Understanding Alcohol and Anger’s Connection

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 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. For starters, like so many other substances of abuse, drinking alcohol can alter a person’s brain chemistry. Alcohol affects the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain, including dopamine, serotonin, and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). These changes in the brain’s chemistry can lead to mood swings and impulsivity, both of which can cause aggression and anger.

• Continued identification of dynamic aggression risk parameters in the context of ostracism and acute alcohol intoxication will get us closer to understanding who is at greatest risk, under which conditions, and what intervention or prevention efforts may be most appropriate.
• Alcohol reduces your ability to process multiple sources of
  environmental information; therefore it compromises your ability to evaluate the intentions behind the actions of people around you.
• One such study included 136 men with a history of intimate partner violence (IPV) (Estruch, 2017).
• Light and moderate drinking increases risk of esophageal and breast cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
• Becoming angry or irritable when you drink is a relatively common experience — an often-cited body of research by the World Health Organization notes that aggression has a closer link to alcohol than any other kind of psychoactive drug.

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 current study allowed an assessment of the ideas from Alcohol Myopia Theory, namely that alcohol, relative to other beverage conditions, will intensify the emotional and behavioral responses to ostracism.

Talk with your doctor about reducing alcohol intake

They were informed that they would complete the paradigms for ostracism and aggression (described as “mental visualization” and “competitive reaction time” tasks, respectively) as a group, but in separate rooms, linked through networked computers. If the participant had been randomized to the Alcohol or Placebo condition, the group was informed that they would receive beverages containing alcohol and orange juice; if randomized to the Control condition, the group was informed that they would be receiving only orange juice. After the briefing, one study confederate was escorted back to their experiment room before the participant to maintain the impression of confederate authenticity. Ostracism is distressing to those who experience it and people are motivated to find ways to cope, including self-medication or aggression. However, we know little about how alcohol intoxication may affect individuals’ reactions to ostracism. This study investigates predictions informed by Alcohol Myopia Theory to observe how alcohol influences changes to one’s affect, basic needs fulfillment, and aggression following ostracism.

Alcohol use failed to predict male perception of partner negativity the following day. Further research into alcohol-related aggression in alcohol-dependent patients receiving treatment has shown that the degree of violence correlated to the level of alcohol consumption. For example, alcohol-dependent patients exhibited violence towards their partners four times more frequently than non-alcohol-dependent controls. This behavior decreased significantly, however, one year after treatment in patients who successfully remained abstinent (17). In the group of individuals receiving treatment, the percentage of alcohol-dependent patients who perpetrated domestic violence fell from 56% before treatment to 25% one year after treatment. In patients who remained abstinent, the proportion was comparable to the figure for the control group, at only 15%.

Alcohol Disrupts Executive Brain Functions

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• The treatment should target both the person’s mental health and substance use disorder as two parts of a whole.
• Similarly, a low socioeconomic background can also make you express anger outbursts more often.
• Specifically, they exhibited a reduced capacity to detect sadness and fear and a reduced tendency towards seeing happiness.
• According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), nearly 8 million adults in the United States struggled with both a mental health disorder and addiction in 2014.
• A slight annoyance may turn into an infuriating problem, thanks to alcohol.

The extent to which alcohol influences aggressive behavior is also influenced by individual characteristics such as trait aggression, though evidence for the strength of this interaction is mixed (e.g., Giancola et al., 2012). Even so, recent reviews suggest that alcohol-facilitated aggression may be most evident for those who are not typically aggressive in provocative situations (Leonard & Quigley, 2017). Other investigations have found that participant and partner alcohol use increase positive interactions among couples. In a sample of eight couples with one heavy drinking partner, the nonheavy drinking partner displayed significantly more positive behavior toward the heavy drinking partner during drinking compared to nondrinking sessions (Frankenstein, Hay, & Nathan, 1985). More recently, Testa, Crane, Quigley, Levitt, and Leonard (2014) recruited 152 married or cohabitating couples and randomly assigned both partners to a no-alcohol or an alcohol condition. Couple interactions were observed, recorded, and coded during baseline and experimental interactions.

Alcohol and Aggression: A Neuroscience Perspective

While we touched on the how and the why when it comes to anger, aggression, and alcohol, it’s also important to understand the risk factors involved as well. Before we take a deeper dive into the relationship between alcohol, anger, and aggression, it’s important to understand the difference between anger and aggression. While alcohol depression and anger the two share many similarities, they are two very different emotions. If you or a loved one experiences aggression or anger when drinking, it could be a sign of a larger issue. In this blog, we will discuss not only the connection between alcohol and anger but also how you can get the help you need if you are struggling.