Anger and Righteousness

Anger is a powerful emotion.
Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,

One of the things we learn in A.A. is to beware of  H.A.L.T..  That is to be cautious whenever you are hungry, angry, lonely, tired.  Such experiences are potentially devastating to one who is seeking to remain sober, or in my case, at this time, to quit smoking.

Paul writes that we will experience anger, perhaps even that we should experience anger at certain things, but that we should neither sin, nor let the sun set on our anger.  There is a righteous purpose for anger, and that is to motivate us to oppose and resist unrighteousness, injustice, cruelty, etc.  Anger's righteous purpose is to motivate us to act now, before the sun sets.

And yet too often we fall prey to emotions such as anger and rather than deal forthrightly with the object of our anger in a positive way we seek other outlets to dissipate the anger, such as drinking or smoking.  Worse, sometimes that anger gets turned inward, or toward others such as our spouses who are in no way deserving of being the object of  our anger.

I got angry this last week.  There's no purpose served in detailing that in this blog out of deference to those involved.  But the simple fact is that anger was felt by me.

Powerful emotion.

Part of the dilema for a chemically addicted person is that our most natural response to anger is to turn to that substance, be it drink or smoke, as a means of dissipating the anger.  We are angry and so we are then tempted to do that which is destructive to ourselves.  My last episode drinking, now nearly 6 years ago was the result of a deep rage that had gotten a grip on me and which boiled over.  Alcohol was not adequate to calm the raging beast, but was very much adequate to killing me.  I'm lucky to have survived.

When I'm angry at the world, or any significant part of it, the temptation is to take a "fuck it all" attitude.  (Sorry to be so blunt, but what's the purpose of disguising a word with ***'s)  All of a sudden a Scotch in hand and a big cigar seems to be a perfect solution.

Sobriety is about learning more positive responses to life.  Being angry at someone else and then engaging is self destructive behavior is not appropriate.

"See, now I'm angry, and so it's alright to smoke." I can't tell you how many attempts to quit smoking were foiled by anger.  Quitting smoking itself, often results in anger, so it's an easy out to quit quitting whenever one experiences anger.  I probably would have quit decades ago if I'd been able to handle anger.  Most often the anger I experienced when trying to quit was focused inappropriately on my wife, as she, more than anyone, wanted me to quit.

And so the effort is to find more positive ways to confront the anger within us and realize that emotions are only emotions.  Yes, in certain situations such emotions call for an immediate response to a bad situation.  But a lot of times emotions such as anger need to be understood, dealt with, and let go of ASAP.

I'm reminded of God's dialogue with Jonah.

"But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."

First of all, many times anger is not warranted.  Secondly, self destructive behavior, or "being angry enough to die" is no solution.

Life is too precious to allow others, and emotions, to have that kind of control over us and our behavior.