A Nutley man who had a history of road rage wrote a book about how to overcome it.

Gennaro Lombardi had a record of license suspensions, accidents and fights.

"I was an animal," Lombardi said. He is a self-described chronic insane - and now former - "road rager." He has had four license suspensions, several major accidents and many stories to back it up.

"I would literally get out and fight with people physically. I would jump on their cars, throw things at their cars. I've run people off the road, they've run me off the road," Lombardi says.

The fights, crashes and reckless driving were so bad that no one in his family would get in the car with him. But after entering into a 12-step program to address his underlying anger management and substance abuse issues in 2008, he realized the problem wasn't other drivers: It was him.

"Nobody did it to me. I did a lot of it to myself. I was the one who created it. The results I got were because of my actions. Because of what I get out and what I'd do," he adds.

Now instead of racing and raging, the 41-year-old works out, meditates and writes.

"The way I look at it is this: If I road rage once a year instead of once a day I am better off because I used to literally road rage every day," Lombardi says.

He tells the story of his detour off the highway to destruction in a self-published book, "Road Rage at Its Finest," which he believes is the first self-help book for people looking to get over their road rage.

"It's a selfish mentality where I come first. Everybody is cutting me off. They're driving slow in front of me. And I try to change the perspective in this book, and I go over every single topic of why road rage comes about. It's a mentality. It's a state of mind. We have a little something here. Here we go, we have an accident right here," he says.