I am angry and I do not have a clue how to deal with it!

[ali2]

This has been one hell of a rollercoaster week. I have been in PAIN! And yes, I gave into this addiction of smoking 2 times. I have not yet learned how to deal with the reasl painful stuff without smoking. Today when I lost my job, I was flooded with emotions. I was angry, sad, fearful, in denial, and majorly overwhelemed. I also felt not worthy and l just felt like a piece of shit that got thrown away. IN reality.....I lost a job. Period. But at the time I really felt like my life was over and I have the F its. I did not care about myself because I had so self esteem. And anger is so new to me so I do not know how to deal with that emotion. I have always taken it out on myself my entire life. I do NOT express it correctly. Hell, I do not even know HOW you are supposed to express it.

I was never allowed to be angry. I always turned it inward. So being angry is so foreign to me. My natural reaction is to hurt myself in some way. I did this thru my addictions. I found food first. I almost died at age 24 when I weighed 84 pounds. Thank God I am fully recovered. I found booze at a 12 and I was an ugly drunk. I was a sappy, crying, pathetic drunk. Thank God I am sober and clean from other things. The last and hardest drug for me to stop is cigarettes.

I know I CAN do this. It is my anger getting in the way. When I get angry or someone else hurts me, then it is so automatic to do harm to myself for relief. Looking at that senstence I can see how insane that is. But that is how this addict has always operated. And the only way it will change is for me to recognize the pattern. Real young I use to self injure myself before the terms cutter and things like that ever came out. So I can see now, I have always harmed myself for relief of my inside pain which was really anger that I did not know how to deal with.

I do not engage in any of those behaviors today......EXCEPT I still am hurting myself every time I pick up a smoke!!!! I need to see this in writing for myself so I can see that this is real. I need to hear myself saying that I am harming myself when I am picking up a smoke. I may get that little relief but all my problems are still there and now I am smoking too. How intelligent is that? I am way too smart for this idiotic, insane pattern!!!!!! Being smart is not an assett at all!!! I analyze the crap out of analyzing. I need to keep things real simple for this comlex, chaotic brain of mine. The committee in my head is always talking.

So I need to get a grip here on my anger. I need to know how to deal with it. If I do not learn how to deal with myself and what comes up for me, I will continue a downward path. THAT IS NOT WHAT I WANT OR I WOULD NOT BE HERE! Take away the smokes and I am angry. Then add a situation to fuel the fire and I lose it. So I need to learn healthy tools because I am not going to keep hurting myself. I want to live and be FREE! I want to be healthy. I want my cats to be healthy! I do not want anything having a grip on me. I want my life back. I want to be in control of my emotions. This is why I quit so this is why I am not going to keep hurting ME! I just need help with dealing with my anger and learn how to refocus it and channnel it into a healthy venue.

[jim_taddeo]

START HERE! If you cannot find your way on your own and with a little direction from here then SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP! Anyone here telling you it's OK to smoke is FULL OF SHIT! Stay the fuck away from them. Anyone anywhere else telling you you have to have NRT's is also a dope dealer the,selves. The ONLY way to get OFF OF THE DOPE IS TO QUIT TAKING IT! I am not kidding. This is the deal.
GO HERE AND START SOON. You have to have the initial STRESS COPING EXERCISE:
The emotions being out of control ARE the cause of addictive behavior. COMFORT and the desire to not feel bad. What we have to do is get used to feeling bad because it is the way WE ARE SUPPOSED TO FEEL WHEN SOMETHING IS WRONG. The correct way to handle it is to do something constructive and positive with it. THAT MEANS WE MUST CHANGE SOMETHING IN MOST CASES!

Do not smoke in response to feeling bad.
DEAL WITH THE STRESS THROUGH: Draw.....breathe......meditate......build Lego's...........knit......sew............weave............carve ice................write a journal....cry until you are exhausted....and while you are doing that get a note book and formulate the plan that will let you NOT HAVE TO FEEL THIS AS MUCH. Figure it out. What discrete steps MUST you take to change your life for the better? What will it take? Understand that YOU KNOW what you have to do. Understand that you feel bad because you KNOW deep down that you want to make things better. THAT TAKES WORK! Many people will never take these steps in their lives. THEY WILL DIE MISERABLE DEATHS. It happens every day! Do you need to go back to school? DO you need to take two lesser jobs until you get your education? Do you already have education and the job market sucks? How can you find the job market? Use the damned pain to motivate you to CHANGE in ways that will stop the pain but CONSTRUCTIVELY! DO you even know what you want to do? Have you ever written that down?
Anger is a ROOT emotion of survival that comes about due to a perceived loss of control. It is a survival mechanism and you need to use it to motivate the hell out of yourself to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. The first acts you can take are to FIGHT THE SMOKING WITH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. BE STUBBORNLY CRYING SPITTING MEAN TOWARDS THE ADDICTION AND DO NOT GIVE IN FOR ANYTHING. FIGHT IT LIKE IT WAS LIFE AND DEATH! Oh shit! IT IS LIFE AND DEATH! IMAGINE THAT! By the way YOU SHOULD BE ANGRY! Someone WANTS you to stay addicted to these fucking drugs because they are getting rich from YOUR ADDICTION....THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU.....YOU ARE RIGHT! What you are missing is the courage to change it! IT TAKES HARD ASS WORK! Can you do that?
YOU HAVE TO DECIDE THAT YOU WILL NOT USE NICOTINE TO TRY AND SOLVE PROBLEMS............Tell me then......IS THAT WORKING FOR YOU? DOES LIGHTING BACK UP FIX THE PROBLEMS? THEN WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU KEEP DOING IT? You might want to find SOME HIGHER POWER THAN YOURSELF. I don't care what it is just do it because nicotine addiction is the same as any other addiction and you are JUST AS OUT OF CONTROL AS WITH THE DRINKING AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU DID.

YOU ARE NOT IN CONTROL OF YOU ADDICTIONS.........THEY ARE IN FULL CONTROL OF YOU AND YOU NEED TO SURRENDER TO THAT FACT AND JUST SIMPLY SAY IT...Then DO IT!
DO you know when you are in control of your addictions?...............WHEN YOU ARE NOT USING ANYTHING...THAT'S WHEN.............................You wonder why it doesn't get better? You have not stayed away from that shit LONG ENOUGH AND WORKED AT MAKING THEM BETTER. You are off the booze a year now right? You are JUST STARTING TO HEAL. What have you done to move ahead in this life since then? You have to say:
"NO MORE!" "NO MATTER WHAT I FEEL!" "NO MORE!"
AND THEN DO IT NO MATTER WHAT.................It is not easy for me to say BECAUSE I KNOW FROM DOING THIS WITH, Heroin, Coke, Opium, Acid, Mushrooms, Pot and Hashish, unbelievable amounts of all types of booze, and the fucking cigarettes to go with it....................YOU GOT IT EASY.............Ali............ 🙂

Don't get me wrong here......you are doing something but your kicking the shit out of yourself and then using that as an excuse to just give in................fuck that! Use the pain as motivation to CHANGE. Why keep going through this?

You can do this I telling you. What you cannot do IS ESCAPE FROM FEELING BAD! Feeling bad isn't going to kill you and it is not something to avoid...............it is however something to pay direct attention to and DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE ABOUT!

Papa

[jim_taddeo]

IF YOUR ARM IS BROKEN IT HURTS LIKE HELL...........DO YOU TAKE A DRUG AND EXPECT IT TO HEAL?

IF YOU HAVE A PIECE OF WOOD IN YOUR EYE..........DO YOU TAKE A DRUG AND EXPECT IT TO HEAL?

IF YOU SWALLOW POISON AND GET REALLY SICK......DO YOU TAKE A DRUG AND EXPECT TO HEAL?

IF YOUR EMOTIONS ARE BROKEN OR STILL AT THE AGE OF SAY 5 YEARS OLD.......DO YOU TAKE A DRUG AND EXPECT THAT YOU WILL HAVE EMOTIONAL HEALING OR GAIN EMOTIONAL MATURITY?

WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU THINK THAT NICOTINE IS GOING TO CURE WHAT AILS YOU.........THE FEDERAL AND CORPORATE SNAKE OIL SALESMEN?