In an effort to avoid being called/labeled a "LOSER", I will refrain from suggesting AA. After all, it isn't my place, I don't know you and I don't know that you are in need of treatment found there. Perhaps you?re not an alcoholic; it is entirely possible that you are not. For the purpose of this writing, I will assume you are not an alcoholic and leave it at that.
However, the irritability issue is what seems most pressing at the moment and that I can relate to in a big way. And so, I will try to address the irritability and leave the alcohol issue at rest.
Irritability, anger....or flat out rage is, as I indicated, is something I know a lil about from personal experience. For many years after Straight I didn?t think of myself as an angry person...In fact I thought of myself as a pretty easy going, laid back kind guy. Little bit by little bit I began to seethe. I noticed (because friends/family pointed it out) I was hyper-critical of most anything.
I had married by that time. I had married a woman that had a young child...a pre-fabricated family. Here, my "irritability" began to blossom and mature. No longer was there a seething beneath the thin veneer of my falsified personality. I was quick to explode, and it would be less than the truth to imply my "irritability" did not affect others. It certainly did. My step son, had colic....he didn?t sleep for shit. He also had night terrors....meaning when he did sleep; he had horrible nightmares and woke up screaming bloody murder. Surely this colic and night terror thing had an effect on me.
Now it would be unfair to suggest that my step sons sleeping habit/conditions had anything to do with my "irritability". Did it exacerbate the situation...with out a doubt. Was the boys sleeping patterns the etiology of my "irritability", I do not believe so.
As the marriage progressed and the boy aged we began to compete for his mother?s affection. Dumb idea I know, in fact I knew it at the time. Knowing something like this intellectually, doesn't mean that I could refrain from the competition. Inevitably, I lost the competition...no surprise there huh.
I noticed that sounds he would make sent me into a frenzied state of rage. These sounds oddly enough came from him at a time of great happiness and would be considered sounds of glee. But never the less each time he made the sound, I went into a blinding rage.....internally. I say internal, because I was ashamed to show my rage...who in their right mind would explode into a blind rage at the sound of a gleeful child? Well, I did, sadly enough.
The marriage failed, and I thought my "irritability" would collapse as easily as the marriage....it did not. About 6 months after the divorce a Canadian tourist cut me off in traffic. I exploded into that blind rage once more...I was stunned! I couldn?t believe I was capable of such rage. But I was, and I couldn?t deny it.
Several years later I hauled off and got sober. About 3 years without a drink, my "irritability" resurfaced yet again. This time I could sense it stewing and boiling, just waiting for the opportunity to erupt so that I could spew forth my vile disgust for all that surrounded me. What the fuck?
I ended up seeing a doctor and explained my dilemma. I was diagnosed with "Explosive Temper Disorder". Hmmmm, no shit! He went further to explain that essentially I was experiencing ultra mild seizure activity. Which made sense considering, the responses I had to auditory stimulation from my step son. It also explained how I could feel myself seething (for no particular reason) and then explode over a snapped shoe lace to crazy traffic conditions. At that time I was placed on Klonopin.......WOW! Talk about taking the wind out of my sails, this shit worked. (Still does)
Later on, after a few years with the Klonopin, I again began to experience the "irritability" again. I had the good fortune of meeting a woman (with no AA/Straight affiliation), she suggested that my "irritability", "anger", "rage" may be due to....compromise. She explained that the "compromise" was not over which TV show, or over which movie to see, but internal compromise. Compromising ideals I held to be true for the sake of another?s ideals generates an internal conflict, thus the "irritability".....Hmmmm, she really started to make sense.
But how could this be???
Well, I compromised a lot of my internal landscape for and because of Straight Inc. And 20 years (now 27 years) after the fact I was still seething. It seemed absurd, to say the least...but could she be far from the truth? Could it be possible, that much (if not all) of my "irritability", stemmed from "compromise"? And if indeed there was an internal "compromise".....couldn't, wouldn't that be considered abuse or an act of denying my civil liberties? Seemingly I was opening up an old can of worms and it was scary...because the closer I looked into the "compromise" issue.....the angrier I got! Keep in mind, this was really beginning to shatter all ideas I had about myself being an easy going kinda guy, in fact I was beginning to see that I was basically...damaged goods.
Would I have to live with this constant under current of seething rage?
Yes, and No. In my view the operative word in the question is "constant". The word "constant" to me is much like the word "permanent". It is funny how intellect tells me that indeed nothing is permanent, and yet emotionally.....everything is permanent. Emotions are anything but permanent, they come and go like the clouds. It is true that emotions can be predictable, like night and day...yet they do not last.
Feelings are not facts...
I experience feelings, as anyone does......Sometimes I experience "Irritability", sometimes I experience "Embarrassment" and other times I experience "Happiness" and other times "Joy". None of these experiences are "facts" and by default they are not permanent. I won't even to begin to discuss the troubles I have gotten into by demanding something be permanent when it is not. It?s a self-induced mind fuck and it is absolutely unnecessary...It's an old habit I learned along time ago, in a place called Straight.
Regarding a remedy or cure in one word; Endurance. Whilst enduring the agitation of an irritable time, commit a random act of kindness, and don?t tell anyone. I know it sounds absurd, just like smiling while cleaning up cat puke?.sounds fucked up, but it stops the gag reflex.
In Peace?
