My father would get angry; he would yell, say cruel things to my mother, and was physically abusive to my mother and myself. I channeled that anger and was abusive towards my sister as a child. I would hit her and could be cruel. Perhaps I felt that he favored my sister, and I resented her for that. I was paying the rage forward. I know today that his behavior was his own resentments and brokenness coming out through alcohol enraged insanity. It was the drunk, or the morning after, that would lead to so much of the abuse. As an alcoholic parent myself, I loved my family as much as I possibly could, but there were fits of anger, yelling, spanking, fighting… explosions of rage that I could not even recognize or comprehend in retrospect. I even took some anger management classes, all the while believing that my anger could be managed, even when my drinking and drug abuse could not. Once I got sober, the anger did not go away. I spend much of my first year of sobriety feeling all sorts of feelings, feelings that I had tried desperately to bury for so many years, and now here they were, coming up to the surface, like a wound without a scab. I remember spending my first sober Christmas Eve alone at Damiano’s because I resented my mother and was angry at my oldest son, after getting into a shoving match with him, for wanting to go to his friend’s house, and who could blame him? Slowly, over time, the anger began to subside. In dealing with my father during his declining years, I dealt with the anger towards him to the best of my newfound ability in sobriety, and was there for him, sometimes, when I could manage it. I grew patience, love and understanding towards him. When he passed, we were good. Through my daily practice of prayer, meditation and yoga, I have found a peace within myself that surpasses my understanding. There is a joyful presence in me that is not looking through the eyes of resentment, victimhood and regret. I have let go. I have surrendered. I am at peace.
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