April 10 - Anger

 

Anger has been called “the dubious luxury of normal men”. The word dubious means under suspicion or untrustworthy, not to be relied upon. Our literature says that for alcoholics, things like anger are poison. Usually, my own anger was unjustified. I often suspected people in my life of doing things or saying things that they had not done or said. But, “the wrongdoings of others, fancied or real, had the power to kill.” So, it didn't matter if people had truly screwed me or if I just thought they had, the result was the same.

So, it was important for me to be free of anger. But, how can I do that. I have found that a good way to begin to do that is to place my trust, my reliance, upon something not dubious, in this case upon a power greater than my own.

To quote the book Alcoholics Anonymous, pg 66-67, “This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.”