To overcome anger management problems it’s critical to view anger as an addiction that you are trying to change. The reactions I get to this statement are almost always a blank or puzzled stare.

What I am trying to say is that over time you reach a sort of physical homeostasis. You get used to having all the chemicals, muscles, etc. being set in a certain way. This means that if you are happy, your body is used to feeling a certain way and it will find some way to return itself to that state if you start to feel unhappy (this is what makes an optimist an optimist). For example, let’s say you are used to being in an anxious state. If you start to feel calm, you will start to go through a withdrawal of sorts because all of a sudden your body chemistry has changed from what you are used to. You may start to find something to feel anxious about, your mind starts churning and you are back to normal. Perhaps you've experienced this yourself, when something happens to jolt you out of your usual way of being, but then somehow or another you end up back in the same place.

The same is true for people with anger management problems. One of the best energizers known to man is anger. It gets your nervous system revved up. It can be a great way to blow off all the steam that you've been accumulating. For people who struggle with anger management, anger is almost like an addiction. Certain cues always get them mad or a certain period of time goes by and they have to get mad to set the chemicals right. Just like any drug your body needs that anger fix.

Doubt me? There's an easy way to test this and see if you are really leading yourself back into that angered state that you are used to feeling. Pay attention to the things you are telling yourself for a couple of days and see what impact it has on your moods. One of my favorites is to watch how I talk to myself about other people on the road. If someone does something "stupid" or I'm in a traffic jam, I almost always find myself telling all sorts of stories that just cause my anger management problems to flare up.

Try this out for awhile. See any patterns in the way you think? Which are you better at - making yourself happy or developing anger management problems?