I dealt with it mostly in my 4th step in Al-Anon and CoDA and eliminated much of it in my 5th, 6th and 7th step. My anger caused me a lot of problems with myself and with others.

Today, I have forgiven those who harmed me, knowing they did the best they could and if they could have done better, they would have. I don't allow myself to be a doormat today (thanks to my recovery programs) so I don't build up resentment. When people behave badly, I feel anger, but I express it appropriately most of the time. I also go beneath the anger to feel the hurt and sadness before I express myself.

Keeping present to my emotions in the moment allows me to not let powerful feelings build up without addressing them. That keeps me honest with myself and others.

I find it scary to allow myself to feel angry, because I associate anger with violence in my family of origin, and notice that when I let others know i am angry, i dont tell them in the nicest way...

Just like Grace mentioned, i need to learn to look beneath the anger and see what is the secondary emotion, am I feeling hurt, resentful, dissapointed, frustrated? my al-anon sponsor shared with me that anger is my friend and that its telling me something, but I am not listening to it, because I refuse to feel it out of fear that I will react mean to others.. but i need to listen to it, because anger is telling me that I either lost or did not get something and its understanding to feel anger.

I need to learn to own my anger and not lash out, and able to communicate with others that i feel hurt or whatever i feel withtout saying it mean...

it was suggested for me to write out how I feel, and what i plan to tell someone before saying it, so that the message comes out, without any hurtful, demeaning words...

I find it helpful to write out how I feel, that helps me let it out and then put things into perspective, ask my higher power for help and seek the help of my sponsor and go to meetings..to reach out for help...

I've still dealing with anger after nearly 4 months since he left for a new woman, I know he did me a favour leaving because he is a very disturbed man but his leaving has left me aware of my problems and how I have used relationships with men to cover up my stuff, just realising I've been getting further and further into credit card debt over the years because I've ignored my addiction to spending, covered it over with my addiction to relationships. Now I am dedicated to staying alone to uncover my insecurities and addictions so I can get past them, just sat in the gym crying today, but then realised that what they always say is the only way to get past the pain is to go through it. Have to feel the misery and sadness and loneliness so I can do something about the cause of it.

Boy, I can relate!!! I feel angry too!!! And have lashed out at people who have taken advantage of me in the past, particularly when it comes to sweet-talking me into working for much lower than the money I want. But, in this economy, beggars can't be choosers, and this too makes me angry.

I think anger can be a good thing. But it has to be channeled appropriately, into positive things, things that will actually do you some good. Exercise is one such healthy outlet. Work is another. When it comes to relationships, you have to set guidelines and boundaries, and not let yourself get sweet-talked out of them! You have to stand fast, stand your ground!

People DO exert powerful influences on each other, and you have to be careful about what you let into your psyche and your soul. Words themselves are powerful Pay attention to what you say, and what you allow yourself to hear. Listen to the first words you or someone else utters in a conversation. If you don't like what you say, or what you're hearing, steer the subject onto something else, or tune them out, or disassociate yourself from that person. Begin talking about what YOU want to talk about, and be aggressive in conversations!

Great post thank you. I like the idea of writing out intentions on how to deal with anger and it is also good to hear that the Recovery programs can assist with working through pent up anger.
Such little things make me angry at the moment and I realise that often it is not those things at all (in the moment) is my 'stuff' from the past being triggered at every possible chance to 'get out'.
That's why I think what Grace has said is so important to not let resentment in the here and now build up.
Acceptance is really helping me this week as things come up that make me angry - I accept it is happening and that doesn't mean I approve of it. But I put the energy in to looking after me and learning to place boundaries for the future.

I know this isn't the question, but the anger you feel is really at yourself. People treat you the way you let them and generally it is because we do not have healthy boundaries. it took me a while to understand and realize, this was about me, not about anyone else.
It was not about what they were doing to me, it was about what I was allowing.

Yep. So then, we have to ask ourselves, why are we allowing this? It's because there's some weakness, some mental or emotional deficiency, within ourselves, that tells us we need to allow someone to take control of our hearts. Again, physical exercise helps me greatly with this. But sometimes I still collapse into a ball of tears.

The neverending struggle of life. When we're dead, we'll have it all figured out...

I understand being angry at yourself. I am angry at myself today and have been unproductive because I am angry because I realize I was in denial about what is going on. I found two emails in my boyfriends work e-mail, he just stepped away for a minute and me--- being my sneaky self, opened his inbox and found that he was talking to females that I didn't know about. He swore he came clean, but I don't know who these people are. Now, I am trying to get back to where I was two weeks ago when I had stopped talking to him for 10 days. This process is taking all of me, and I just want to get off the rollercoaster ride.
He told me I was overreacting, so I said, Ok, let me think if I am and then I will call you back. Well, he called me back 5 minutes later and broke up with me. So, then I became needy, and now I am trying not to be caught up in this again.

I have a bunch off stuff highlighted in my codependency no more book, and I will go read it now.

Thanks all for your responses and advice! It is very helpful. Urworthit, I can understand where you are coming from. This process is a roller coaster. The minute I think I'm strong, I cave in and get weak. I guess we need to take it one day at a time.

I've never looked at my resentments in depth, never really felt them but i'm about to write a step 4 in my love addiction programme and the first thing they ask you to do is to write out ALL your resentments.

I think i'm going to be doing this work for a while so wish me luck. Perhaps i'll share some of them here as an outlset too.