No matter the reasons behind feeling anger when drinking alcohol, such behavior can be harmful. By consistently becoming angry or belligerent when you drink, you put yourself and others at risk. Therefore, seeking a solution for alcohol-related aggression is essential for your future health and safety. While anger is an emotion you experience when you feel threatened, aggression is https://ecosoberhouse.com/boston-sober-house-mattapan/ a hostile behavior that results in physical or psychological harm to yourself or others. Some individuals exhibit “trait anger,” a personality trait that means they continually look for triggers that make them angry. Continue reading to learn more about the link between alcohol and anger, including which risk factors exist, how alcohol-related aggression can be dangerous and more.

This kind of communication disruption can wreak havoc on your frontal lobe’s decision-making, judgment, and executive control. Long-term alcohol use can worsen all of these impacts on the brain. Some studies have even indicated that chronic alcoholism can both shrink the brain and contribute to the development of dementia and other forms of memory loss. When you drink and lose some of your ability to reason, you tend to not worry so much about consequences to your behavior. This can lead you to saying and doing things out of anger that can get you into some trouble.

The Healthy Relationship Between Recovering Alcoholics and Anger

When people exercise the body releases endorphins which are known as the feel-good hormones. These endorphins can lift a person’s mood and make them feel better and less stressed or angry. Plus, as a bonus, exercising will help keep you in shape and healthier overall in addition to helping with stress and anger. For those who find themselves getting angry when they drink, there are healthy ways that you can deal with your anger and emotions without having to turn to alcohol. Best of all, some of these ways are things you can do throughout the day without having to make major changes to your daily life. Sometimes an individual will begin to use alcohol and cocaine as an attempt to solve any of their anger issues.

For example, some cases of domestic violence have turned fatal because one person refused to leave when their partner was being abusive to them. In some cases, you can’t change an angry drunk, and you need to make the decision that’s right for you and other members of the household, especially children. The ultimate goal is to help them get into a treatment program that addresses their substance abuse and the way it causes them to behave. But this is often easier said than done, and mean drunks can turn violent when provoked — meaning that if you share a living space with one, your safety should be your main priority.

What Is The Connection Between Anger and Addiction?

Therefore, most AA support groups encourage members to explore anger as part of their recovery. At least one academic study indicates that AA members who attend sessions regularly and commit to the 12-step framework see a reduction in anger while getting sober. While the study indicates that individuals with an inclination to consider the present over the future are more likely to display angry reactions while drunk, it’s clear that alcohol has a link to anger. A 2015 study published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment explored the connection between anger and alcohol use.

To begin with, it’s not ideal to attempt to mask your rage with drugs or reject it. Instead, it’s recommended to learn more about healthy coping techniques that are more conducive to a https://ecosoberhouse.com/article/the-connection-between-alcoholism-and-anger/ person’s overall mental progress. Even though anger can put an individual further at risk for addiction, the actual disease itself can worsen and prolong anger for numerous reasons.

Anger Caused by Withdrawals

Some of these symptoms can be fatal if the detox isn’t medically-assisted with proper medication administration and medical support around the clock. America’s Rehab Campus is Arizona’s leading rehab center for successful medical detox and recovery from addiction. Our goal is to make treatment accessible and comfortable for those who need it most. At the end of the day, alcohol is a depressant and interferes with the central nervous system’s ability to interpret and react to what’s going on around it.

Often, when children, spouses and other loved ones spend time close to someone who becomes abusive when they drink, their lives change for the worse. A person may become very tense and have difficulty winding back down. The journal Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology reports on studies showing that alcohol can increase aggression in both men and women, but more so in men. Alcohol impairs a person’s executive functioning, making it harder for them to think clearly and make rational decisions. Impulse control is affected, and individuals under the influence of alcohol may have a shorter fuse than they otherwise would.