It’s Not Just Angry Birds

In preparing counseling lectures about anger, I came across some horrifying statistics.

• 32% of people say that they have a close friend of family member who has trouble containing their anger.
• 12% say they have trouble containing their own anger.
• Only 13% of that 12% have sought help with their anger problems.
• 28% say they worry about how angry they sometimes feel.
• 20% have ended a relationship or friendship with someone when they saw how they behaved when they were angry.
• 64% strongly agree or agree that people in general are getting angrier.
• 45% regularly lose their temper at work.
• 64% of officeworkers have had office rage.
• 27% of nurses have been attacked at work.
• 33% of Britons are not on speaking terms with their neighbors.
• 80% of drivers say they have been involved in road-rage incidents.
• 25% have committed an act of road rage themselves.
• Every nine seconds in America, a woman is assaulted or beaten.
• 56% of fatal auto accidents are caused by road rage or aggressive driving.
• 72% of internet users admit to having suffered net rage.
• 50% of us have reacted to computer problems by hitting our PC, hurling parts of it around, screaming or abusing our colleagues (which is simply one more argument for an Apple Mac).
• 65% of people are more likely to express anger over the phone compared to 26% in writing and 9% face to face.

The saddest thing about angry people is that they are not only destroying others, they are damaging themselves.

• Aggressive personalities are more susceptible to heart attacks and clogged arteries.
• An angry person with a history of heart problems is five times more likely to suffer a heart attack than someone who is not.
• The risk of stroke is more than three-fold in the couple of hours following any outburst.

Youth Statistics

In the US, nearly one in 12 adolescents – close to six million young people – meet criteria for a diagnosis of Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), “a syndrome characterized by persistent uncontrollable anger attacks not accounted for by other mental disorders.”

• 66% of U.S. adolescents have experienced an anger attack in their lives that involved threatening violence or violent behavior.
• More than 1 in 3 high school students, both male and female, have been involved in a physical fight.
• 1 in 9 of those students have been injured badly enough to need medical treatment.
• 1 in 3 teens, both male and female, have experienced some sort of violent behavior from a dating partner.

I’ll come back to this subject with some analysis of where anger really comes from, as well as hope for change, both for the angry person and their victims. In the meantime, some heavenly wisdom:

But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire (Matt. 5:22). 

So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1:19-20).

Do not hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools (Eccl. 7:9).

Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go (Prov. 22:24).