I learned rage and anger early on. Why? I was neglected as a child. I was snubbed by all the beauties in high school. I was rejected by the snobs and socialites and laughed at by the affluent. I was bullied by the big jocks and harassed by the smart alecks. I was a loser at all sports and taken advantage of by the losers who were the only ones I was comfortable with. I know what it is to feel like a nobody and a nothing.

I was too timid to stand up to anyone, and just tried harder to please everyone so they would stop hurting me with their cruelty. That is what drove me into an isolated fantasy existence. Nobody understood my pain and my need to be loved, touched, treated with respect and my great need for intimacy, to be wanted sexually by nice people (lusted after).

Any time I was treated with disrespect, rejected, or snubbed, even unintentionally, I was driven to anger and rage. If I was denied my needs, expectations or desires, violence was the only way I get even and get attention. Not physical violence, but passive-aggressive, sneaky, and vengeful. My reactions, which I blamed on the perpetrators and abusers, caused me greater pain from guilt and shame, rather than from the humiliation and shame I suffered as the result of abuse (real or imagined). Sometimes I suffered even greater physical retaliation from the bullies. When I think about these things I still get a big knot in the pit of my stomach and I want to go throw up.

As a child, my self-esteem and feelings of self-worth were severely damaged by the insensitivity of others. I could not see the point in believing in the religious values I was taught as a child. No loving God would have allowed the abuse I suffered to be inflicted on any human being. I was so doped up by the use of fantasy and unreal expectations that I was unable to see the real world around me and could not see that I was just like all the rest and did all of the same things to others.

I don’t know exactly what happened to change the rage and anger inside of me, except that after I hit the bottom of my disease and tried to commit suicide to escape that misery, the love of the real living God found me somehow. I began to seek Him to find my self-esteem and self-worth. As I traveled the road of recovery and the Twelve Steps to serenity, a miracle happened. The rage and anger began to leave, in small doses at first and then increasing in later years of sobriety and recovery. I owe it all to a loving God and the SA fellowship.

In these rooms I learned to identify with other sick people and realized that all those perpetrators were just as sick. I became grateful to be among a group of sick people who were finding help and getting better. Today I do not feel inadequate, neglected, less than, or greater than anyone else. I no longer need rage to even the score. God showed me that I was equal in His eyes. I am loved and valued just as I am.

When I started acting like a decent and loving human being, I started being treated like one too. Today I feel loved and respected. I don’t need rage, anger, fantasy, or acting-out to cope with the trials and despair in this world.

My recovery walk today is about uncovering faults in myself and correcting them with faith and trust in God to relieve me of all these defects of character. Steps Four through Nine.

My hope is that everyone in recovery will work a program to the degree that they can find the same recovery and esteem that I am finding here. Keep coming back, get a sponsor, share the rigorous truth about yourself, work the Steps, “and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny. May God bless you and keep you—until then.”

Thanks for being here for me.