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Anger surrounds addiction

Thank you for all your responses via email and letters.Your replies, comments and thoughts help clarify my own.In this, I identify gaps in my logic and become aware of faulty thinking. Many people are angry at addicts like me.I get that.

Thank you for all your responses via email and letters.Your replies, comments and thoughts help clarify my own.In this, I identify gaps in my logic and become aware of faulty thinking.

Many people are angry at addicts like me.I get that. Remember, I grew up in an alcoholic family. My father was an alcoholic. He was a happy drunk yet despite this, his drinking impacted us all.My younger brother lives in a perpetual state of anger and rage.My father quit drinking 15 years before his untimely death at age 60. My father is gone yet my younger brother still lives with his rage.

Addiction is destructive, horrible, it hurts all those around.John Bradshaw was one of the first to discuss how addiction hits family systems.He uses the analogy of a child's hanging mobile to explain. When hanging in healthy balance and harmony, all mobile pieces move nicely together.When one piece is hit (by addiction), the entire mobile is impacted, the whole family system is disturbed.

If you remove one piece of the mobile, that is, cut addiction/addict out of your life, the mobile becomes lopsided, it does not function well; the whole family system continues to move with anger and rage.My dad is dead, yet my brother still simmers.

Anger is dangerous for alcoholics and addicts like me.Resentment is the number one offender for us. Unaddressed, it keeps us addicts trapped in our disease.We are not like you normies (we call non-addicts 'normies'); we canNnot afford the dubious luxury of these negative feelings.When in the midst of our disease, we addicts forget this.Anger and resentments are useful to us; they are like gasoline to our fire.Addiction rages, it burns everything around, it consumes what it can; a wildfire needs fuel.

Anger, self pity, remorse - these are fuel to our fire, necessary for our addiction to live.

So how do I, an addict unknown personally to you, address your anger? I damaged so many people in my path of destructive use.Saying sorry no longer works.What matters is what I do.I write this column, expose myself to you, to your rage, in an attempt to make amends for my past.

I am sorry for your pain, the anger that you feel.I am responsible, my actions, my way of being, brings that to the forefront for you. I realize my apology may enrage some even more. "You are not responsible for my anger, how dare you apologize!?" You might next say to me.

All I know is that anger begets more anger.

After time, the continued expression of, the continued feeling of and the continued revisiting of one thing over and over again, habituates the brain to that one only thing. Neural pathways to this one aspect develop, and over time with repeated expression, the anger pathway becomes strongly entrenched. Soon there is no escaping, the pain may even go underground.It may become unconscious until something or someone like me, enters your world, triggering it out, all over again.

Thank you for being honest, for expressing your feelings, your anger and pain.Your words help clarify my thinking.I am grateful for that.I hope my column promotes discussion.I hope it opens up dialogue between us addicts and you.My column may not address your anger/pain but I hope it is a beginning for us addicts, to begin to hear how you all, on the other side, may be feeling towards addicts, like me.

- Questions for Ann? Send your submissions (anonymously, if you choose) to columns@pgcitizen.ca and we'll pass them along.