Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Somebody who never raises their voice is not necessarily calm. Some of the worst outbursts come from people who held everything in until a setting appeared where it was allowed.
Look for the permission conditions rather than the temperament. A drink, a crowd, a match, being away from home, the one relationship where letting go feels safe. Those are the moments worth planning around, because the usual restraint is not present in them. A quiet reputation is not a safety measure.
Qur’an and Sunnah
when he went off angrily, thinking We could not restrict him (Quran 21:87). The going off arrives suddenly, from someone you would not have predicted it of.
وَذَا ٱلنُّونِ إِذ ذَّهَبَ مُغَٰضِبࣰ ا فَظَنَّ أَن لَّن نَّقۡدِرَ عَلَيۡهِ فَنَادَىٰ فِي ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ أَن لَّآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّآ أَنتَ سُبۡحَٰنَكَ إِنِّي كُنتُ مِنَ ٱلظَّٰلِمِينَ
And remember the man with the whale,when he went off angrily, thinking We could not restrict him, but then he cried out in the deep darkness, ‘There is no God but You, glory be to You, I was wrong.’
Qur’an 21:87read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a laboratory study of 516 social drinkers, alcohol increased aggression mainly among people who dwelt on the provocation, which suggests the drink released something already being carried. The combination mattered more than the alcohol on its own. It used a laboratory aggression task, so it does not measure what happens on a real night out.
Borders A, Giancola PR. (2011). Trait and state hostile rumination facilitate alcohol-related aggression.. Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Restraint that depends on the setting disappears when the setting changes.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
People say true things when they are angry, even when they say them badly. Listen past the delivery for what is being defended.
Expect the fear underneath to be denied, and do not push against the denial. This idea has to be worked in gently rather than argued in.
Part of what makes anger attractive is how simple it makes everything. Working out who was right and what to do next is slow and uncertain, and anger hands you an answer straight away.