ANGER

When I went to a CBT conference hosted by David Burns, I was surprised by the fact that he kept bringing up anger.  It was a conference about combating anxiety, yet he continually found that anxiety was usually secondary to anger, because we live in a "nice" culture where it's not OK to express your anger.  In fact, one of his techniques to "untwist your thinking" revolved entirely around the idea that you may be holding in something upsetting and your brain has converted this anger into a safer emotion (anxiety).

The Hidden Emotion Model: This technique is based on the idea that when you're anxious, you may be avoiding a personal problem that you don't want to face. Bringing this problem to conscious awareness and expressing your feelings will often eliminate your anxiety. Ask yourself, "Am I focusing on my anxiety to avoid dealing with something upsetting? What's the real problem that's bothering me? Do I secretly resent my spouse or my job? Am I unhappy about being in school? How do I really feel?"  (from David Burns 50 ways to untwist your thinking)

That was different from what I heard in my substance abuse classes; there I learned that anger is a secondary emotion and that there is usually something behind the anger, like feeling inferior, that people won't let themselves be vulnerable enough with to express, so instead they take it out on the people around them with anger.   

Which comes first the anxiety or the anger?  I think it depends on which population you work with. If you worked with drug addicts all day, you may see a lot of angry clients and see that the real reason they express that emotion is they are experiencing pain from cravings and withdrawal, pain from abuse and neglect, and sorrow from past mistakes. If you are working with anxious clients, you will see that the hidden emotion is unexpressed anger and they have learned to quickly suppress it because its "not OK to be angry." For example, a client may be really angry they had to work a late shift again but was too nice to tell his boss how mad he was, and may feel he doesn't deserve to be angry anyway and should be grateful he even has the job, so instead he just develops anxiety about going to work, or may have the urge to throw up every time his boss comes around. 

In either scenario, managing anger becomes an important aspect of recovery. Anger has gotten a bad rap because we associate anger with being out of control. Many people get uncomfortable at the least and at worst hurt when anger rears its ugly head. However, anger is an emotion we all will experience and simply having some anger does not make you out of control, any more than having some sadness makes you depressed.  It can actually be quite useful anger, it can defend us when we are in danger and can warn us when something isn't right, and helps us keep healthy boundaries, so we don't want to eliminate or suppress it completely.

So what do we do with it?  There are two options, you can 1. lower your expectations or 2. learn to express your anger in a healthy manner. 
The latter, learning to express your anger assertively but not hurtfully, is by far the optimal decision for your mental health. However, it takes practice, courage and vulnerability to be able to learn how to simply and assertively express that you are upset about something without hidden vindictive intentions.  We first have to identify what is making us upset, and sometimes that alone is very difficult because we've spent a lifetime suppressing or avoiding the emotional pain of anger. Once the source of the anger is pinpointed, we must have the courage to say in a calm voice, "I feel upset about that" without criticism, contempt, defensiveness, or revenge.  (Or "please don't do that" or "I don't feel right about that" or even "I'm so angry I can't see straight.")

If you are not sure that expressing your anger is an option for you right now, you can try to lower your expectations.  Anger generally comes from frustration about something you expected to happen or thought should happen but did not.   The man yelling at his computer obviously thought some technical program should be easier to navigate than it was or doing something that it was not. A wife  cannot be angry with her spouse if there was not some expectation in her mind that he did not meet.  It stands to reason that if you lower your expectations you will lower your frequency of angry moments.  Trying to lower expectations can help you at least start to identify the source of your anger so that you can decide if its worth being angry about, and if it is, explore ways of how to express that.

"Peace comes from learning to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be."

Addiction

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
"Relax, " said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!
--Eagles

We all do things to try and alter our conscious awareness at times. Whether it be food, botanicals, or entheogens, humans have long been taking in substances (or engaging in behaviors) that change the chemicals in the brain to promote a sense of well being.  You may be doing it too, without realizing it.  For example, bread or other carbohydrates make us feel calm and stimulate serotonin levels, and you don't realize how much you "need" refined carbohydrates until you try to eliminate them completely from your diet. Most people who engage in behaviors that promote their sense of well being will continue to do so until it causes more pain than relief, or too many disadvantages to ignore any longer.  So ask yourself, is what you are doing working for you?
Maybe you do realize you are trying to alter your conscious awareness, and it's causing you some problems, but you don't know what to do about it. When the neruotransmitter dopamine gets a surge and the pleasure centers of the brain become accustomed to a certain substance or behavior, the ability to choose becomes compromised. Your brain will push you towards more of that substance to the point of feeling you need it to keep going, to keep living, to survive.  When a substance becomes one of the primary survival needs it is very difficult to reverse that process, because the brain itself becomes programed to protect itself from ever losing its source of pleasure and survival.
Contrary to what the popular Eagles lyrics suggest, there is hope. The human brain can cause a lot of problems, but the mind can overcome the brain if given the proper tools. Have you ever looked at a large dam?  At the bottom of every dam there is a little river of water.  The flow of that river of water increases or decreases depending on the pressure building up on the other side of the dam. More pressure, more water let out. It is the same things with our life. Willpower alone will probably not get you far in overcoming addition, but willpower combined with positive negative outlets such as therapy, group support, journal writing, writing your story, exercise, pursuit of hobbies and goals, and telling your story to family and friends, may help your brain little by little find other ways to cope with discomforts in life without the addictive substance.  The key is to find positive coping outlets, if you deal with negative experiences in life by numbing the pain instead of letting them out, your will become internally as toxic as the Dead Sea.  You need an outlet!  Negative thoughts, feelings, and experiences will continue to come, but there is much in life worth living for if you know how to let the negative out in a positive way.
It will take time and courage and vulnerability, and will not be easy, but if you "hold the vision and trust the process" your mind can help change your brain that has been trapped in the dopamine surge of addiction. Please seek help, talking to someone about it is a first great step.

"Whatever the mind can conceive, it can achieve." --W. Clement Stone
"Where there's hope, there's life; it gives us fresh courage and makes us strong again." Anne Frank