Anger. How do YOU handle it?

Wow! What a meeting. We weren't halfway through and I turned to the man sitting next to our group secretary and whispered, "Hell, we can give out the chips now and go home!" The sharing at my men's meeting tonight was about the most powerful I've experienced and I've experienced a lot of powerful moments in that meeting. At that point I wasn't sure I could absorb much more.

I hadn't planned on chairing the meeting, but we've had some group upheaval recently with a change in location and secretary's. It's all good, but change brings its moments of confusion. Anyway, shortly before the meeting I was asked to pick a topic and be prepared in case the guy scheduled forgot. So I did what I often do. Picked up the Big Book, riffled the pages and let God pick.

So after we got the meeting started I asked a simple question. "How many of you in the past week have had someone just piss you off?" As you might expect, the majority of hands went up in the room and I read a section from the Big Book starting on page 66:

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. When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one.

I then turned the meeting over to them with the request that the sharing focus on how they deal with anger today in their recovery as opposed to how they used to deal with it. Then I just sat back and learned. The group is as diverse as any I've ever encountered. We meet in a room at a recovery house and get people straight off the street or from detox. We have guys who are trying to get back on their feet, construction workers, business owners, cops, doctors, we even let a lawyer or two in. And me. The range of sobriety any given week may be from a few hours to almost 40 years. It was that way tonight.

To a man the stories shared showed the program of AA in action. Learning to recognize and work on cleaning up your side of the street. Learning to let go of resentments before they eat you up and lead you back to the bottle. Learning to show love and tolerance and that showing love and tolerance does not make you less of a man.

It occurred to me on the drive home that these men -- from the burly worker who wanted to pinch someone's head off but went back to forgive and receive forgiveness to the man who almost failed to help someone in need because of his anger but allowed his God and the program to work -- each has a healthier approach to the challenge of their daily life than most of the people I meet "out there." They have the program to help them to "practice these principles" in their daily life. And they are doing just that.

It's taken me a while to begin to grasp what it means to practice these principles. But, I have some good role models. My God, my Higher Power as I understand Him, gives me the humility I need to learn from the man who used to eat out of the dumpster and to see God and His wisdom shine through him.

Until next time...