Alcohol Causes Aggression Can It Reduce Aggression Too?

People who are the closest to the alcoholic who struggled with anger often get the most abuse. You may find yourself walking on eggshells to avoid an alcohol-induced anger outburst. BetterHelp offers affordable mental health care via phone, video, or live-chat.

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Anyone who’s lived with an alcoholic parent, partner or other close family member understands all too well what happens when their loved one’s personality changes suddenly as soon as they have a drink or two. Suddenly, the person they know and care for is a much different, angrier person — short-tempered, abusive and often violent. These medicines can help reduce the negative side effects of detoxification and withdrawal. Another study of 249 heavy drinkers similarly found that alcohol intoxication predicted higher levels of IPV in those who reported low psychological flexibility (Grom et al., 2021). I’ve observed this pattern over several decades in helping clients deal with anger. Alcohol, like fatigue, diminished sleep, stress, and certain drugs, inhibits the activation of the prefrontal cortex, that part of our brain responsible for problem-solving, judgment, and overseeing and managing emotions.

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Be aware that telling someone to calm down may antagonise them further. This means that you’re not feeding into, justifying or trying to combat the person’s anger, or emotionally engaging with someone who isn’t able to think reasonably. Remember that alcoholism is a lifelong battle, and it’s important to have realistic expectations. Recovery will take time and effort and may be accompanied by setbacks along the way.

What is the link between anger and alcohol?

In his case, he was already predisposed to anger arousal before he had his first drink. There’s no question that excessive drinking can have a negative impact on the body and the brain. The cerebellum is one of the most sensitive areas of the brain to the effects alcoholic rage syndrome of alcohol because it has the ability to control functions like memory and emotions. Alcohol forces our bodies to create an increased amount of serotonin and endorphins, which are responsible for regulating our emotions and our sense of relaxation and happiness.

• Take Bob as an example – a mild-mannered accountant by day but come Friday night after a few beers, he’s arguing with everyone in the bar.
• She has previously been awarded grants by the state and federal government, NHMRC and other public funding bodies for alcohol and other drug research.
• Dr. Dominic Parrott is a Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University and Executive Secretary for the International Society for Research on Aggression.
• This occurs in long-term relationships such as marriage, as well as all dating scenarios.

Essentially, it refers to individuals who exhibit aggressive behavior when they consume alcohol. Now, we’re not talking about a minor irritability here; these folks can become noticeably hostile and confrontational. When you heavily consume alcohol, your prefrontal cortex becomes damaged, altering your decision-making capabilities. Therefore, people who rely on drinking as a coping mechanism can be more inclined to make rash choices, such as having unprotected sex or getting into a car with a stranger. According to research compiled by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, alcohol use is a considerable contributing factor to sexual assault. Similarly, in nearly 40% of violent incidents, surveyed individuals from the United Kingdom said they believed their perpetrator was under the influence of alcohol.

• Alcoholic rage syndrome refers to a pattern of intense anger and aggression triggered by alcohol consumption.
• Alcohol impairs your judgement, decision making and problem solving abilities, due to affecting the chemicals in your brain.
• When you have a drink, ethanol enters the bloodstream through the stomach and small intestine and is then processed in the liver.
• To combat aggressive behavior when drinking, individuals should consciously seek help.
• Decreased cognitive function also means it’s more likely for you to misread a situation and overreact.

It’s common for alcohol and anger to be stereotypically lumped together, but many people labeled “angry” while drinking may actually be experiencing aggression or hostility. Anger can lead to aggression and hostility, but they aren’t the same. Aggression can also be rooted in emotions like fear or competitiveness.

What’re You Having … and Feeling?

• Essentially, drinking makes us less likely to withhold our reactions when we’re angry or annoyed.
• Different drinks have different alcohol content and the more alcohol you ingest – and the faster you ingest it – the stronger the effects.
• Additionally, when you don’t reflect on mistakes you’ve made, you’ll probably repeat them.
• While anger is an emotion you experience when you feel threatened, aggression is a hostile behavior that results in physical or psychological harm to yourself or others.
• It’s clear that they’re not just a challenge for individuals, but also for society as a whole.

When you drink alcohol, those inhibitions are lifted, and if you’re feeling angry, you’re more likely to express it and do so in an exaggerated way. The direct effects of alcohol are the same whether you drink wine, beer or spirits. There’s no evidence that different types of alcohol cause different mood states. People aren’t even very good at recognising their mood states when they have been drinking. Reports of a study linking different kinds of alcoholic drinks with different mood states were making the rounds recently. The research used 30,000 survey responses from the Global Drug Survey and found that people attached different emotions to different alcoholic drinks.

If anger is a symptom of someone’s mental health disorder, alcohol can intensify the anger to dangerous levels. And cutting down or stopping has lots of other benefits too, for your physical and mental health. Identifying those factors that might contribute to heightened anger when consuming alcohol is important for individuals who have anger issues and those who treat them. Increasingly, research offers answers to determine this interaction. Because of the established link between aggression and alcohol, co-treatments have been developed that can also address anger while drinking. If you find yourself in a situation with someone who is angry while intoxicated, the first step is to assess your level of risk.

To combat aggressive behavior when drinking, individuals should consciously seek help. Typically, anger will lead to aggression unless something happens to resolve the situation. If an intoxicated person becomes upset because the bartender refuses to serve them, help from a friend might calm them down. If no one can defuse the tension, they may become an aggressor, escalating the situation to a violent one. The ultimate goal is to help them get into a treatment program that addresses their substance abuse and the way it causes them to behave. But this is often easier said than done, and mean drunks can turn violent when provoked — meaning that if you share a living space with one, your safety should be your main priority.

Many people who drink are never violent and even those who do become aggressive won’t do so all the time. But there is strong evidence of a link between alcohol and aggression. Anger management and alcohol treatment programs must recognize and educate participants about the relationships between alcohol and anger. It’s equally important that psychotherapists highlight this interaction both with clients who consume alcohol and those in relationships with them.