Driven to Anger often - help

I'm 34 and ever since I was a small boy whenever a tense situation would arise I'd take it straight to physical conflict. Problem is, rage overcomes me. I don't actually get physical all the time but I do occasionally. I actually feel worse when it doesn't get physical, but physical conflict also leaves me in emotional ruin afterwards.

I'm usually nice to all strangers but my tolerance is zero when one of them acts in a way I see as insulting or provoking. I have no tolerance for those acts.

Of course it's healthy to get angry when anger is due, it's healthy to get physical if you have to in order to defend yourself, but my problem is that I get driven to rage when it's not the best course of action.

I not only want to beat up the person (always male, btw) but I see it as a situation in which I want to own his entire existance and tear him apart. My rage even goes as far as crippling me in a fight, I got no control over myself so I don't do the martial arts moves I was trained to do. I don't stand off and punch, I wrestle and want to tear the person apart and - it may sound funny - take his soul.

So I'm a pretty lousy fighter because my rage is uncontrolled. I do win all the time and people usually separate me from the other guy, and if they didn't I don't know where it would stop. And would it stop at all.

I had an episode with the plummer today, he made a disrespective remark, I controlled myself but I was one step from beating him up. I'm capable of controlling myself but it turns out it drains all the life out of me. That's the price to pay if I consciously don't really want it to get bloody and if I want to protect the other guy from myself.

What do you guys and girls make of this? Should I attend an anger management class? I'd like to be able to control my anger and have levels, I don't want to take it to 10 all the time. My rage is so powerful that it's scarring me emotionally every time.

Or should I just let go and trust my judgement, fighting when I see fit? Perhaps that's the only way to heal myself. It could be that I'm scarred because of controlling myself when I shouldn't.

I think you just need to find a release, something to let out pent-up anger and then calmly carry on. Not quite sure what that might be, sorry