The Angry Drunk: How Alcohol and Aggression Are Linked

This activates the stress response, which speeds up heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure, and increases body temperature. Stress also affects focus and attention abilities, and heightens energy while decreasing appetite and sleep functions. One study found that chronic alcohol use decreases the function in the prefrontal cortex, which plays a key role in impulse control.

• Many people enjoy alcoholic drinks as a way of relaxing, sometimes to reduce the tension of socializing or to quiet an overactive mind.
• The researchers assigned the participants (54 males and 60 females) to compete in a competitive aggression paradigm in an intoxicated or sober state.
• Specifically, it found that problematic drinkers may be more likely to attend to aggressogenic stimuli while intoxicated, and that is, they were more likely to experience certain cues as aggressive.
• 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.
• While the above tips can help, the most effective way to ensure that you’re not getting aggressive when under the influence of alcohol is to cut back on your drinking or take steps to give it up completely.
• It can be harder for someone under the influence of alcohol to notice typical warning signs that emotions, especially anger, may be getting out of control.

They were directed to engage in a task with the potential to trigger aggressive verbalizations, with those who consumed alcohol showing significantly more such behavior. 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.

Alcohol, Aggression, and Violence: Psychiatric Comorbidities

If you were sober, you might be able to look at this logically instead, and accept it may have just been an accident. When you talk to a member of the Nugent Family Counseling Center team, you can count on compassion and honesty. Anger management treatment with our specialists is designed to help you control your feelings of anger. It’s also worth keeping in mind that young children haven’t fully learned to respect boundaries and the rights of others. Children who witness aggression, then, might learn to express themselves through aggression and violence.

With the support of evidence-based therapy methods, patients will be able to heal from their underlying causes of addiction while gaining the necessary tools for coping and tools for relapse prevention that will ensure they can maintain long-term sobriety. Dr. Dominic Parrott is a Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University and Executive Secretary for the International Society for Research on Aggression. His research alcohol depression and anger uses laboratory and survey methods to examine risk factors and mechanisms for aggression perpetration, with a particular emphasis on the effects of alcohol on intimate partner violence, aggression toward sexual minorities, and sexual aggression. Once again, we found that when inhibitory cues were noticeable and unavoidable – in this case, cues that increase self-awareness – aggression was reduced among drunk participants.

Tips to change your relationship with alcohol

The findings were explained by emphasizing that concern for the future involves greater prefrontal cortex resources that help inhibit the excessive impact of alcohol. Another study explored the relationship between Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), alcohol use, and violence (Blakey et al., 2018). This was a massive study of 33,215 individuals with no history of active military combat.

Neither gender had any significant impact on the results (Gan et al., 2015). Contrary to this, a single administration of 0.5 per thousand alcohol was shown to reduce frontal interhemispheric connectivity in female participants, but not in male participants (Hoppenbrouwers et al., 2010). Intergender neurological and behavioral responses to alcohol are also influenced by ethanol metabolism (Arthur et al., 1984) and influences of hormones such as testosterone, cortisol, estradiol, progesterone, and oxytocin (Denson et al., 2018).

The Effects of Alcohol-Related Aggression

The unpredictability of impairment by alcohol can lead to many unforeseen consequences or emotional outbursts that can lead to high-risk behaviors or challenging interactions. As alcohol abuse increases, people are more likely to experience an inability to control emotions as they attempt to numb or mask the underlying emotions or traumas that have contributed to their drinking behaviors. Alcohol impacts a person’s brain chemistry, altering your thinking, emotional responses, and perceptions of what is happening around https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/genetics-of-alcoholism-is-alcohol-abuse-hereditary/ you. As you become intoxicated or impaired from alcohol consumption, your ability to rationalize and process situations or emotions becomes significantly hindered. For some people, engaging in alcohol consumption, turning to alcohol is a method of coping or self-medicating for an underlying reason or to manage trauma. When alcohol is used as a coping method, it can increase the heightened responses from individuals when provoked or triggered which can be a direct correlation between alcohol and aggression for some.

Here you can find useful links and phone numbers to get the support you need. Outpatient treatment is less intensive than inpatient treatment or partial hospitalization programs. They are best for people who have a high motivation to recover, but cannot leave their responsibilities at home, work, or school. PHPs accept new patients, and people who have completed an inpatient program and require additional intensive treatment.

That would be an act of physical aggression, but not necessarily violence. Even if you don’t find drinking makes you aggressive, you might find drinking sometimes leads to an argument. So, why not cut down together and enjoy all the benefits that it can bring.

• The participants were assigned to either alcohol, a placebo, or a sober group.
• Block and Block (1992) defined expressive murders as a result of the expression, emotions, and psychological states.
• Expressive murders are most often preceded by arguments and altercations and the level of intoxication increases the viciousness of the attack (Karlsson, 1998).
• These programs usually last 5-7 days on average and commonly use medications to manage difficult physical and emotional withdrawal symptoms.
• If you were sober, you might be able to look at this logically instead, and accept it may have just been an accident.