do you know someone who gets really angry and mean when they drink maybe even abusive if so
this video's for you because we're gonna talk about why that happens
and what to do in the event that you find yourself dealing with a very angry drunk person
those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down this youtube channel is all about
helping you understand the science and psychology of addiction so that you can get your life and
your family back on track and get back to living the life that you want to live now today's topic
is especially important because if you're dealing with someone who has an alcohol use disorder
maybe you wouldn't call it that maybe you would call it a problem drinker but you're dealing with
someone who gets mean and aggressive when they drink this is a serious problem and i want you
to understand what's happening and what to do about it let's start with why it's happening
well alcohol actually turns off your filter basically it so significantly slows down your
critical thinking ability that you really don't have the ability to filter out your emotions like
you would in a normal regular circumstance so whatever raw emotion the person is experiencing
that normally they'd be able to filter through it's just raw so the emotion is running the show
and if that emotion for whatever reason happens to be anger then the anger is running the show
now to make matters worse not only is the filter turned off but the judgment is seriously impaired
filter low and the judgment low you can have a pretty volatile situation now you may think to
yourself this person would never hurt me or this person would never do this or never do that but
you really just don't know what someone would do when they're in this state of mind especially if
they're in a blackout because they're not really driving the bus anymore now sometimes i get the
question do people say what they really think and what they really mean when they've been drinking
and my answer to that is sort of maybe you know if they're expressing all these things that they're
upset with you about or all these things from the past or whatever feelings maybe they're even
expressing a lot of i love you or whatever there probably is some of that going on inside of them
but normally it's somewhat suppressed however whatever comes out of someone when they've been
drinking is very distorted and magnified and so there may be some truth in it but it's probably
coming out like a messy monster now if you can relate to that give this video a like
now before we move on to how to handle this kind of issue if you find yourself in this situation
i want to give a special mention to all the fellas out there who may be struggling with this
issue because they have a girlfriend or a wife who becomes really mean and aggressive when she drinks
now i've seen this in my office time and time again if not more aggressive than men and it
really and truly is abusive behavior but a lot of times men don't really connect in their brain
that it's abusive they just think oh she gets crazy when she's drinking or something like that
but if you were to stop and think about if a man did or said what your wife or your girlfriend or
whoever maybe your ex-girlfriend says when they've been drinking would you call that abusive yeah
probably so you know a lot of women get angry and they hit or they push or they threaten
and as a guy in this situation you really do feel quite powerless i mean anyone in the situation
feels powerless but men feel especially powerless because you know you can't react back and if you
do it's going to blow up on you not only that but it's really hard to talk about because it
feels weird or embarrassing or shameful to say like i'm scared of my girlfriend when she drinks
i can remember this one guy who i worked with a long time ago who was dealing with an alcoholic
wife who had to call the police a number of times when his wife would get in these kinds of rages
he would try to get away from her she would follow him around you know just beat on the door and it was
like he couldn't quite escape and there were several times where she got really violent and
you know as a guy you can't hit her back she calls the police and i remember him telling me one day
in my office about having to go to court and what it felt like to stand in front of the judge and
say yes i'm really scared of her when she drinks you know him being a big guy and her being like a
little petite woman and feeling really embarrassed like everyone's looking at him like he's crazy
so of course there are always complicating factors and no matter if this behavior is coming from
a guy or a girl it's not okay behavior now i'm about to tell you some things you can do to try to
de-escalate the situation but before i do i really want you to make sure you understand that i am
not suggesting at all that you stay in a situation like this and just try to de-escalate if someone's
abusive to you you need to keep yourself safe and not be in that situation but just in case you do
find yourself in this situation i want you to have a few tools that can hopefully help to deflect it
a bit the first thing is you need to realize that you're dealing with someone who does not have
their filter intact and whatever they're saying to you they may be trying to instigate an argument a
lot of people do that when they've been drinking i want you to try really hard not to argue with them
or even reason with them because they're not even in there you got to imagine this like they're on
autopilot and if you're trying to have this conversation because maybe they're bringing
up something that they're really mad about you did in the past and you're trying to explain yourself
i'm telling you it's not gonna be helpful it's not going to register with them and it's just a bad
time to try to solve big complicated relationship problems for sure so the best that you can don't
engage with the argument the second thing you can do is try to the best of your ability to really
use some non-defensive body language and tone because they're really operating out of the like
reptile part of their brain out of the survival part and that part of the brain does pick up on
threats so if you're using a tone back with them or you have body language that's really escalated
it's going to immediately hit that reflex button in the brain and remember they don't have any
filter or judgment to be able to suppress those extremely angry aggressive behaviors now the next
thing that i want you to do is to the best of your ability i want you to try and if they're
trying to get you to see something or they're frustrated with you even if you don't totally
agree i'm telling you now is not the time to have the argument when you're in this kind of situation
you can say well i can see where you're coming from with that or you have a point with that
you know try to validate whatever it is they're trying to get you to hear and one way you can
do that is just to repeat it back to them you know you're really frustrated because
for example if someone's yelling you might repeat back to them if they're saying that they're really
mad at you the other night you said you were going to do something but you didn't you can
repeat it back to them by saying i know the other night i told you i was going to stop it's just a
repeating back it definitely de-escalates most situations to help someone feel heard
now this can be completely annoying when you're dealing with a drunk person because
that thinking part of their brain is slowed down it's like they can keep saying the same thing
over and over so your best bet is to try to redirect their thinking or redirect their behavior
onto something else it's kind of like just distract them now the last thing if someone
if you've done these things and someone is just dead set on picking a fight with you and they're
just aggressively coming at you you just need to leave the situation in fact leaving the situation
might be the best first maneuver to make but if you're trying to de-escalate before that
you can try those other things but don't stick around when you know that the person is escalating
escalating escalating now you may be in this kind of situation where you think well they're at my
house they should leave and you're probably right but trying to get a drunk person to leave isn't
so easy and whether it's right or wrong safety is most important so if you need to remove yourself
even if they should have been the one that left remove yourself to keep yourself safe it reminds
me of back when i was like a new baby counselor and i was on the like adolescent unit we were
dealing with some pretty troubled teenagers one of the things they taught us is like let's say
you're running a group and someone's disruptive or aggressive and you ask them to leave the room or
leave the group and they won't don't stand there and fight with them about it get your whole group
here's what we do we get all the kids to get up and we exit and leave them standing in there
to themselves because you got to remember you're dealing with someone who's not in their right
thinking and it's very difficult to reason with them at this point and if you continue to feel
unsafe from that point then you may need to call the police or someone else in to help de-escalate
the situation now if someone has a tendency to get angry when they drink does that automatically mean
they're an alcoholic well probably not with that one little criteria by itself but i gotta tell you
it's a pretty good sign that if someone does that regularly like they drink they get angry they mess
up relationships they become aggressive or abuse then you've already met a few of the
criteria for alcoholism right there if you want to know what all of the official criteria for
alcohol use disorder are i put a link in the description so you can download that list
for free and you can see exactly what the official criteria are now sometimes the most frustrating
thing about this whole situation is is that when you try to have a conversation with the
person about it the next day or sometime later they really don't even remember what happened
so not only are you experiencing this aggression from the person while they're not in their right
thinking but you can't really have a good conversation with them they don't really
remember it if they do their memory is somewhat distorted or they may have little flashes but they
definitely don't remember it like you remember it and because of this loss of memory issue
alcoholic denial is a different beast than denial with other kinds of substances or drugs so i want
you to watch this video next about dealing with denial in someone who has an alcohol problem