The Angry Drunk: How Alcohol and Aggression Are Linked

I3 Theory (“I-Cubed”) is a multifactorial meta-theory that predicts myriad behaviors, including aggression ••7, 8. Like other meta-theoretical approaches, such as the General Aggression Model 10, I3 Theory does not restrict the prediction of aggression to one decisive risk factor (or set of factors) or to one particular theoretical level of analysis. Rather, I3 Theory suggests that we can predict whether a given social interaction will result in aggression if we can discern the strength of Instigation, degree of Impellance, and presence of Inhibitory factors.

2 Attendance and Treatment Satisfaction

The bystander approach to violence prevention aims to prepare individuals to intervene when they witness situations that involve or could potentially lead to aggression. This approach has been identified as a promising strategy to prevent sexual violence 43 and intimate partner violence 44. For instance, campus sexual violence often occurs at or after attending bars or parties where attendees drink alcohol 45, 46, 47, and alcohol-facilitated aggression in bars and other public venues is also highly likely to occur in the presence of bystanders. Yet, only one study 48 has examined the likelihood of bystander intervention in a drinking context but was unable to determine if the bystanders, perpetrator, or victim had consumed alcohol.

3 Predicting Treatment Outcomes

While it might help momentarily, as we continue to drink, the alcohol disrupts our brain chemistry, increasing our chances of feeling angry. This anger then feeds into our stress, and what do we do to alleviate the stress? So it’s not a matter of what specific drink makes you angry, but the nature of drinking itself that creates the cycle. And as the cycle continues, it becomes a never-ending episode of a drama series you can’t switch off. Moreover, alcohol lowers the levels of serotonin — a neurotransmitter that helps regulate our mood.

Why Does Alcohol Make You Angry? The Science Behind Booze-Fueled Rage

Other holistic methods are often used during a comprehensive addiction and anger management treatment program as adjunctive, or complementary, treatment methods. Massage therapy can help to relieve physical tension and therefore promote mental clarity. Expressive therapies provide healthy, and often nonverbal, outlets for the expression of negative and difficult emotions. On the flip side, alcohol dependence commonly leads to significant withdrawal symptoms that are often side effects of alcohol addiction. Emotional withdrawal symptoms can include agitation, anxiety, depression, irritability, and tension as well as sleep disturbances, insomnia, and physical discomfort.

Alcohol myopia: its prized and dangerous effects

Enhancing anger management skills may improve coping with anger as well as enhance accessing other cognitive and behavioral coping skills disrupted by anger arousal. Although the relationship between alcohol and behavioral aggression is complex (Cavell & Malcolm, 2007), meta-analyses consistently suggest that alcohol increases aggression (Bushman & Cooper, 1990; Hull & Bond, 1986; Ito, Miller, & Pollock, 1996). In stark comparison, probability of marital aggression among those low on alcohol dependence was not influenced by hostility (.01 probability). Others have documented the relationship between alcohol consumption and violence toward intimate partners (e.g., Lisco, Parrott, & Tharp, 2012) and sexual minorities (e.g., Parrott, Peterson, & Bakeman, 2011). Anger, alcohol, and aggression relationships have been demonstrated in various laboratory paradigms where those high on trait anger and aggressiveness tend to engage in greater aggression when provoked and under the influence of alcohol (Miller, Parrott, & Giancola, 2009). Anger, either additively or in interaction with alcohol, was related to increases in negative anger- and alcohol-consequences (Leibsohn et al., 1994).

Validation of a Brief Measure of Aggression for Ecological Momentary Assessment Research: The Aggression-ES-A

This is not to say that alcohol causes aggression, or serves to makes someone angry, in and of itself; however, it may be a contributing factor when it comes to difficulties controlling these emotions. In addition, alcohol abuse and addiction can result in poor anger management skills. The integration of I3 Theory and Alcohol Myopia Theory provides a heuristic framework to understand (1) the cognitive, affective, and behavioral risk factors for alcohol-facilitated interpersonal aggression, and (2) theoretically-relevant mechanisms of aggression. Collectively, accounting for key instigatory and inhibitory factors as well as multiple mechanisms of alcohol-facilitated aggression within a parsimonious framework provides the foundation for the construction of effective treatments to prevent alcohol-facilitated aggression. Use of this framework provides the opportunity to identify “the critical and most potent instigating and inhibiting factors” (p. 8) for alcohol-related aggression, so that interventions can be directed at these fundamental determinants 6. Some studies highlight the impairment caused by alcohol consumption on processing emotional faces.

The Failure to Consider Future Consequences and Its Impact on Aggression

Glutamate (a neurotransmitter that increases brain activity and energy levels) gets suppressed, while GABA (which reduces energy alcoholic rage syndrome levels and calms the brain) is enhanced by alcohol. Our reactions become sluggish, our speech may slur, and our inhibitions drop. Our state-specific resource guides offer a comprehensive overview of drug and alcohol addiction treatment options available in your area. Outpatient programs are often part of aftercare programs once you complete an inpatient or PHP program. It is important for people undergoing treatment to have a stable and supportive home environment without access to drugs and alcohol.

2 Addressing Anger in the Treatment of Alcohol Problems

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. Some of the biological factors that contribute to alcoholism may also play a role in increasing the risk of intimate partner violence. Such factors including head injury, neurochemistry, physiological reactivity, metabolism, and genetics.

Getting Help for Co-Occurring Disorders

• If you find it hard to control your drinking or anger, consider professional help.
• Finally, improvements in positive affect may also play an important role in treatment outcomes; enhancing positive affect may serve as a protective effect on the experience of stress for alcohol dependent individuals (see McHugh, Kaufman, Frost, Fitzmaurice & Weiss, 2013).

This was a massive study of 33,215 individuals with no history of active military combat. An increase in anger after trauma and the use of alcohol to cope with PTSD symptoms were stronger predictors of physically aggressive or violent acts than a lifetime diagnosis of PTSD without anger. Among the many studied physiological and behavioral effects of alcohol is disinhibition, or reduced control over impulses or urges after intoxication. Disinhibition can make you unable to suppress or change an act of aggression that is not appropriate for the situation you’re in.