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Review Page     (Revision as of 10/15/2016)    Recovery from Anger Addiction: How I Recovered from Rage by Resolving My Lifetime of Losses and Pain Verryl V. Fosnight Archway Publishing (Mar 29, 2016) Softcover $20.99 (326pp) 978-1-4808-2756-1  Fosnight's tale of moving from a life ruled by anger to living freely is touching and riveting. Recovery from Anger Addiction by Verryl V. Fosnight takes a thoughtful look at anger management and suggests that anger is an addiction that can be recovered from. Fosnight uses his own engaging life story to illustrate how one can walk the road to recovery.  Abused verbally, physically, and emotionally from a young age, Fosnight identifies the source of his alcoholism, codependency, and anger addiction in his unfortunate youth. At first, he incorrectly assumes that the "toxic" shame he felt as a child was the source of all his problems and that to cure himself, he need only cure that shame. Though misguided, that assumption becomes the first step toward his recovery.  Fosnight achieved sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous and began addressing other issues through Codependents Anonymous, though he realized that therapies that rely on changing thought patterns are not for everyone. Only once he began to address his anger as an addiction, or a mood-altering drug, did he begin to clearly see the potential for recovery. Fosnight writes in clear, understandable language and easily gets his point across. He follows the Alcoholics Anonymous decree of sharing a personal story without suggesting that his moves represent the best thing to do. Thus, the narrative is not presented as advice to others, but rather as an example that they can choose to emulate or not.  Prose incorporates quotes and findings from other famous recovery authors, including John Bradshaw and Alice Miller. These quotations, though often lengthy and interruptive, lend credence to the author's perspective, which has been shaped by experience rather than scientific theory.  Many helpful and interesting appendices, indexes, and glossaries provide technical definitions of terms used throughout, as do explanations of twelve-step programs. These make Fosnight's story accessible to anyone facing similar trials. That said, the text often skips ahead or relates events out of sequence, which does break up the flow of the narrative.  This book will be useful not only to those with similar anger issues, but also to people suffering from codependency, alcoholism, or any other addiction. The helpful penultimate chapter enunciates each of the twelve steps followed by Alcoholics Anonymous, which Fosnight assures his readership can be used to assist in any recovery. Fosnight's tale of moving from a life ruled by anger to living freely is touching and riveting. This is the heartfelt story of a man who walks the long, hard road to recovery, hoping that one day his story might help another soul find their own recovery, too.  EMILY CASUCCIO  Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have his/her book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Review make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255.  Barnes & Noble Book Review AMAZING BOOK!! I have suffered from “addiction” to anger without my knowing for quite some years now. Being 21, I recently went to WeCare Recovery in Anaheim, CA and my case manager gave me this book. I read it within 4 days, highlighting and making notes and actually studying this book. I loved that this book is the author’s personal story of overcoming anger with inserts from many different authors and their books. I have some of the books now because of this book based on referral. I have come to the conclusion that my anger was due to my childhood trauma, just like the author. Without grief [grieving] and going through pain I could not overcome this addiction. Yes, I have accepted that this is an addiction, just like alcohol and codependency. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone struggling in life and wanting a change of perspective on emotions. It showed me that we are not alone in this world. It gets better. Thank you so much to the author for writing this book, and I am so pleased that it came into my journey of recovery so soon in my life. This book is bound to change lives and assist in recovery for all people. Paying if forward, indeed.  Verryl says: I gave out 8 free books to the staff at WeCare last week, and one of them was evidently given to a client. This is why I wrote the book—with the hope that someone would find help with his or her anger. Incidently, this is how recovery works; we pass it on, or as the cliché goes “We give it away so we can keep it.”  Blue Ink Review Recovery from Anger Addiction: How I Recovered from Rage by Resolving My Lifetime of Losses and Pain Verryl V. Fosnight Archway Publishing, 303 pages, (paperback) $20.99, 978-1-4808-2756-1 (Reviewed: May 2016)  After years of working to free himself from alcoholism, codependency and toxic shame, retired aerospace researcher Verryl V. Fosnight had a breakthrough: His lifelong anger problem wasn’t a bad behavior, but another, even more deeply-rooted addiction. In Recovery from Anger Addiction, Fosnight skillfully and candidly chronicles his quest for wholeness from the emotional damage that began with his mother’s severe beatings, his father’s unwillingness to stop her, and his parents’ demand for perfection from their only son.  At 73, Fosnight is not a young man, which gives even more credence to his story of soul-searching through numerous counseling sessions, workshops and books. Well-researched and footnoted, professionally indexed, and written in a tone that sometimes borders on the scientific, Recovery from Anger Addiction is an easy-to-read book that appeals to both emotion-based and intellectual readers.  The author offers a detailed account of his angry episodes, from cursing a woman who broke in line at the movie theater when he was in high school to being jailed for assaulting his third wife at their posh home, without being overly graphic or sentimental. Anger, he states, made him feel “good, powerful and in control. ... Anger was not my problem, I believed; it was my solution.” He also shares advice from well-known psychologists and other experts, sometimes challenging their approaches, sometimes embracing them.  The near-mathematical “equations” and diagrams depicting the causes of trauma, the link between abuse and anger, and other emotional triggers are a bit technical, perhaps even unnecessary. And Fosnight tends to overanalyze the effectiveness of crying, anger management programs, and other topics in a way that can sound mechanical and cold. Nevertheless, this is an extremely interesting book that is as well-written and informative as many penned by professional counselors and celebrity psychologists. For readers battling “rageaholism” and their loved ones, Fosnight’s self-help memoir is a page turner that validates just how difficult that struggle can be. Also available in hardcover and ebook.   KIRKUS TITLE INFORMATION  RECOVERY FROM ANGER ADDICTION How I Recovered My Rage by Resolving My Lifetime of Losses and Pain Verryl V. Fosnight Archway Publishing (326 pp.) $37.95 hardcover, $20.99 paperback, $8.99 e-book ISBN: 978-1-4808-2757-8; March 29, 2016  BOOK REVIEW A retired physicist details his journey to uncovering and releasing deeply rooted anger issues in this debut self-help memoir.  In 2007, Fosnight finally got into serious trouble with his hot temper: he was arrested for roughhousing his third wife (although charges were later dropped). Still, even this incident didn’t prompt the author, who had already battled his alcoholism in Alcoholics Anonymous and his toxic shame from his abusive childhood in Codependents Anonymous, to fully look at anger as his main problem. Instead, he checked into a relationship-addiction recovery center, where, thankfully, a workshop leader’s observation that Fosnight had experienced “a lifetime of losses and pain” became a watershed, with his outburst of bawling at this remark becoming the “beginning of my recovery from anger.” In this recovery journal, he shares his stumbling path to this enlightenment, providing an encompassing discussion of his experiences with AA, CoDa, and other recovery programs as well as readings of the works of John Bradshaw, Pia Mellody, and others. While expressing appreciation for these offerings, Fosnight is critical of the traditional anger management program (which at one point he had to take) since it “does not try to lessen the reservoir of emotions that fuel the anger; it only attempts to control or manage the emotion of anger.” By the memoir’s end, thanks to his grieving and freeing himself of underlying emotional pain, the author, now 73, achieved a calmer, healthier existence, including a reunion with his beloved second wife. Fosnight offers honest, affecting testimony on the far-reaching effects of childhood trauma, including a chilling, surprising, and ultimately forgiving depiction of his abusive mother who, a relative later told him, had been fearful she would one day kill him. A retired physicist, Fosnight is a bit too scientifically diligent in documenting— and occasionally re-examining—what are his nevertheless very admirable and insightful observations of the various recovery channels he explored. Indeed, his contentions concerning the emotional core of anger addiction are compelling and should serve as a helpful beacon to others struggling with this affliction.  Gripping self-discovery reportage, with a helpful roundup of anger-addiction therapy and recovery approaches for all. RECOVERY FROM ANGER ADDICTION RECOVERY FROM ANGER ADDICTION