Angry Drunk Psychology: Alcohol and Aggression Explained

This can complicate an already difficult conversation when trying to address your partner’s problematic behavior. This blog was designed to help you understand the relationship between anger and alcohol and how they can amplify each other’s impact. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) interventions are widely recognized as practical approaches for both alcohol recovery and anger management. Furthermore, individualized treatment plans should encompass a thorough examination of the role of alcohol and anger in the individual’s everyday life. By assessing the individual’s specific needs, circumstances, and underlying triggers for alcohol use and anger expression, treatment can be customized to address these factors effectively. Encouraging responsible alcohol consumption and hydration can help mitigate the risk of escalating emotions.

Effects of alcohol-related aggressiveness

Emotional regulation skills and relapse prevention tools are also taught. Through behavioral therapy and counseling, a person is better able to recognize how their thoughts tie into their actions. They can learn to recognize potential triggers and how to safely manage them. Encouraging responsible drinking and seeking help when needed are crucial steps in reducing alcohol-related aggression.

• At Smarmore Castle, we do not just specialise in addiction treatment, but work with patients to resolve underlying issues, such as anger, as well.
• These societal expectations can shape individual behavior, sometimes in surprising ways.
• Drinking, or even the anticipation of consuming alcohol, causes the production of dopamine.
• Preventing hangxiety requires a level of insight into your own emotions.

How online therapy can help

• Drinking may also be a method to self-medicate negative emotions, including anger.
• In a 2017 report, researchers shared their findings of the relationship between alcohol and dating violence.
• Men are more at risk of having anger issues due to the overuse of alcohol.
• Interestingly, those in the control group tended to misidentify expressions as happy.
• Finally, for all emotion regulation strategies but suppression, the effect sizes were larger in the subgroup of studies rated as qualitatively better.
• If you start feeling like you’re making irrational decisions when you’re drunk, it may be the time to stop drinking.

I made a joke that upset him and he started yelling and calling me names. I have learned that when Tom gets like that, it’s best to just agree with him. Though it may be alcohol and aggression difficult to step away from a relationship charged by weighted emotions, it is sometimes the strongest step you can take toward future happiness. Each individual needs to understand their individual relationship to alcohol and be aware of how it affects their life.

Physical health issues

Third, given the central role of emotion regulation in anger problems, studies should increasingly investigate this issue in clinical populations. Previous data is limited and did not allow us to compare the relations between anger and emotion regulation strategies between mental disorders. Anger problems are transdiagnostic, but they may be more prominent in certain disorders compared to others. Empirical investigations of this issue could crucially support efforts to define clinical anger. Individuals who experience a strong tendency toward anger may turn to alcohol in an attempt to elevate their mood or distract themselves from their feelings. Alcohol is often used as a self-management tool in the Sober living house absence of other self-management tools or capabilities.

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. Still another form of discomfort regarding the consumption of alcohol may arise in social situations in which alcohol is served and one’s friends and family members are indulging. There may be implicit pressure to drink, and even overt persuasion to do so. Social influence is an important factor in the development and maintenance of many health-related behaviors. It is too soon to tell, but alcohol use may take a hit in response to recent evidence concerning its effects on health.

They argue that aggression is driven by maladaptive regulation of negative affect and particularly anger. According to this view, there is a continuum of maladaptive emotion regulation “styles” underlying aggression, ranging from emotion under-regulation to emotion over-regulation. Emotion under-regulation refers to failures to regulate negative affect (e.g., anger) in a sufficient manner so as to maintain goal-directed behavior. Over-regulation relies on attempts to block negative affect altogether, either by avoiding unpleasant emotional experiences or the situations that may trigger it, or by suppressing its expression.

Understanding the Effects of Alcohol on Emotions

Alcohol abuse and drug abuse may also make anger more difficult to control. Learning to manage anger related to these conditions may call for a different approach than other types of anger. Since ruminating on unpleasant thoughts can fuel alcohol-related aggression, learning to let things go may be key to improving. If you catch yourself mentally replaying scenarios where other people have hurt or angered you, you can try turning your thoughts to something more positive.