Alcohol and Domestic Abuse

February 25,2013

Is there a connection between alcohol and domestic abuse? The more fundamental question is whether or not alcohol does elevate the aggressive behaviors that lead to domestic violence.

Is there a connection between alcohol and domestic abuse? While most studies look at the cause-and-effect relationship of the two, the more fundamental question is whether or not alcohol does elevate the aggressive behaviors that lead to domestic violence.

Here's what we do know:

Alcohol alters a person's inhibitions;

Alcohol alters a person's level of tolerance;

Alcohol alters a person's stability;

Alcohol alters a person's ability to reason;

Alcohol alters a person's ability to be rational;

Alcohol heightens a person's sensitivity;

Alcohol alters a person's input and output processing.

Studies by many have failed to prove a connection between alcohol and domestic violence. But a failure to prove doesn't preclude the possibility that it does, only that the studies to date have failed to connect the two as causal relationships. And while domestic violence may not require a person to be drinking or drunk, a person who is drinking or drunk may be more likely to commit domestic violence than that same person would without alcohol.

Battering a person, it is said, is a learned behavior. It is not the result of substance abuse or mental illness. The person who grows up seeing abuse in their household is more likely to commit domestic violence as a result. And while that doesn't preclude individuals who didn't have domestic violence in their home from committing the act, no response will cover 100% of the people. But that same person will be even more likely to commit the violence if they consume alcohol. And while it may be an excuse, it is, in reality, a part of the problem.

The ability of alcohol to lessen one's level of rational thinking is the foundation of the correlation. People with reasonable judgment process situations differently than those who are impaired. Some people become œmean drunks, taking an otherwise pleasant or even borderline personality and turning it upside down. Alcohol tends to increase aggression in some people. Tests have shown that people with low serotonin levels have higher aggression levels. Alcohol often brings about a œSuperman syndrome, wherein the individual feels invincible when they drink. Combine the two, and it's a toxic mixture.

People who say domestic violence is the result of drinking are probably correct, but only to a certain extent. Certainly, it doesn't address all domestic violence. Drinking won't make you a domestic abuser. It may bring out aspects of your personality that you would normally have control over.

Most studies focus on absolving alcohol of being responsible for changing a person's disposition enough to allow them to abuse another person. Alcohol accentuates the problem, it doesn't cause it. We have all been around enough to see what happens to some people when they get drunk. To absolve alcohol of any responsibility is, well, irresponsible. Sometimes we don't need studies to prove what we see with our own eyes.

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MARK KILLAR

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