For more information on how to control your anger, visit angersecrets.com.

In this episode, anger expert Alastair Duhs sits down with Michael, a man in his late 70s who completed Alastair's anger management program 18 months ago, to find out one simple thing: did the change last?

Whether you have tried to control your anger before and slipped back, or you are wondering whether it is even worth starting, this conversation offers a real and honest answer.

Rather than offering theory, Alastair lets Michael tell his own story, from the Christmas visit where his daughter confronted him about the kind of father he had been, to the calmer, more connected life he is living today.

And the good news is, Michael's experience shows that lasting change is possible, and probably not as hard as you think.

Key Takeaways:

• The fear that change won't last stops a lot of people from ever trying. Michael's story is a direct answer to that fear. Eighteen months on, the changes are real and they have held.
• Anger is almost always connected to a story you are telling yourself. Michael had come to believe his success entitled him to say whatever he wanted, however he wanted. Until he saw that story clearly, no technique could touch the root of it.
• Controlling your anger is not about becoming a pushover. Michael stopped using anger as a tool to assert his position. He did not stop having opinions or standards.
• Sustainable change happens when the motivation lives inside you, not in someone else's reaction. Michael's daughter has never acknowledged his change. He is genuinely okay with that, because he is doing it for himself, not for her approval.
• It is easier than most people expect, but it requires ongoing practice. Michael still revisits his notes when old patterns start to creep in. Long-term change is not about white-knuckling difficult moments. It is about returning to the tools.
• It is never too late. Michael is in his late 70s, calmer, closer to his wife, and rebuilding his relationship with his daughter. The work he did has made his life genuinely more enjoyable.

Resources & Next Steps:

If today's episode has made you think about your own anger and what lasting change might look like for you:

• Visit: angersecrets.com
• Learn more about The Complete Anger Management System
• Access the free training on "Breaking The Anger Cycle"

Maybe you've thought about doing anger management before.

Maybe you've even started something, a book, a course, or a few sessions with someone and it helped for a while.

But somewhere in the back of your mind there's a nagging, what if this doesn't last?

What if I learn all the right techniques, put in the work, and six months from now I'm right back where I started?

This fear stops a lot of people from ever trying to control their anger.

And I get it.

So today I want to address that question directly, not with theory, but with a real conversation.

Recently, I caught up with Michael, who completed my anger Management Program 18 months ago.

And I asked him exactly how things have changed.

I hope that what he told me might just be the thing that convinces you to take that first step.

Hello and welcome to the Anger Secrets podcast.

I'm Alistair dwes.

For over 30 years, I've helped more than 15,000 people control their anger, master their emotions, and build calmer, happier relationships.

If you'd like my help, head over to angersecrets.com book a free 30 minute call or grab my free training on how to break the anger cycle.

But first, let's talk about Michael.

Michael is in his late 70s.

He is retired, and by most measures, he is a very successful man.

Good career, financially secure, people who love him.

And yet, for most of his adult life, he.

His anger had been quietly doing damage, not in the dramatic, obvious ways.

He kept his temper in check.

At work, he knew it didn't serve him professionally, but at home with his wife and daughter, that was a different story.

He was explosive, dominant, the kind of man who felt he'd earned the right to say whatever he thought, however he wanted to say it.

Then one Christmas, his daughter sat him down and told him exactly what kind of father he'd been.

And over the next eight to 10 weeks, the emails kept coming.

That was the moment Michael decided to do something about it.

He enrolled in my program and when I spoke to him after finishing it, the changes were clear.

But that was then.

The question I wanted to answer was simple.

Did it last?

So I called him back.

Eighteen months on, here's my conversation with him.

So, welcome back to the podcast.

It's great to have you here again.

Could you tell the listeners a bit about yourself?

Okay.

I'm in my late 70s, I am retired, fairly successful career.

I don't worry a whole lot about money.

I enjoy life at the fullest.

But I have had anger issues, mostly with my close family for years.

I can be pretty explosive.

I Have not been physically abusive, but certainly I have not let anger stop me from telling people what I think I learned quite a long time ago that anger didn't work in business, But I had not given my family the same respect, kind of a feeling.

Well, I'm the king of the castle, ought to be dominant.

And those things were not working well for me.

A year and a half ago, I had a Christmas visit with my family, and my daughter pretty much unloaded on me and what she thought about me as a father.

And she continued to do that in emails for the next eight to 10 weeks.

And that's when I realized I had to do something.

I didn't want to be that person.

And so I enrolled in a linear course and really learned some key things.

I mean, the first thing I learned was, people don't make me angry.

I have to own my own anger.

There are a lot of ways to respond to things that you find surprising or offensive or troubling.

And I also learned that that anger had damaged my relationship with my wife and my daughter, and I needed to do something about it.

How was that realization for you that your anger had affected your wife and your family?

Well, at first, I didn't quite believe it.

I thought, well, that's my crazy daughter just going off on me and.

And sat down with my wife, and we talked a little about it.

And I recognized the fact that I was kind of explosive in terms of my anger.

I had as a child, I'd been pretty explosive with anger, and I think I learned that from my father.

My father, indeed loved me very much, and I can't imagine a better relationship than I had with my father.

But I knew that he had a trigger, and it worked for him and our family.

My brother and I are both very successful.

We're very motivated people.

But I knew where it came from.

And then I realized, well, there are some things I can do about it.

And that's what your course taught me.

Great.

So you started the course about a year and a half ago.

What were the first changes you made?

I think the first change I really made was when I realized that I entitled myself to be angry, that somehow I was better than the people around, smarter than the people around me, or I'd worked harder than the people around me and been more successful than the people around me.

And that somehow that entitled me to, say, blithering idiot.

And the course opened me up to that.

It also opened me up to the fact that my impatience was one of the things that was driving my anger.

I'M I'm a get it done guy.

Whether it's on the golf course or church or wherever there are problems, well, let's get that fixed.

And when you're in that mode, you often don't listen to people.

And so it had made some of my communications pretty one way, and I'm sure it put some people off that he never listens to that sort of thing.

So began to realize those things.

Right.

These are wonderful realizations.

How long did it take before you felt like you were starting to make changes?

I think halfway through the course, I began to think, oh, geez, well, that makes a lot of sense.

I mean, the beauty of the course was the things that you presented were really very logical, made a lot of sense, and they weren't that difficult to understand and figure ways to follow.

And as soon as I realized that, that's when you began to see the change.

And it was slower for my family to see it.

My daughter has never verbally recognized that I've changed.

My wife has recognized that I've changed, but at the same time, she's recognized that it's a work in progress, that this is not a destination, it's a journey, and that I have to continue on that journey.

The other thing is, every week I get a little session from you that says, oh, you know, I'd forgotten about that.

Let's go back and look at it.

And I also have the opportunity, the books right here, right back, and look at those notes whenever I want to.

And that's been very, very useful.

Right.

So it's about a year and a half since you started the course.

What's different now to how you were when you started the course?

I'm a much calmer person.

I'm a much more insightful person.

I'm less angry.

I'm more accepting of other people and other people's opinions.

I mean, I don't have to believe other people's opinions.

You know, if I agreed with them, we'd both be wrong.

I know that.

But you can tolerate that.

There are a lot of things to love about people beyond what they're opposed to you about.

And so that's helped a lot.

That's very wise.

And how has your relationship with your wife or daughter changed easier to my.

Relationship with my wife because I'm with her all the time.

I think it's improved.

If you ask her, she'll say, well, it's better.

But, you know, you were really a little better when you were studying the core, which is kind of her way to say keep after it.

My relationship has improved with my daughter.

I think he sees it as a change.

So there's a lot of good stuff.

Going on that's interesting.

Would you say that learning to control your anger is easy or hard?

It's a lot easier than I thought it would be.

But you're not going to live it forever unless you go back and look at it.

So it takes ongoing work by the sound.

What would you say to someone else who has been told they've got an anger issue or kind of knows they have an anger issue and is thinking about doing the course?

I would certainly recommend the course.

I have recommended it to several people.

I've had people at church that I'm very close to that I've talked about this adventure with and they recommended people to anger me anyway.

So if you're listening to this, take the dark core.

It's hard to admit and seek help.

Right.

For anger issues, it's a hard step.

So I assume it was hard for you as well.

Yeah, it was.

You know, the thing I, the thing that intrigued me about the course, I visualized that sooner or later this thing's going to get out of hand and I'm going to have a quant order to go through anger management.

And I think I was a long way from that.

But at the same time, this is a very non threatening self help way to get some help before things get out of hand.

If they're out of hand.

I think that it's probably as good a way as you can get started.

But it was money well spent and frankly that amount of money has come back to me so many times in more enjoyable life.

That's a perfect way to finish.

Maybe just one more question, but how was doing an online course for you?

It really was a great thing.

I've heard many people say it on your podcast to approach it at your own speed, to think about it, to go back and look at it.

It's not about, you know, having to lay on a couch and somebody say, well, what was your father like and how, what was your relationship with your brother?

It gets right to the meat of the thing.

Here are the things that you should, you should be changing.

Here are the reasons that you're, you're, tell me.

Really, it kind of digs into your anger and you learn where it's coming from in a very, very efficient way.

And then you get feedback almost immediately when you start using new techniques, new ways of communicating.

And the other thing is if you have a problem, the anger diary Lets you go back and say, well, I've done this before.

Well, what did I do?

Well, here's where it is in the lost implant.

You can go back and look at it.

So it's.

It's not a course that you have to remember forever because you have notes, you have experience with it.

And frankly, I haven't made an entry in my anger Barry in a long time.

And that's a good thing.

That's progress.

It's pretty easy because really, really good core.

Great.

Anything else you'd like to say?

No, I just.

Thank you very much for being where you are.

I feel like I have a friend who lives halfway around the world and that's kind of cool.

First, a huge thank you to Michael for being so open.

What struck me most about this interview was how Michael described the moment things shifted about halfway through the program.

He was finally seeing something that had always been there, but that he'd never had the words or the willingness to look at directly.

And what he recognised was, was this.

He had been treating his anger as an entitlement.

He'd worked hard, he'd provided, and somewhere along the way, that had quietly become a belief that he was above the normal rules of how you treat people.

This is something I see a lot.

Anger isn't random.

It's always connected to a story we're telling ourselves about.

About who we are and what we deserve.

And until you find that story, no anger management technique in the world will touch the root of it.

And once Michael saw his, the change started happening.

And just to be clear, this didn't turn Michael into a pushover.

He just stopped using anger as a tool to assert his position.

The second thing Michael said is important for anyone on this journey to hear.

Michael's daughter has never acknowledged that he's changed.

His wife has, but his daughter.

Silence.

And Michael is genuinely okay with that.

Not resigned, not bitter.

Because he's not doing this to earn her approval.

He's doing it because he knows who he was and he doesn't want to be that person anymore.

That's the shift that makes change sustainable.

When the motivation lives inside you, not in someone else's reaction.

It doesn't collapse when the acknowledgment doesn't come.

The clients who hold their changes longest are always the ones who reach this point.

It stops being about managing other people's responses and starts being about their own integrity.

The third thing is what I want to leave you with.

I asked Michael, is controlling your anger easy or hard?

He said, it's a lot easier than I thought it would be.

But you're not going to keep it unless you go back and look at it.

That's the real answer.

We all want an anger fix to be permanent and frictionless.

Do the course, tick the box, never think about it again.

But it doesn't work that way.

Not with anger.

Not with any habit that actually matters.

What Michael does is simple.

He revisits his notes when something comes up.

He dips back into the material when old patterns start to creep in.

He hasn't made an entry in his anger diary in a long time, which is a good thing.

So long term, change isn't about white knuckling every difficult moment.

It's about building a practice you return to.

The tools work, but only if you keep using them.

Michael is in his late 70s.

He's calmer, closer to his wife, rebuilding things with his daughter, and living a more enjoyable life.

It's never too late, and it's probably not as hard as you think.

So if today's episode has made you think, head over to angersecrets.com book a free 30 minute call with me and we'll talk about what's driving your anger and what the best path forward looks like for you.

And if you found this useful, please leave a rating and review.

It helps other people find the show.

And remember, you can't control other people, but you can control yourself.

Thanks for listening.

Take care.

The Anger Secrets podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of counseling, psychotherapy or any other professional health service.

No therapeutic relationship is implied or created by this podcast.

If you have mental health concerns of any type, please seek out the help of a local mental health professional.