First of all, I appreciated your response. I think it was mature. I agree, too, that Crossfire has been a good place to get it out (the anger). I consciously allow myself to be angry now too. Before I suppressed alot of it and that's why it went inward. Now, like you, I work it off. I get out and I work. that way I get the bonus of betting paid for it at the same time. Ha! Or, I get very up front and confront it, if it's safe to do so.

The effects of drug and alcohol addiction drove me to want to "lose my life for His Name's sake, that I might save it." I heard the call to "come unto ME" and I came. What drove me into drug and alcohol addiction? My parents marital disunity played a part, their own sins played a part, their carrear decisions played a part, my birth order played a part, peer pressure played a big part, and my OWN SIN NATURE played a huge part. I was also fearing looking out over the things that were happening in the world. Needless to say, my addictions played the biggest part. I need help and I needed it bad.

Being transformed by the renewing of my mind didn't come all that easy cause I was pretty proud. It took me a couple of years, after forsaking all, to settle down to where I was trainable. But that pride never did yield itself up the way it should have. I was pretty selfrighteous about things and baxically traded the drug and alcohol dependencies for the group and religious dependencies. You know, a form of godliness without the power thereof. The noose was already beginning to tighten about my selfrighteous way of doing things at the time of the ts rev. I had a loving shep who was calling me on it and I wasn't submitting all that well. In fact, I bolted and took six months off. The ts thing happened while I was away and although I was sorry and the home took me back in, they also had been ts'ed, so everybody was going through it. All things changed then. It was no longer all things common. It was everybody fend for himself and you owe this much a month. I had six young kids and a wife with major sexual abuse problems, which pretty much kept her dependent on me for just about everything and keeping up was pretty much beyond me. We gradually drifted into living on the road, and finally, two or three years later, settled here. Was I ever angry. I didn't know what was wrong with Fran and I couldn't do it all without help, so I basically up and quit.

I'll finsih this tomorrow.

> I am a firm believer in allowing yourself to
> be angry and finding a way to outlet it. For
> myself, when I am angry or upset, if I can
> talk about it, write about it, or just get
> out of the house and "drive" it
> out of my system (literally, in the car), I
> feel a lot better and often the anger
> dissipates.

> The Christian (and probably not just the
> Christian) religion is suppressive when it
> comes to negative emotions. Jesus did teach
> us a lot about love and kindness. But you
> can't ignore the emotions when they come up,
> you have to deal with them, let them out, so
> they don't foster and grow inside of you.
> Once you've outlet it, you can often see
> things more in perspective, you get advice
> from other people, you deal with the issues,
> and it's not as intense as it was before.

> I think it's when you try to suppress these
> negative emotions that the physical problems
> occur as a result. If you are bitter about
> something, just say it, "I'm bitter
> about this event and I don't care how
> horrible it sounds.", or whatever, seek
> advice from friends or family and then,
> oftentimes, you can get past it.

> For which reason I have found crossfire and
> moving on to be very therapeutic, I have
> vented and said things that a few years ago
> I would never have done, and it has been
> healing.

> Charlie, I would be interested to know more
> about your conclusions of what drove you
> into and then out of the group.