Chronic Pain, Anger management, Clinical Depression, Anxiety Attack, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Emotional Intelligence, Stress Management Techniques

	Chronic Pain
I've suffered from chronic pain since my mid twenties. At that time, I could alleviate the problems associated with a bad back (scoliosis) by drinking and taking drugs (the illegal kind). I can't do that anymore. But rather than the pain going away, sometimes it seems to increase with each passing year. Over the past few years I've learned some techniques that help me cope with chronic pain so that I now feel the pain, but don't very often experience the suffering that goes along with it.
	There isn't any one thing that has had a lasting effect. The basic problem is a set of symptoms that result in degenerating disks in my spine. The degenerating disks eventually fail completely resulting in bone against bone and pinched nerves. Just to be clear about this, it's really irritating sometimes.
I nearly killed myself with alcohol. I managed to be relieved of that obsession with the help of a Power greater than myself, an amazingly patient spouse (knowing what I know now of what I was like then, I would have kicked my butt out years ago), and some really great friends (who were there to show me what steps they had taken so I could walk in the same footprints).		The chronic pain was not psychosomatic
		The chronic pain was not psychosomatic
	I've had three separate surgeries on my cervical spine (neck) since September of 1996. The first was a fusion of C5-6 and C6-7. In December of 1997 it was fusion of C4-5 and C7-8 (or T1). It took until 2001 for a doctor to believe me and do enough tests to show that the last surgery hadn't "taken". I had basically been walking around with a neck that was broken in two places for all that time. In March of 2002, the procedure was to remove the center portion of disks C4,5,6,and 7, then put a fibular graft in the space that had been cleaned out. A rod was attached to each side of my cervical spine with screws in every vertebrae from C2, down to T2. That's a total of eight vertebrae that are attached so that they will not move. The pinched nerve to my left arm has been relieved. The impingement on my spinal cord itself has been eliminated. But I'm not even close to pain free. The lack of mobility adds another dimension of difficulty and another layer of complexity. I've sprained my low back twice as a result of that. It just goes on and on.
You try and keep your spirits up. You try not to sound like a cry-baby. But every so often you try to explain to someone just what it's like. One time lady said something to the effect of "Well, we're all gettin' older, Honey. You're just going to have to face it." I was never aware that getting older meant that it felt like someone was hitting you in the elbow with a baseball bat. I didn't know that getting older means that you have debilitating headaches for days and weeks on end. I didn't realize that getting older was what made you feel like someone had grabbed one of the nerves in your neck with a hot poker and "twanged" it like a guitar string or a bow and arrow. Does everyone experience that when they get older?