In this video Amber Hollingsworth explains why some people become angry, aggressive, or abusive when they drink and offers practical ways to stay safe and de‑escalate the situation. She first describes how alcohol impairs the brain’s filtering and judgment functions, causing raw emotions—especially anger—to dominate behavior, and notes that this can happen to anyone regardless of gender, highlighting how men often underestimate abusive behavior from intoxicated women. Hollingsworth then outlines five concrete strategies: (1) avoid arguing or reasoning with the drunk person; (2) adopt non‑defensive body language and a calm tone; (3) validate their feelings by repeating back what they’re expressing; (4) distract or redirect their attention; and (5) remove yourself from the situation or call authorities if safety is at risk. She stresses that these tactics are for temporary de‑escalation only and should not replace leaving an abusive environment. The video also connects frequent drunken aggression to criteria for Alcohol Use Disorder, provides a link to official diagnostic criteria, and discusses how memory gaps and denial make post‑incident conversations difficult. Viewers are directed to a follow‑up video on handling denial in alcohol problems.
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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 going to talk about why that happens and what to do in the event that you find yourself dealing with a very angry drunk person. For 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 this 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. So he 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 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 it. 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 their 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 at you, you might repeat back to them. If they're saying that they're really mad at you the other night, you said you were gonna 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 gonna 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. 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 abusive, 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.
