Hello, my name is Deborah and I am addicted to anger. I let it rule my life because it is the kind of drug that is never in need of a prescription. I can find it anywhere because there is so much in the world right now that makes me angry. I can pick up the papers in the morning, I can drive my car in traffic and I can listen to the president speak his ton of daily lies and I am guaranteed my fair share of self-righteous anger.
Now that I have confessed to my addiction to this lethal emotion, I have to also confess that I know how to get rid of this addiction. I could go through the 12 step program and allow myself the time and effort it takes to expunge all these demons of my lustful anger and never have to be public about it.
But I don't want to be anonymous and I don't want to have to protect others' anonymity in this cause. I want to stand up and announce to everyone, especially those I love, that I know I am full of anger and how awful it is.
Let me share this trivial moment and you decide how public and forthcoming you choose to be about your anger. My partner, Suzanne, and I were having a very nice Saturday morning when the exterminator failed to show up. Well, let me tell you, I had one of those really long and loud blow outs and then I saw my poor Suzanne sitting in our bedroom holding her head. She didn't know what to do with me. I felt all that great glow of rage turn to a noxious stream inside me and tried to rid my body of its power. It was a long and arduous path part of which was aided by listening more in church to the ideas of peace and love of one's fellow man and woman. Part of it was aided by knowing this was one sure way of losing this partner I loved. Who, in truth, in their right mind wants to live with a person capable of such outbursts?
I knew it was addictive and I felt the drug's rush through my body every time it happened. I also experienced the withdrawal from it and knew again just how potent it would have to be if it was having that effect.
Then we had the events on Monday April 16th explode across the screens. It was a bit too explosive and has caused a real explosion of talk of guns and violence and our addiction as a country to guns and violence. On the Saturday night following the rampage at Virginia Tech, I was alone in a hotel room. I couldn't sleep and decided to watch the HBO channel because we don't have it at home. For the next several hours there was nothing on but one shoot-em-up, exploding guy pal action film after another. I was mesmerized and appalled. Why I stayed up is almost beyond my comprehension except that with all that adrenaline running through my body, how was I supposed to sleep?
After the attacks on September 11, 2001, the television world seemed to find some kind of sympathy for us poor Americans. They toned it down. But not after this latest violent rampage. It seems like it is just business as usual and with even greater frequency and with one right after another like that display on Saturday night, I returned to my home in Queens wondering how many other people laid awake on Saturday night and watched the violence fest that HBO treated us to. I wondered what their subsequent days were like and how many of those people were young people, people who had no ability as of yet to understand what the addictive power was of their all too real rage and anger and difficulties knowing what is right and wrong about anger and rage and the desire to be violent?
How many parents are teaching their kids about the difference between a normal anger and the kind that festers and grows? How many people know in fact what the difference is between a healthy angry response to something and the kind that will continue to feed that addictive side we all possess? And in the end, how many parents and other adults will stand up and say, Hi, my name is X and I am addicted to anger and violence. I need to find as many ways as possible to end it and in doing so, I am going public and admitting that this is a problem?
Perhaps we could begin by just admitting how much we love it and the way it makes us feel powerful in a world that feels increasingly out of our control. And this is the moment when I must tell you a little secret I learned not too long ago that has helped me. It is all out of our control. We cannot even control our heart rate. Let's worry about what we can control -- our responses to what we see in the world and use the energy to solve some problems rather than just reacting to them.