Yes I know they exist, I know the stereotype of the drunken wife beater didn’t spring out of nothing.
But WTF is the deal? Seriously I have never in my life felt angry or violent while drunk, more than usual anyway. Are there people walking around whose personality is just a facade for raging hatred at their significant other?
The way I’ve heard it is that the only effect alcohol really has on you is that you get tired. Everything else is a matter of expectations and learned behaviour.
A drunk mind speaks what a sober mind thinks.
There’s been an epidemic of angry/violent attacks in more recent years, especially amongst younger folk out on the town. A very wise man a few years ago answered a question I posed similar to yours. (Hello TheLoadedDog, if yer’ here)
Once upon a time, kids drank beer: they got slurry, they got stumbly and they fell down somewhere on a couch and went to sleep, snoring the night away.
The alcoholic drinks that are targeted towards younger folk now are mixed drinks with SHITLOADS of caffeine. So they get drunk, but they don’t go nigh-nighs. The caffeine keeps them wired, so they have another drink, and another, and the alcohol affects their judgement, their paranoia and their bravado. So they have another drink.
Spill the young folk out onto the pavement after a night of clubbing, and they run into others who have drunk as much as they have…a night of violence ensues.
Alcohol lowers inhibitions. If somebody is walking around always simmering with violent rage, but is minimally civilized enough to keep a lid on it, gets drunk and the inhibitions come down… similarly with chronic horndogs and racist joke tellers. Whiskey or gin or rum or something similar is what strips away civilization like that. Beer isn’t like that. Hops have a mildly sedative effect. Beer is a gentle friend to the human race. (Although Cleveland, Ohio’s infamous 1975 Ten Cent Beer Night riot forms a counterexample.) In Poland, the Beer Lovers’ Party actually politicized the difference, saying that vodka causes alcoholism and other problems, whereas beer is better for you and for society.
I remembered one other thing. Robert Anton Wilson wrote how he once worked as an ambulance dispatcher. He learned from the police that mentally ill people who freak out in public aren’t much of a threat. Mostly, they’re just scared. The drunks are the most out of control, violent, and dangerous elements of all when something bad is going down, according to Wilson.
My bio Dad was an angry drunk only when he drank whiskey. He punched out the back window of my Mom’s car once when I was an itty bitty baby. At one point he locked my Mom in our bedroom and ripped out the phone cord and she had to crawl out the second story bedroom window - with me - to get away from him.
I never remember seeing him like that, and he has been a severe beer-drinking alcoholic my entire life. My experience of him is generally as a very gentle, almost passive, person - but he stopped drinking whiskey shortly after my Mom left him, when I was still a very small child. His explanation for his past behavior is that he couldn’t control himself when he drank whiskey.
Little of this, little of that. Or, as researchers like to put it, “The relationship between alcohol and violence is complex and mediated by personality, expectancies, situational factors, and social norms.” http://www.icap.org/PolicyTools/ICAPBlueBook/BlueBookModules/7DrinkingandViolence/tabid/168/Default.aspx
“Situational factors” can include things like: where do people go to drink? Whom are they drinking around? I think most of us can imagine that going to a place to drink that’s also a place where people try to find mates is likely to increase aggressive behavior when one desireable mate needs to choose between two or more people. Going to a place where manufactured rivalries exist between, say, fans of different sporting teams, and getting drunk, is not unexpectedly going to lead to some fights.
I’d also throw nutrition into the mix: alcohol *abusers *can have severe hidden malnutrition and really messed up blood sugar levels, which can make people cranky.
I’ve always been curious about the people that say they have never had a sip of alcohol or tried any drug because they are terrified of being out of control or not in control of their mind. It always makes me wonder what exactly they are terrified of, that they will kill a school bus full of kids?
A lot of people who say that have bad experiences with alcoholic parents. One of mankind’s greatest fears is ending up like our parents, and when your parents are alcoholic, or abusive, or both, that fear is magnified by like a billion.
As a bartender of many years, I can attest, there are indeed people who are nothing but charming and lovely till you put booze in them. Then they turn into raging, angry idiots. Some people it’s a black and white change. Others have to hit a ‘zone’ before they get angry, 3rd drink, 5th drink, etc. And, of course, some people just had a shit day, and the alcohol, is just freeing them, to take it out on those around them.
And certainly, as you’ve no doubt seen, just as many, if not more people, turn into maudlin, “I love you, man!” slobberers. Sometimes with tears.
Alcohol is a drug, and it affects different people differently.
Radical personality change while intoxicated is a classic sign of alcohol problems. Ordinary people display simple exagerration of their normal personality. If you’re a little down, a few drinks may make you weepingly maudlin. A liitle up and you may be dancing and singing. The alcoholic turns into a totally different person. I’d recommend people who show that kind of change under the influence stay away from the stuff. Just my personal observations, it won’t end well.
We had a guy in one of the bars I worked at that was fine until drink #4 . If he had drink #5. he’d get naked.
We kept very careful track of how many drinks he’d consumed 
I am totally hearing this in a Homer Simpson voice.
My mom was an alcoholic, and while she never walked out into traffic or something while drunk, we all saw her just completely lose control of her body and her mind while drunk.
Why would you want to completely lose control of you body and your mind? Why would you want to be hungover? Why would you want to go through these episodes… and then do it all over again?
I’ve never seen the appeal of drinking alcohol. It’s too dangerous. It’s too shameful. It’s disgusting, and tragic. Who are these people who want to unplug their brains for a while? Why do they want to lose control? Why do they think they can control how much control they lose, and how often, and for how long?
If your life is so miserable that you have to get drunk to have some enjoyment in life, why don’t you go jump off a building, and the rest of us can get on with our lives?
Still dealing with some stuff there? I understand your feelings. I’ve only seen this in one ‘loved one’, but encountered it in plenty of friends and acquaintences. I feel like I’m a magnet for people like this for some reason, and those who I don’t give a whit about at all I’d rather see kill themselves just so they’re not out driving while I am. I think if one of my parents had serious alcohol problems I’d end feeling just as you do.
I have a different perspective on this. My fear has nothing to do with violence or severe out of control behavior. In general, I have a terrible fear of making mistakes or doing something stupid. I have had severe anxiety attacks when I think I might make a mistake, or especially when I realize that I have made a mistake. While I don’t think I would kill anyone while drunk, I do think that there would be a greater chance that I would make a mistake or do something stupid that I would regret. That’s not a chance I’m prepared to take.
Thanks for asking the question. It has really clarified for me why I don’t drink or do drugs, something that was never entirely clear to me before.
There is something wrong with that???
I’ve been an angry drunk but I honestly feel like I am getting better. Personally, I feel like alcohol just elevates whatever mood you are in. So if you are relaxed and happy, you’ll be more relaxed and happy. Angry? It’ll only get worse. Also, liquor is the devil. Stick with beer and you’ll be in the clear.
I’ve never noticed any difference between beer & liquor in a drunk person’s behavior. I’ve seen plenty of mean, angry drunks with nothing but beer in them.