Violence and addiction: when they are linked and when alcohol is just an excuse

Sunday morning. The kitchen is tidy, as if nothing had happened. He sits at the table with his head in his hands and says: “I’m sorry. You know that wasn’t me. It was the drink. I’ll stop, I promise.” And she believes him — not because she is naive, but because this explanation is the only one that leaves her any hope. If the alcohol is to blame, then all she has to do is wait for him to stop drinking. Then he will be the man she once met again.

Everyone who works with families where drinking and violence meet hears the sentence “when he’s sober, he’s the best man in the world”. There is some truth in it, and at the same time a dangerous trap. This post tries to separate one from the other: when addiction and violence really are linked, when alcohol is just an excuse, and why it matters for safety that we don’t confuse the two.

Before I go on: I am not a specialist in domestic abuse, and this post is not a tool for judging how dangerous your situation is. If you or anyone else is in immediate danger, call the police on 113 or emergency services on 112 (in Slovenia). For a conversation and advice there is the SOS helpline for women and children who are victims of violence, 080 11 55 (in Slovenia). At night (from 7 pm to 7 am) the Klic v duševni stiski crisis line, 01 520 99 00 (in Slovenia), is available, and the Samaritans helpline 116 123 (in Slovenia) is open around the clock.

The link is real

Let’s start with what is true. Alcohol and intimate partner violence often occur together. A meta-analysis by Heather Foran and Daniel O’Leary brought together dozens of studies and showed that the link between drinking and violence in intimate relationships is consistent — small to moderate, but clear.

Even more vivid is a study by William Fals-Stewart, who followed men in addiction treatment programmes and in programmes for perpetrators of domestic violence day by day. On days when they drank, the likelihood of physical violence towards their partner was more than eight times higher than on days without alcohol.

This is an important finding and should not be played down. If in your home violence almost always comes with alcohol, you are not imagining it. Alcohol lowers inhibitions, impairs judgement, increases irritability and reduces a person’s ability to notice how far they have gone. When there is violence, it is often more severe under the influence of alcohol, too.

The link is not the cause

But this is where the story only begins. If alcohol caused violence, everyone who drinks would be violent. They are not. The vast majority of people who drink — including those who drink too much — never hit their partner. And the other way round: a great deal of violence happens completely sober.

One question that often reveals more than anything else: who is he violent towards when he drinks? A man who hits his partner under the influence rarely hits his boss, a shop assistant or a police officer. Alcohol doesn’t take away his control completely — it leaves him able to choose where it is “safe” to erupt. This is not a criticism of people who drink. It is an observation that violence is a relationship, not a chemical reaction.

As early as 1969, the anthropologists Craig MacAndrew and Robert Edgerton described in their book on drunken behaviour how differently people in different cultures behave when they drink. In some places drunkenness comes with fights, elsewhere with singing and tears, elsewhere again with almost nothing at all. Their conclusion was that people behave when drunk the way their culture expects drunk people to behave — and the way it allows them to. Alcohol doesn’t bring behaviour out of nowhere. It unlocks what was already prepared and “permitted”.

Alcohol as an excuse

In Slovenia, alcohol has a special place. I wrote about how drinking becomes normalised in our families in the post Alcohol in the Slovenian family: how it is normalised until it breaks. One of the ways it is normalised is that alcohol becomes the explanation for everything: “It wasn’t him, he was drunk.”

This explanation is comfortable for everyone involved — and that is exactly why it is dangerous. It lets the person who uses violence avoid taking responsibility. It offers the person who experiences it the hope that the violence will end with the last glass. And it allows the people around them not to get involved, because after all it is “only the drinking”.

Lundy Bancroft, who worked with abusive men for many years, described how often men who are violent under the influence use alcohol as an excuse and a permission — and how their violence usually doesn’t end when they stop drinking. This isn’t true of everyone. But it is true often enough that we must not take the explanation “it was the drink” for granted.

When the drinking stops but the violence doesn’t

The hardest realisation for many families comes when the partner really does stop drinking. Research by Timothy O’Farrell and colleagues showed that among men treated for alcohol dependence who then stopped drinking, violence towards their partner fell markedly on average. That is good news, and important news.

But it isn’t news for everyone. For some men the violence didn’t end; for some only its form changed: fewer blows, but the same control over money, the same jealousy, the same threats, the same silence as punishment. If a pattern of control was there before, sobriety doesn’t remove it by itself. Emotional abuse, control through money, checking her phone — none of this needs alcohol.

That is why it matters to keep them apart: addiction treatment treats addiction. It doesn’t treat violence. I wrote about how addiction works in the brain and why it isn’t a matter of willpower in the post Addiction is not weak will: what happens to the reward system. You will also find a short explanation in the knowledge base under addiction. But even when we understand addiction as an illness, violence remains a choice for which the person using it is responsible.

When the person being abused is the one drinking

The link also runs in another direction, one that is talked about less. People living in an abusive relationship sometimes start drinking or taking sedatives themselves — to fall asleep, to numb the fear, to get through one more evening. This isn’t weakness. It is an attempt to survive something that is too much.

But this path has its own dangers. Drinking can make it harder to recognise danger in time or to seek help. An abusive partner can use it against her — in front of the children, in front of relatives, even in front of institutions: “You can see what she’s like, she’s the one with the problem.” Some partners even push them into drinking, because that makes them easier to control and less likely to be believed.

If you recognise yourself in this, know this: your drinking doesn’t mean you deserved the violence. And it doesn’t mean you have no right to help. Specialist services for people affected by abuse encounter this too, and they won’t close the door on you because you drink.

How it might sound

This is how a conversation might go between a woman and her sister, after she mentions that her partner “was drinking again” (a composite, not a real person):

“It’s not that bad. When he’s not drinking, he’s completely different.”
“What happens when he drinks?”
“He shouts. Sometimes … he pushes me. But afterwards he’s sorry.”
“And when he’s not drinking — what’s it like then?”
She thinks for a long time. “Then he goes through the bank statements. And my phone. And asks me who I was with.”
“Do you think that’s the alcohol too?”
“… No. Not that.”

The sister in this conversation doesn’t say anything new. She only asks the question that separates drinking from control. And sometimes that question is enough for something to shift inside a person: for her to start thinking that the end of the drinking might not be the end of everything else.

A trap for those close by: codependency or abuse

People living with an addicted partner often get advice on how to behave: set boundaries, stop covering for him, let him face the consequences himself, stop rescuing him. I wrote about this in the post When your partner is addicted: where support ends and enabling begins and in the post on codependency; there is a short explanation of the concept in the knowledge base under codependency.

This advice is valuable in many ways. But when there is abuse in the relationship, it can turn against you. Setting a boundary with someone who responds to it with violence isn’t just hard — it can be dangerous. And the explanation that you are “enabling his drinking” can unintentionally strengthen the feeling that you are responsible for everything that happens.

So this holds: when, besides the drinking, there is also fear, control or physical violence in the relationship, safety comes before all advice about codependency. Talk to a specialist service first — the SOS helpline 080 11 55 (in Slovenia) — and only then to those who help the families of people with addictions.

Paths that don’t replace each other

If a family is dealing with both addiction and violence, each needs its own help. One doesn’t replace the other.

Safety comes first, because without it nothing else works. Work on the violence is separate work with the person who uses it — in specialist programmes where the focus is responsibility, not alcohol. Addiction treatment goes through a doctor and programmes designed for addiction.

If there are children in the family, they are part of all three layers too. Children who grow up with drinking and violence at the same time often don’t know what they fear more — the bottle or what comes after it. The social work centre is a place to turn for them too, and none of these paths should overlook them, even when it seems they were asleep or “didn’t see it”.

It is often suggested that the couple go to therapy together “and sort out both at once”. When there is abuse in a relationship, couples therapy is not an appropriate form of help. I explained why in the post Why couples therapy is not the right help when there is violence. And if, reading this, you recognise yourself as the person who uses violence, the post When you recognise yourself as the one who is violent is for you.

Exercise: separating the sentence from the responsibility

This exercise is for people who live with someone who drinks and who carry the sentence “it wasn’t him, it was the alcohol” inside them. It is not meant for judging how dangerous things are. It is meant to help you get clear about what you are hearing. Keep your notes somewhere nobody else can read them — if your partner checks your phone or notebooks, don’t write the exercise down; do it in your head or with a professional.

1. Write down the sentence you hear most often. For example: “It was the drink.” “I don’t know what came over me.” “You drove me to it.”
2. Rewrite it without the alcohol. “I shouted at you.” “I pushed you.” Notice how different it sounds once the explanation is removed.
3. Write down what happens even when he isn’t drinking. Just the facts. Without judging whether it is “bad enough”.
4. Notice what is hardest for you about this. Fear? Guilt? Grief for the person he used to be? It can all be there at once.
5. Tell one person. A friend, a sister, or an adviser on the SOS helpline, 080 11 55 (in Slovenia). You don’t have to decide anything. It is enough that you are no longer the only one who knows.

Where this argument doesn’t fully hold

Everything I have written might sound as if alcohol doesn’t matter. That isn’t true, and here are some limits.

Drinking is an important risk factor. When there is violence, it is often more severe and less predictable under the influence. That is why specialist services always ask about alcohol and drugs when assessing risk. If a partner is violent and drinks, that doesn’t reduce the danger — it increases it.

For some, treatment really does help. As O’Farrell’s research shows, among some men who stop drinking the violence falls sharply. Addiction treatment is therefore worthwhile and important — it just isn’t, in itself, a guarantee of safety.

Not every argument under the influence is the same kind of violence. The sociologist Michael Johnson described how the single label “domestic violence” covers different patterns — from situational clashes to systematic control and intimidation. This distinction is for professionals, not for self-assessment: a relationship that feels from the inside like “just rows when he’s been drinking” often looks different from the outside. There is a short explanation of the broader concept in the knowledge base under violence in a relationship.

Addiction and violence are often part of a longer story. Many people who drink and are violent today grew up with the same. I wrote about what a child takes from a home where the parents drank in the post Growing up with a parent’s drinking: what a child carries into adulthood. Understanding where it comes from matters — but it doesn’t remove responsibility now.

What to remember

• Alcohol and intimate partner violence are linked: on drinking days violence is considerably more likely and often more severe.
• The link is not the cause: most people who drink are not violent, and a great deal of violence happens sober.
• Addiction treatment treats addiction, not violence — control can remain even after the last glass.
• When there is abuse, safety comes first, before advice about codependency; couples therapy is not an appropriate form of help.
• In danger, call 113 or 112; for a conversation and advice there is the SOS helpline 080 11 55 (in Slovenia).