Alcohol and RAGE

There's been lots of discussion in the UK recently about alcohol fuelled rage.

Airlines UK, which represents many of the major carriers, have called for stronger deterrents for passengers who decide to crack open their duty-free booze while still on board.

Ryanair have asked airports to ban sales of booze before 10am, and insist passengers drink no more than two alcoholic drinks before flying.

In the last year 387 people were arrested for being drunk and disorderly on a plane, up from 255 the year before.

I bet none of this surprises any of you.

I've found that one of the best things about being sober is the lack of ANGER. I still get cross from time to time, obviously, but it's a slow burn kind of cross, a gradually building irritation. Alcohol (or hangover) induced rage isn't like that at all. It hits you from nowhere like a tornado.

Here's what I wrote, back on DAY 190, about alcohol and rage:

I keep coming across stories in the newspapers about celebrities getting into trouble due to fits of rage. Funnily enough, it’s never the teetotal ones and there’s usually alcohol involved. The most common incidents involve throwing mobile phones at support staff, yelling at air stewardesses, being carted off planes and losing it over inadequate catering arrangements.

Needless to say, I love reading these stories, because all of us big drinkers have, in slightly less dramatic ways, had incidents of alcohol-induced rage. I remember (as, sadly, do many of the other guests) throwing a glass of wine at my husband (the wine and the glass it was in) during a row over a taxi booking at a friend’s wedding in France. Luckily, my aim was terrible, so no lasting damage done, but sometimes these fits of temper can have real consequences.

Years ago, when I was in the high-powered job (with the bar in the office), I had two large glasses of wine with a colleague at lunch. When I got back to my desk I found an email from a very important global client asking for a number of unnecessary changes to the edit of the new TV commercial we’d just shot. I fired off a reply in (drunken) high umbrage, calling him a Neanderthal nincompoop who was obviously unable to appreciate a work of true artistic genius. This email became famous and made me a heroine in the creative department, but it got me fired from that client’s account and could easily have cost me my job.

According to my research, alcohol narrows our focus of attention, giving us tunnel vision, meaning that we become unable to take mitigating circumstances, other people’s feelings or potential consequences into account if we’re provoked when drunk. This means that we can react violently in circumstances that we would ordinarily have shrugged off.

Also, because alcohol lowers our inhibitions, we are more likely to end up in dangerous situations, leading to potential confrontation. We get a dangerous, and false, burst of confidence. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we are less able to process information properly and are, therefore, more prone to imagining insults (he looked at me the wrong way, Your Honour). 

Since I quit drinking I haven’t lost my temper once (well okay, maybe once or twice, but definitively not a lot). I am Zen-level calm.

Which is why events this evening come as a bit of a shock.

I’m in bed, about to drop off. Mr SM’s in the bathroom. As he closes the bathroom door I hear a whuuumph! as the wet towel I’d recently picked up off the floor and hung up hits the floor again. Needless to say, Mr SM (who must have heard it too) pays no attention and climbs, nonchalantly, into bed.

I sit bolt upright in bed and yell ‘THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD IT WITH THE TOWELS!’

Mr SM looks totally taken aback. Rabbit in headlights. There’s no stopping me.

‘I PICK UP YOUR TOWELS! I PICK UP #1'S TOWELS, #2’S TOWELS AND #3’S TOWELS. IF THE DOG USED TOWELS I WOULD HAVE TO PICK THOSE UP TOO! NO ONE ELSE IN THIS FAMILY EVER PICKS UP A TOWEL. IF IT WEREN’T FOR ME THE WHOLE HOUSE WOULD GRADUALLY FILL UP WITH TOWELS UNTIL WE ALL DROWN IN WHITE FLUFFY TOWELS!’

As I pause for breath, Mr SM puts his hand on my arm (very brave, as I am considering biting it off), and says – very quietly – ‘SM, this isn’t about the towels, is it?’

I stop and think. It strikes me that while I am, obviously, and righteously, cross about the towel situation, the truth is that I am always cross about towels. But a dropped towel won’t usually make me go stratospheric.

#1 is away on a school trip. I’m not going to see her for a whole week. The longest I’ve ever been without her previously is three days. I miss her. That’s why I lost it.

Had I had a few drinks, I would never have realised this. I would have ignored Mr SM’s intervention, which would only have increased my fury. I would have moved on from the towels, and on to my other pet hate – the way everyone leaves their dirty plates and cutlery on top of the dishwasher rather than inside it. I would have accused Mr SM of being a terrible husband and we both would have gone to sleep upset and angry with each other.

So, quitting alcohol doesn’t make the occasional bouts of irrational rage go away, but it does help you to stop, get a sense of perspective and realise that it’s not about the towels. Or the dishwasher. Or the catering arrangements. And that has to be better for our sanity and our relationships.

But I’d still love to know how to get anyone else in my family to pick up a sodding, sodden towel once in a while.

Love and zen-like calm to you all,

SM x