This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

And today I have a question from Jake actually.

And Jake says, hi Annie, I'm 45, I've had a drink problem since I was 16, I've had a very

good life and done well despite the drinking.

But I've been sober now for several months with the help of your book and very much now see

drinking as the enemy not as my best friend.

However, over the last few weeks I get anger with just about everything and everyone with

no reason and I feel the sense of emptiness with no real purpose, any ideas of how I can

snap out of it.

So anger is a really interesting question because I think that when you experience something

sort of yourself, you know, you can relate to it and you can tell your own stories and

of all the things that I've experienced, depression, sadness, anxiety, anger hasn't been

a big one for me.

So answering this, I had to do a bit of research and I actually had to ask some people who do

kind of experience anger and I actually went out and reached out to someone who's an anger

coach.

And there were some fascinating things that I learned and some techniques.

So the first thing is kind of, I learned that anger is actually a secondary emotion.

So what that means is it is a mask for another emotion.

So for example, say you feel angry with your children because they are misbehaving

and being mean to each other and that anger feels very real and it's very intense.

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