I Got Sober, But I'm Still Angry

Learning to control my temper in recovery.

Photo by shraga kopstein on Unsplash

I was a daily drinker throughout my twenties. It was a habit that destroyed my life in a myriad of ways, and yet, when I think back on those years, what I regret the most was the way that my alcoholism hurt the people around me.

As a drunk, I was filled with rage. I was always just one bad moment away from blowing up and shouting at everyone around me.

I wrote about this in detail in this newsletter a few years ago, in the essay “Alcoholism and Rage.” Then, earlier this year, I wrote a follow-up essay about how my anger carried through into my sobriety, and what I’ve done to get a handle on it: “Getting Sober and Getting Angry.”

If you’ve struggled with anger issues, and haven’t read either of those yet, I’d encourage you to give them a read. Everything I wrote in them still stands.

Today, however, I wanted to revisit the topic of anger again. Why?

Because over the past few weeks, I’ve felt myself filled to the brim with anger yet again.

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Sober and Angry

I’ve been sober for nearly eight years now. Not only have I abstained from alcohol, but I’ve also spent a lot of time directly tackling my anger issues. You’d think I’d have a handle on them at this point.

However, despite that, I’ve been feeling like my old rage-filled self. Today, it was at its worst. I stayed up late last night angry over an issue at work, woke up feeling even worse about it, and was mad about everything all day long.

How did I get here?

The trouble is that I’ve had a few different problems go wrong all at once. I’ve had the issue at work, I had a social interaction in which someone acted very rudely toward me, and I was dealing with immigration issues. I think that the recent election in the United States also added to my general level of stress.

With each of those things going wrong, everything else in my life started to bother me more. For example, cultural differences in Spain compared to the US have been getting on my nerves. I’ve been living abroad here for over a year, and I’ve begun to adapt to most of the differences. However, a few of them are just driving me crazier and crazier with time.

This might sound silly, but people in Spain walk in a very meandering, oblivious way, and it drives me absolutely insane. It’s the kind of thing that bugs me all the time, but when I’m already angry about more serious issues, this seemingly minor cultural difference pisses me off far more than it should.

And that’s just one example. Throughout the past few weeks, there have been countless little things like that getting on my nerves. I’m not saying that these should make me angry—in fact, my point is just the opposite. These are the kinds of minor annoyances that normally are forgotten within seconds. But, with the way my mood has been, they add fuel to the fire.

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What I’m Doing About It

When I first quit drinking, I used to feel angry all the time. Sometimes, it made me question sobriety. What good was it to quit drinking when all of my problems continued anyway?

I could still take that approach today. I could use the fact that I’m still getting angry eight years into sobriety as evidence that none of this is working. Thankfully, I know better, and I can recognize that as an addict’s way of thinking.

Instead, I’m focused on the fact that unlike when I got angry as an addict, this time around I haven’t snapped and poured all my anger out onto someone else.

I’ve had several moments over the past few weeks where I felt completely ready to unload on the person who had most recently offended me. However, instead of doing that, I separated myself from the situation, gave myself time to cool off, and avoided escalating anything.

Instead, I’m dealing with my anger in the healthier ways. One of my main strategies has been to run. A lot. I ran over 7 miles today, and a few days ago hit 18 in a single rune. It’s a lot of time to be exercising, but it helps me to relax and get my emotions in check.

I’ve also been complaining about my problems to friends. Of course, if you constantly complain every time that you talk to someone, it can get old. But, I think that leaning on friends a bit when you’re having a hard time is a sign that you’ve developed healthy, positive relationships with them.

Lastly, I’m writing this newsletter. There’s no better way for me to get some perspective on my problems that to write about it. It’s one of the reasons that I’m still writing about sobriety after so many years.

In the end, I have to admit that sobriety didn’t fix all of my problems. Here I am, eight years later, still getting angry.

However, sobriety has taught me to deal with these problems in healthier ways. Instead of getting drunk and yelling at people, I’m going for a run and writing a newsletter. I’m not perfect, but I’m sure making a lot of progress.