Is Your Anger Serving You or Mastering You? The Outrage Algorithm, making Amends and Resentment Detox for Peace

You know that feeling? When you see something on the news or online that makes you really mad. Your heart beats fast. Your stomach gets tight. You feel upset and frustrated. 

You saw the news about the shooting that happened. Things like that can make the world feel anxious and out of control. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by all the anger and arguing around us.

For us people in recovery, this is all too familiar a pitfall. We worked hard to stop drinking or using. But sometimes, those old feelings of anger and helplessness come back. They just find a new target, like the news or politics.

This leaves us with a very important question: Is your anger helping you, or is it controlling you?

Is your anger a useful signal that leads you to do something good? Or is it just a poison that ruins your day and your peace?

This article is about how to tell the difference. We'll use simple steps from recovery to help you handle these big feelings. The goal is to help you find calm, even when the world feels crazy.

Part 1: The Daily Inventory: Taking Our Own Temperature

Imagine you wake up feeling hot. Your head is steaming with pain. Your body aches. You know something is wrong. What is the first thing you do? 

You probably find a thermometer and take your temperature. That number on the thermometer tells you a very important fact. It says, "You have a fever. Your body is fighting something." It does not cure the sickness, but it gives you the information you need to start getting better.

Now, think about your emotions. Think about that feeling you get when you see a frustrating news alert. Or when a family member says something that just makes you see red. 

Your heart might beat faster. Your face might feel hot. You might get a tight feeling in your chest or your stomach. You might feel restless and irritable and like you just want to scream.

This feeling, this anger and resentment, is just like an emotional fever. It is your spirit's way of telling you that something is wrong. It is a signal you cannot ignore. But what do most people do with this signal? 

They often ignore it, or they feed it. They might argue with the TV. They might post an angry comment online. 

They might call a friend to complain for an hour. This is like seeing a fever of 104 degrees and deciding to jump into a sauna. It only makes the problem much, much worse.

For people like you, in recovery, this is especially dangerous. We spent a long time trying to fix our inside problems with outside solutions. We used drinks or drugs to try to make those bad feelings go away.

Now that we are clean, we have to find new tools. We have to learn how to actually heal the fever instead of just pretending it is not there.

This is where the Daily Inventory comes in. You might remember doing a big, Fourth Step inventory when you first started recovery. That was like a major surgery. It was a huge, deep clean of all the old resentments that were making you sick. But recovery is not just about that one big surgery. It is about daily health. 

You would not have surgery and then never brush your teeth again, right? The Daily Inventory is like brushing your teeth for your soul. It is a way to check in with yourself every single day and clean out any new resentment before it has a chance to grow and make you really sick.

The best way to do this is to use a simple piece of paper and a pen. There is something powerful about writing your thoughts down by hand. It makes them real. It gets them out of the swirling storm in your head and onto a page where you can actually look at them. 

It is like taking the monster out of the shadows and shining a light on it. Suddenly, it does not seem so big and scary anymore.

So, let us break down how we take our emotional temperature. We are going to use four columns on our page. 

This might seem simple, but do not let that fool you. This simple tool has saved millions of people from relapse and misery.

Column 1: Who or What Am I Mad At?

This is where you start. You just make a list. Be simple. Be direct. There is no need to write a long story here. Just write down the name of the person, or the thing, that is causing you to feel this resentment.

Who makes your blood boil? Is it a politician you saw on TV? Write their name down. Is it a family member who always knows how to push your buttons? Write their name down. Is it an institution, like a company that overcharged you or the government for making a stupid law? 

Write it down. Is it a principle, like a feeling that the world is unfair? You can even write that down. "The unfairness of the world" is a totally valid thing to put in this first column.

The point of this column is to get the resentment out of your head and identify it. You are naming your problem. You cannot fight an enemy you refuse to see.

Column 2: What Did They Do?

Now, next to each name or thing on your list, you get to write your case against them. This is your chance to state your complaint. What was the specific thing that this person or institution did that hurt you?

Try to stick to the facts as you see them. For example, do not just write "My boss is a jerk." That is not a specific action. That is your opinion about his character. Instead, write the fact: "My boss passed me over for the promotion and gave it to someone else." Or, "My brother told the whole family my private business at dinner." Or, "That news commentator said that all people in recovery are weak."

This column is about the specific injury. It is about what happened that made you feel wronged. It is important to write this down because it helps you understand what exactly triggered you.

Column 3: Why Does This Bother Me So Much? What Part of Me Did It Hurt?

This is the most important column. This is where the real healing begins. This is where you move from being a victim of the world to being a detective of your own soul.

For each resentment on your list, you must ask yourself this powerful question: "Why does this bother me? What part of me did this injury hurt?"

The Big Book teaches us that our resentments almost always hurt one or more of these four areas inside of us:

1. My Self-Esteem: Did it hurt my pride? Did it make me feel stupid, worthless, or embarrassed? For example, if your boss passed you over, did it make you feel like you were not good enough? That is a blow to your self esteem.

2. My Security: Did it threaten my safety? Did it threaten my money, my job, my home, or my relationships? For example, if a new law is passed, does it make you feel like your family's financial security is at risk? That is a threat to your security.

3. My Ambitions: Did it get in the way of something I wanted? Did it block my goals or my plans? Using the boss example again, not getting the promotion blocked your ambition to move up in your career and make more money.

4. My Personal Relationships: Did it cause a problem between me and someone I care about? Did it make me feel lonely or disconnected?

Most of the time, our biggest resentments are not about the thing that happened on the surface. They are about the wound it pokes inside of us. That news commentator might make you angry because what he said threatens your feeling of security and hurts your pride. Your brother might make you angry because he betrayed your trust and hurt your personal relationship with him.

When you fill out this third column, you are no longer just angry at the world. You are understanding your anger. You are finding the root cause of your emotional fever. You are discovering that you are not angry because of your boss. You are angry because your boss made you feel insecure and worthless. That is a feeling you can actually work on. You cannot change your boss, but you can work on building your own self esteem and sense of security.

Column 4: What Was My Part? How Was I Selfish, Dishonest, Self Seeking, or Frightened?

This is the hardest column. This is also the column that sets you free. This is where you stop looking at what everyone else did to you and you start looking at your own role in the situation.

For each resentment, you must ask yourself: "Where was I at fault?"

Now, this does NOT mean that everything is your fault. If someone shot someone else, that is clearly not your fault. But your reaction to it might be. This question is not about taking blame for everything in the world. It is about finding your own responsibility. It is about finding the places where you had a choice. It is about cleaning your side of the street.

The Big Book gives us a great guide for this. It asks us to look for where we were:

• Selfish: Was I only thinking about what I wanted? Was I not considering other people's needs or feelings?

• Dishonest: Did I lie to myself or to others? Did I exaggerate the problem? Did I pretend to be okay when I was not?

• Self Seeking: Was I just trying to get something for myself? Was I trying to look good or be right?

• Frightened: Was I acting out of fear? Was I scared of losing something? Was I scared of looking bad?

Let us use an example. Imagine your resentment is: "My friend did not call me on my birthday."

• Column 1: My friend.

• Column 2: They did not call me on my birthday.

• Column 3: It hurt my self-esteem (it made me feel forgotten and unimportant) and it hurt our personal relationship.

• Column 4: My Part: Was I self-seeking? Did I expect them to read my mind and know I wanted a call? Was I dishonest? Did I not tell them how important it was to me? Was I selfish? Did I forget that they have a very sick child at home and are incredibly stressed? Was I frightened? Am I afraid that our friendship is fading and this is proof?

Do you see how that works? You are not saying it was your fault they did not call. You are looking at your own expectations, your own actions, and your own fears that turned a simple forgotten phone call into a major resentment.

Finding your part is the most powerful step because it gives you your power back. If everything is everyone else's fault, you are just a helpless victim. Life happens to you. But when you find your part, you realize you have choices. You can choose to communicate your needs. You can choose to adjust your expectations. You can choose to offer grace. You can choose to let it go.

Part 2: The Poison and the Antidote

Imagine you are walking through your kitchen. You see a bottle on the counter with a big skull and crossbones on it. Underneath the picture, the label says in huge letters: POISON. WILL CAUSE PAIN AND SUFFERING.

What would you do? You would probably not open that bottle. You would definitely not drink what is inside. You would back away from it carefully. You would maybe call someone to help you get rid of it safely. You know, without a doubt, that drinking that poison would make you incredibly sick. It might even kill you.

Now, I want you to think about resentment. Resentment is that exact same kind of poison. But the bottle it comes in looks very different. It does not have a scary label. Sometimes, it even looks like a delicious drink.

It looks like the feeling of being right. It looks like the satisfaction of knowing someone else is wrong. It looks like the energy you get from being angry about an injustice.

But make no mistake. It is still poison. And every time we hold onto a resentment, we are choosing to drink that poison. And then we sit around waiting for the other person to get sick. We think, "I am so angry at what they did. I hope they feel bad about it." 

But they are out living their life, completely unaware of our feelings. Meanwhile, we are the ones who swallowed the poison. We are the ones who are suffering.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous does not sugarcoat this. It says resentment is the "number one offender." It destroys more people in recovery than anything else. It is more dangerous than any craving. 

Why? 

Because a craving is obvious. You know it is a monster trying to attack you. Resentment is a trickster. It dresses up like your friend. It makes you feel powerful and justified. It lies to you and tells you that holding onto this anger will protect you. But it is really just poisoning you from the inside out.

Let us look at a real-life example that almost everyone can understand. We will call her Maria.

Maria has been clean & sober for three years. She is doing great. She has a job she likes, and she goes to her meetings. Then, she goes to a family birthday party. Her cousin, Lisa, is there. Years ago, when Maria was still drinking, she told Lisa a very big secret. She made Lisa promise not to tell anyone. At this party, Maria finds out that Lisa told the secret to several other people in the family. Everyone seems to know.

Maria is furious. She feels betrayed. Her face gets hot. She feels humiliated. This is the poison entering her system.

She has a choice right then. She can do a quick, quiet inventory. She can recognize the poison for what it is and choose an antidote. Or, she can drink the poison.

What does drinking the poison look like for Maria?

• At the party: She avoids Lisa. She gives her dirty looks. She talks to another cousin about how awful Lisa is. She is not present at the party anymore. She is trapped in her own head, going over the betrayal again and again. The poison is making her miserable at a party that should be fun.

• On the drive home: She cannot stop thinking about it. She rehearses what she will say to Lisa in her head. Her stomach is in knots. She is so distracted by her anger that she almost runs a red light. The poison is now putting her physical safety at risk.

• That night: She cannot sleep. She lies in bed, her mind racing. She thinks about every other time Lisa let her down. The resentment is not just about this one thing anymore. It has grown into a giant monster. The poison is now stealing her peace and her sleep.

• The next day: She is tired and irritable. She snaps at her coworkers for no reason. She feels a craving for a drink for the first time in months. Why? Because her old solution for making this poisoned feeling go away was alcohol. The resentment has brought her to the very edge of relapse.

Maria drank the poison. And she is waiting for Lisa to get sick. But Lisa is fine. She is at home, totally unaware of the storm she caused. Maria is the one who is sick, miserable, and close to drinking again.

This is how resentment works. It is a poison we choose to drink ourselves.

So, if resentment is the poison, what is the antidote?

The antidote is called acceptance.

Acceptance is the medicine that neutralizes the poison of resentment. The Big Book has a line that is famous for a reason. It says, "And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today."

That is a huge statement. Acceptance is the answer to all my problems? How can that be?

Acceptance does not mean you like what happened. It does not mean you agree with it. It does not mean the other person was right. It does not mean you are a doormat.

Acceptance simply means that you stop arguing with reality. You stop saying, "This should not have happened! This is not fair! They should not have done that!"

The fact is, it did happen. It is fair in their mind. They did do that. That is the reality. When you fight against reality, you will always lose. 

You are like a person who stands on the beach and commands the waves to stop crashing. The waves do not care. They will keep crashing. You will just end up exhausted, frustrated, and soaked.

Acceptance is looking at the wave, and instead of yelling at it, you say, "Okay. I see that there is a wave. 

Now, what can I do?

I can move my towel back. I can build a sandcastle. I can go for a swim. I can accept that the wave is there and decide how I will respond to it."

Let us go back to Maria. What would acceptance look like for her?

Acceptance is what she does inside her own head and heart. It happens before she ever says a word to Lisa.

At the party, when she first feels the heat of anger, she takes a deep breath. She says to herself: "Okay. I am feeling really angry and hurt right now. The fact is, Lisa told my secret. That happened. I cannot change that fact. 

It makes me feel humiliated and my pride is hurt. That is my Column 3. Now, what is my part? Maybe my part is that I told a secret to someone I knew could not keep it. Maybe my part is expecting someone else to be perfect when I am not perfect myself."

This is not letting Lisa off the hook. This is letting Maria off the hook. This is Maria choosing not to drink the poison. She is choosing the antidote of acceptance.

She accepts that Lisa is a person who gossips. She accepts that she cannot change the past. She accepts her own feelings of hurt. By accepting all of this, she drains the resentment of its power.

Now, she can choose what to do next from a place of peace, not anger. Maybe she decides to calmly tell Lisa later that she was hurt, to clean her side of the street. 

Maybe she decides that Lisa cannot be trusted with secrets and will adjust her behavior in the future. Maybe she decides to just let it go and pray for Lisa.

But no matter what she chooses to do on the outside, she is no longer sick on the inside. She used the antidote. She accepted reality as it is, not as she wished it would be. She stopped arguing with the wave and decided to swim instead.

This is a daily practice. The world will always give us reasons to be resentful. People will cut us off in traffic. Politicians will make decisions we hate. Family members will disappoint us. The poison will always be offered to us.

Our job, every single day, is to recognize the poison bottle for what it is. We must see the skull and crossbones underneath the pretty label. And then, we must choose the antidote. We must choose acceptance. We must accept life on life's terms. This is how we stay sober, sane, and at peace.

Part 3: Making Amends for Our Own Peace

There is a huge misunderstanding about the word "amends." For a long time, many people have thought it means you have to go and apologize. 

They think it means you have to walk up to someone, say you are sorry, and hope they forgive you. And if they do not forgive you, then the amends did not work.

This idea stops a lot of people from ever trying. The thought of having to face someone you hurt is scary. It is embarrassing. 

What if they yell at you? What if they tell you they hate you? What if they bring up all the old things you did? It feels like you are setting yourself up to get hurt all over again.

But here is the most important thing you will ever learn about making amends: Making amends is not about the other person. It is about you. It is for your peace.

The goal of an amendment is not to hear the words "I forgive you." The goal is to clean up your side of the street. 

It is to look at yourself in the mirror and know that you have done everything you can to make things right. It is to let go of the guilt and shame you have been carrying around for so long. It is about unlocking the prison door and setting yourself free.

The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about this in the Ninth Step. It says we make amends to people we have harmed, "except when to do so would injure them or others."

This is a very wise rule. It means we have to think before we act. Sometimes, walking up to someone and saying, "Remember that terrible thing I did five years ago?" would only hurt them all over again. 

It would stir up old pain for no good reason. In those cases, making a direct amendment is not the right thing to do.

But that does not mean we get to do nothing. We are not off the hook. We still have to clean our side of the street. So how do we do that? We do something called a living amendment or a mental amendment.

A living amendment means you change your behavior. You stop doing the harmful thing. You become a better person. Your life itself becomes the apology.

A mental amend is something you do inside your own heart and mind to find peace when you cannot talk to the other person directly.

Let us look at some real-life examples to see how this works.

Example 1: David and His Father

David grew up with a father who was very critical. Nothing David ever did was good enough. His father would make fun of his grades, his hobbies, and his friends. This made David feel small and worthless. For years, David carried a massive resentment against his father. He was angry all the time.

When David got into recovery, he did his inventory. He wrote his father's name in Column 1. In Column 4, he had to find his part. This was hard. What was his part in his father being mean to him?

After thinking deeply, David found his part. His part was that he had spent his whole life seeking his father's approval. He kept trying to get love from a person who did not know how to give it. 

His part was that he held onto this anger for decades, letting it poison all of his other relationships. He was selfish with his own happiness, letting his father control his feelings even from far away.

A direct amend might not work here. David's father is old and set in his ways. Trying to talk to him might just start a big fight.

So, what does David do? He makes a living amend.

• To his father: The living amendment is to stop expecting his father to change. David accepts that his father is who he is. He decides to call him on holiday and be polite, but to stop hoping for a deep conversation. He protects his own peace by lowering his expectations.

• To himself: The living amend is to stop believing the old, critical voice in his head that sounds like his father. He practices being kind to himself. He celebrates his own successes.

• To others: The living amendment is to be the opposite of his father. He makes sure he is supportive and kind to his own children and his friends. He breaks the cycle of criticism.

David's amendment is not something he says. It is something he does. He lives his amendment every day by being a new kind of man. This is how he cleans his side of the street.

Example 2: Maria and the Car Accident

Years ago, Maria was in a car accident. She was drinking and driving. She crashed her car into another car. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt, but the other driver was shaken up and their car was damaged. 

Maria was arrested. She was filled with so much shame that she never contacted the other driver after the court case was over. It is one of the biggest shames of her life.

Now she is sober and working the steps. She knows she needs to make an amend to this person. But the thought of calling them up is terrifying. Would it help them, or would it just scare them and bring back bad memories? It would probably injure them all over again.

So what can Maria do? She can make a mental amend.

First, she sits down quietly. She might pray or meditate. She thinks directly about the person she harmed. In her mind, she says, "I am so sorry for what I did. I put your life in danger because of my selfishness and my disease. 

I hope you are safe and happy now. I forgive myself for my past so I can be a better person today."

This is not just thinking. It is a conscious act of sending out an apology into the universe. It is a way of acknowledging the harm she caused and releasing the shame she has been carrying.

Then, she makes a living amend.

• To the other driver: Maria cannot talk to them, but she can live a life that honors their experience. She never, ever drinks and drives. She becomes a vocal advocate against drunk driving. She volunteers to tell her story to high school students.

• To herself: The living amend is to forgive herself. She accepts that she did a terrible thing, but she is not a terrible person. She is a sick person who got well. She uses her mistake to help others.

Maria's amend is powerful. It is real. She is cleaning her side of the street by changing her life. She is making sure that her past mistake is turned into something useful that can help other people. This is how she finds peace.

A New Pair of Glasses

Imagine you have been wearing the same pair of glasses for ten years. The lenses are scratched and smudged. They are covered in dirt and dust. They are so dirty that you have forgotten what clear glass even looks like. 

You think this blurry, gloomy, distorted view is just what the world looks like. You think everyone sees things this way. You squint and struggle through your days, feeling like the world is a hostile and confusing place.

Then, one day, someone helps you take those old glasses off. They clean the lenses perfectly. They even put in a new prescription that is exactly right for your eyes. Then they hand the glasses back to you. You put them on.

What happens next is nothing short of a miracle.

Suddenly, you can see. Really see. The world is not a blurry, gloomy place at all. The colors are bright and vibrant. 

The edges of things are sharp and clear. You can see details in leaves on trees and smiles on people's faces that you never noticed before. 

You did not change the world. You changed the way you see the world. You got a new pair of glasses.

This is what the process you just learned about—the inventory, the acceptance, the amends—really is. It is not about fixing the entire world. The world is still the same. It is still messy and complicated and unfair sometimes. This process is about cleaning your lenses. It is about getting a new prescription for how you look at life. It is about learning to see clearly.

Before recovery, many of us saw the world through a lens of fear and resentment. Every look was filtered through questions like: What can I get? 

How are they going to hurt me? Why does this always happen to me? This was our dirty, scratched-up lens. It made everything seem like a threat.

The tools we have talked about—the daily inventory, seeing resentment as poison, choosing acceptance, and making amends—are our lens cleaner. They are our new prescription.

Let us go back to our friend Maria from the earlier examples. Remember her? She found out her cousin Lisa had told her secret at a family party.

• Old Glasses (The Dirty Lens): Through her old glasses, Maria saw the situation like this: "Lisa is a terrible, awful person. She betrayed me on purpose to hurt me. This whole family is against me. I am a victim. Now I have to be angry and miserable and probably should just leave this party."

• New Glasses (The Clean Lens): After using her tools, Maria sees the same situation with new eyes: "I feel really hurt that Lisa told my secret. The fact is, she did tell it. I accept that she is a person who gossips sometimes. My part is that I told a secret to someone I knew could not always keep them. I can feel hurt, but I do not have to let this ruin my night. I will talk to her about it later when I am calm, and I will be more careful what I share with her in the future. For now, I am going to go enjoy my aunt's cake."

Do you see the difference? The situation did not change. Lisa did not change. The only thing that changed was how Maria chose to see it and respond to it. She switched from her dirty lenses to her clean ones.

This is the daily work of recovery. It is not a one-time fix. You will have to clean your glasses every single day. 

Sometimes, you might get a new scratch on them and need to work a little harder to polish it out. The world is a dusty place. It will always try to dirty your lenses.

But now, you have the tools. You have the cloth and the cleaner. You know what to do.

When you feel that old familiar heat of anger...

• That is your signal that your lenses are getting dirty.

• That is your cue to take a quiet moment.

• That is your reminder to ask yourself the simple questions: Who am I mad at? What happened? Why does it bother me? What is my part?

When you ask these questions, you are wiping the dust away. When you choose acceptance over fighting, you are applying the cleaner. 

When you make an amendment, whether through action or in your heart, you are putting on your glasses and seeing the world with clear, sharp eyes.

This is how we stay sober. Real sobriety is not just about not drinking or using drugs. That is just the beginning. 

Real sobriety is about building a life you do not want to escape from. It is about finding a peace that is so real and so strong that the chaos of the world cannot touch it.

It is about looking at the same world you always lived in and finally seeing its beauty. It is about looking at the same problems and finally seeing solutions. 

It is about looking at the same people and finally seeing their pain, instead of just your own.

You get to choose your glasses every single day. You can choose the old, dirty, scratched-up pair that makes everything look like a threat. Or you can choose the new, clean, clear pair that shows you the truth.

The world will keep turning. The news will still have scary stories. People will still say things that hurt your feelings. Life will still be unpredictable.

But now that we have chosen to confront our  angry emotions and actively practice 

These spiritual lessons help us free ourselves from negative emotions 

We will comprehend the word serenity 

And we will know peace …

You’ve Got This. And when it’s hard? Come back to this guide and take a deep breath.

I hope and pray you all got something from this info

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Thank you for your time 

I wish you all another day, Clean and Sober 

Boris Schaak