem of alcoholism.
    The brain is actually destroying its self yes, but it is unreasonable
    for you to let it destroy your life. Being angry only hurts you. The AH
    stumbles around, he sees no problem with the anquish he causes you because
    they do not realize how they hurt us. .

    I love to find a quiet place, preferably away from the alcoholic but this
    can be done anywhere. I think over my whole day and try to remember
    all the good things. Breath deep and let go of the disease that is
    affecting me from the ah and find pleasure in those things and feelings
    of love towards my fellow man or .for that matter. This works for me
    but C. is right in the need for trained specialists. Good Luck and remember
    to love your self first, not selfishly, just necessarily

  • kelly

    Oh Mariel,
    my heart breaks for you.. I am now sober but was a mother whom drank her pain away and was , like yours, in denial to the pain it caused my children..
    Please don’t isolate yourself in this please go to a meeting for family of alcoholics, please dont feel guilty for being angry – Anger comes from pain and deep hurt, as well as fear and resentment – if you don’t allow yourself the anger it means you don’t allow yourself to know your being badly treated – and you ARE being badly treated. I know I did it o my children sweetheart, its not your fight to fight…. Then if you can try talking to your mum from the vulnerable place: mam I can’t trust you anymore, mam this is killing me inside to see you doing this, mam i love you and will always love you but i can’t stay here and watch you do this to yourself, mam i know if you were yourself you wouldn’t want me destroying my life to…. more than anything Mariel, please know your not alone and get help from other groups that know and understand how you feel…… PLEASE MIND YOUR HEART FIRST, your mother isn’t able to at the moment, its not her its the alcohol and saying its a ‘disease’ is a cope out I agree, she just needs to get to that point on her own of seeing that, I’m afraid you can’t get her there and its NOT Yyour job, its your job to mind YOUR heart first… my love is with you xoxo



  • Jenn

    I am still angry, and I’m not even with my axbf anymore. We broke up a little over a year ago and have not had any contact in a year. But I still find myself feeling angry and guilty sometimes – back and forth – just as I did when I was in the relationship. We were only together a few years, so it astounds me how much of an impact his drinking had on me, that I am *still* struggling with the emotions.

    We are in our early 40’s, so I’ve had other – and longer – relationships, but none with someone who I felt so compatible with on so many important levels. I truly felt I’d met “the one”… but it was within only a short time that his drinking became bothersome to me… then slowly, over time, the resentments grew. I became angry, snippy, began isolating myself/us, felt like I was hiding the truth from everyone, etc. Nothing about him had changed, but so many things about me had. So I started blaming myself – and he blamed me, too. I was angry at him, but then felt guilty, then resentful and angry. It was an awful cycle.

    I did my drinking as a college student, and rarely drink as an adult. So I thought maybe I was making too big a deal of it. All his friends are big drinkers, so I was the buzz kill, I thought. He wasn’t an angry drunk, he wasn’t abusive, didn’t pass out or drive drunk, etc. He was thoughtful, generous, kind, compassionate, loving, caring, chivalrous, loyal, close with family and friends, hard-working, etc. We shared so many loving and fun times together and created many beautiful memories in those few years. He treated me wonderfully, so I felt guilty for paying any attention to my gut that was instilling a fear of the future with him. I kept brushing the feeling aside and it would fester and grow and eventually, I’d blow up – and become the “irrational” woman who he couldn’t “deal with” and I was “unstable” and “troubled” and blaming my issues on his drinking.

    I wanted to stay, but wanted to leave. I went back and forth between “he is the one” and “I’m not going down with that ship”. Eventually, he broke up with me. I had brought up the subject of his drinking “for the last time”.

    While I am over the initial shock and hurt of the breakup & loss of a man I loved so dearly (drinking aside), I still struggle with his choice of the bottle over our love. That he could so easily live without me, but could not imagine living without his drink.

    I still think at times, that maybe I made too big a deal of it. Then, at other times, I think, drinking almost a pint of hard alcohol every night (within a 2-3 hour period) is trouble in the making. I miss him dearly… but I don’t miss his drinking at all. I don’t miss the sounds that grew to be like nails on a chalkboard – the squeak of the cabinet door, the sound of the bottle cap being unscrewed, the sound of the ice cubes rustling and the clink-clink as they went into the glass, the glub-glub sound of the alcohol being poured. I could feel the tension in my body grow in anticipation of those sounds every – single – night. I hated it. And then he’d sit down next to me to watch TV together… and I tried so hard not to hate him, too, in that moment. Because I loved him. I just hated that gdamn drink with a passion.

  • TotAlly agree that your mother needs to be responsible for her own actions. The blame game and the guilt trip is old news stick up for yourself let her sink or let her swim she is going to do what she wants to do and try to get away as often as possible.
    Her loss. She should be so proud to have a college graduate come home but she wants to focus on herself not you I call that jealousy. Good luck and go forward

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