The Psychology Behind Aggressive Drunk Behavior

If you or someone you care about has a tendency to get angry, mean, hostile, or even aggressive when they drink, this video is for you. It can be really easy to just dismiss bad drunken behavior. After all, you know you didn't really mean it or they didn't really mean it. It's the alcohol talking, which in some respects is absolutely true. But you have to take aggressive drunk behavior very seriously. No amount of apologies or promises it will never happen again is going to fix the issue. A lot. Allow me to explain why that is. You know how when people get drunk, they tend to get in this rhythm where they say the same thing over and over and over again. It can be kind of annoying, but we've all been there, we've all seen someone do this. If you've been around someone multiple times when they've gotten really intoxicated, you can almost predict what topic or issue they're going to get stuck on. Now, not everyone gets angry or aggressive when they drink, but most people after a while develop patterns. You can almost count on them. You know, for example, there's like the I love you man drunk. There's the tear in my beer drunk. There's the angry drunk, there's the life of the party, get kind of obnoxious drunk, there's the take off all my clothes, make other bad decisions drunk. These are stereotypes, I know, but the point I'm trying to get across is that there are patterns. And if you're in one of these patterns, you likely know it. And you likely promise yourself a million times that it's not going to happen this time. But I'm here to tell you it is going to happen. You have to take this seriously because there's some real, real scientific reasons why this happens. Firstly, what alcohol does is it basically takes your filter off. It takes your frontal lobe, the part of your brain that allows you to filter information, use judgment, weigh pros and cons, and it turns the volume down on that part of the brain to really low. It's not like it's not active at all, but almost non active and in some situations just completely turns that off. And because of that, your thinking slows down to a crawl. And it's like that one thought gets in there and it just loops around and around and around, around, and you can't even remember that you just said that. So you get stuck on a thought, kind of like back in the old days when they used to records and it would get stuck in a loop and it would just keep repeating and repeating and repeating. That's pretty much what happens when you get really intoxicated. Now, while all that's happening, it also turns up the volume on the emotional part of the brain. Well, actually, it just sort of like unleashes it because it's turning down the thinking part of the brain. It's turning up the emotional part of the brain. Now that you got those two pieces, you can see this is already a little bit risky. Now, let me explain this third piece, and I think it's going to start to make sense to you. If you've got a pattern of drinking regularly or binge drinking or drinking a lot, then your brain starts to develop like muscle memory. So without getting into all the deep science, there are other videos on this channel if you want to know the deep science to it. But essentially what's happening is your brain gets muscle memory. So if it's used to you drinking a handle of vodka at night, it assumes that that's what's going to happen. So it starts to produce the brain chemicals that are kind of like the opposite what alcohol is, in an effort to kind of balance it out. And so if you've done this enough times that it's become such a routine, your brain immediately assumes if you take that first drink, it starts producing that opposite chemical. Now, alcohol tends to act on a chemical called gaba, which is a slow you down, mellow you chemical, which is why they call it a central nervous system depressant. But in order to counteract that and create balance, your brain does this thing, I call it the rebound effect, where it produces a lot of glutamate, which is the opposite chemical. It's a go chemical. It's an agitated kind of excitatory kind of chemical. And the reason this is happening is because it's trying to balance you out, to keep you alive and keep you okay. Because without this balancing chemical, your central nervous system would get far too depressed. Now that I've given you these puzzle pieces, I want you to really put these pieces together to get a clear picture of what's happening. Your filter is gone, the emotional center is turned up. You're probably going to get stuck on some thought, whatever is happening in that emotional center. And then in addition to all that, you got all this glutamate being released, which can be excitatory, agitated, aggravated kind of chemical in an effort to balance out the central nervous system depressant part of alcohol. This is a very bad combination. This is science, this is biology, and it is going to happen to you. If this is your Pattern. This is going to happen. I'm not saying you're going to get angry and get in a fight every single time, but it's going to happen a lot, and you're not going to be able to predict it or know when it's going to happen happen. So when you make all those promises, you feel really embarrassed. You feel really remorseful and regretful, and you ashamed of what happened. You wish you hadn't done it. I believe you. I know that is true. I know that's not your real self. But you're kidding yourself if you're trying to say that it's not going to happen again as long as you're going to continue to drink. If you're going to keep drinking, your brain is going to keep responding this way. Not only is it going to keep responding this way, but it's going to get more and more and more muscle memory involved in that, and it's going to respond even more stronger in this way. And it's going to happen faster and faster and faster. It's kind of like this habit is getting more and more and more intensely ingrained in you. If this is happening to you and you don't want it to happen anymore, you're going to have to stop drinking. You're going to have to stop telling yourself, okay, I'm just not going to let that happen to me anymore. You know, it only happens to me if I drink vodka or if I drink this or that or the other. There may be some truth in that, but what happens is, even if you're not drinking that drink, but you're drinking something else, beer, whatever it is, is it's going to turn the filter off of your brain. And that's the part that's remembering that you don't drink the vodka or that you're not going to drink more than four or whatever it is. And so it's going to open that gate up no matter what it is that you're drinking, and allow the other part of this alcohol puzzle to come into play, which is going to unleash all those factors that we just talked about. Now, some people might say, well, that's just who a person really is. That's just their true character. I disagree. You can be a really great person and have this happen to you. In fact, I kind of have a secret theory now. There's not really science behind this part. This just Amber's theory part. My theory is usually not all the time, but usually people that have alcohol problems when they get drunk, it's like the opposite of who they are comes out. So for example, if you have a really stoic person, usually they turn into like, I love you, man, right? If you have a really non confrontational person, they can turn into this aggressive, angry person. You really almost get an opposite reaction. So I'm not trying to condemn the person that has this issue by saying, oh, you're a bad person. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I am saying is you've got to be really honest with yourself about your brain chemistry and what happens to you when you drink. Because it is very, very unpredictable in that you don't know when it's going to happen, it is predictable, and then I'm telling you it will eventually happen. So if you're trying to play this game of I'll cut it back or I won't let that happen or I'm really, really sorry, I'm so, I'll never let that happen again. But you're going to continue to drink. I am telling you, it is Russian roulette. Eventually it's going to happen. And the longer you continue this pattern, the more frequently it's going to happen. Now those of you who watch this channel all the time, you guys know that I'm all about letting people figure it out and using positive reinforcement and doing some trial and error and some learning. However, when there is a safety issue involved, meaning you tend to get aggressive, angry, get in fights, become violent, become really mean, or get in your car and do really crazy things, then it is going to keep happening. And there truly is only one solution to this. If you don't take anything else I ever say seriously, please listen to this one thing. That drunk person is not who you are, it is not who they are. But if you mix alcohol with who you are and who they are, then it is a part of you that will get unleashed. Kind of like the Hulk. If you don't want the Hulk being unleashed, then do not pour alcohol on top of. Maybe a better reference would be like the gremlins where they say don't feed the gremlins after midnight because it's gonna happen. That's what I'm telling you. If you put alcohol in, the gremlin is going to come out. It's going to turn from that cute, fuzzy, sweet little whatever those things are called. Everybody wanted when the gremlins came out into that mean, nasty, horrible thing that destroys the whole town. Don't let your gremlins out, people. It ain't pretty.