The False Connection Between Adult Domestic Violence and Alcohol

By: the National Domestic Violence Hotline

by Theresa M. Zubretsky and Karla M. Digirolamo

Since the 1970's, significant efforts have been made to increase the public's understanding of domestic violence and to educate professionals and service providers about this problem. Through accounts from battered and formerly battered women, domestic violence is now understood to include a range of behaviors - physical, sexual, economic, emotional and psychological abuse - directed toward establishing and maintaining power and control over an intimate partner. There is also an increased awareness that the societal tendency to blame domestic violence victims and excuse perpetrators is rooted in a history of cultural and legal traditions that have supported the domination and abuse of women by men in intimate relationships. Despite greater public awareness, however, myths and misconceptions about battered women's experiences persist. Interventions based on these myths can have a devastating effect on victims and their families.

Despite the significant correlation between domestic violence and chemical dependency, hardly any research has been conducted and little has been written about the need to develop intervention strategies that address both the domestic violence and the substance abuse problems of chemically dependent men who batter. Similarly, little has been done to assist battered women with chemical dependency problems to meet their need for both safety and sobriety. Neither system currently is equipped to provide the range of services needed by battered women and batterers who are affected by chemical dependency.

In the addictions treatment system, misinformation often leads counselors to understand and respond to domestic violence through the use of an addictions framework, an approach that has particularly harmful consequences for battered women. Such an approach identifies battering either as a symptom of alcohol abuse or addiction or as an addiction itself. The interventions that follow are based on a number of harmful, false assumptions: Alcohol use and/or alcoholism causes men to batter.

• Alcoholism treatment alone will address the abuse adequately.
• Battered women are "co-dependent" and thus contribute to the continuation of abuse.
• Addicted battered women must get sober before they can begin to address their victimization.

The belief that alcoholism causes domestic violence is a notion widely held both in and outside of the substance abuse field, despite a lack of information to support it. Although research indicates that among men who drink heavily, there is a higher rate of perpetrating assaults resulting in serious physical injury than exists among other men, the majority of men are not high-level drinkers and the majority of men classified as high-level drinkers do not abuse their partners (Straus & Gelles, 1990).

Even for batterers who do drink, there is little evidence to suggest a clear pattern that relates the drinking to the abusive behavior. The majority (76 percent) of physically abusive incidents occur in the absence of alcohol use (Kantor & Straus, 1987), and there is no evidence to suggest that alcohol use or dependence is linked to the other forms of coercive behaviors that are part of the pattern of domestic violence. Economic control, sexual violence, and intimidation, for example, are often part of a batterer’s ongoing pattern of abuse, with little or no identifiable connection to his use of or dependence on alcohol.

The belief that alcoholism causes domestic violence evolves both from a lack of information about the nature of this abuse and from adherence to the "disinhibition theory." This theory suggests that the physiological effects of alcohol include a state of lowered inhibitions in which an individual can no longer control his behavior. Research conducted within the alcoholism field, however, suggests that the most significant determinant of behavior after drinking is not the physiological effect of the alcohol itself, but the expectation that individuals place on the drinking experience (Marlatt & Rohsenow, 1980). When cultural norms and expectations about male behavior after drinking include boisterous or aggressive behaviors, for example, research shows that individual men are more likely to engage in such behaviors when under the influence than when sober.

Despite the research findings, the belief that alcohol lowers inhibitions persists and along with it, a historical tradition of holding people who commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs less accountable than those who commit crimes in a sober state (MacAndrew & Edgerton, 1969). Batterers, who have not been held accountable for their abusive behavior in general, find themselves even less accountable for battering perpetrated when they are under the influence of alcohol. The alcohol provides a ready and socially acceptable excuse for their violence.

Evolving from the belief that alcohol or substance abuse causes domestic violence is the belief that treatment for the chemical dependency will stop the violence. Battered women with drug-dependent partners, however, consistently report that during recovery the abuse not only continues, but often escalates, creating greater levels of danger than existed prior to their partners’ abstinence. In the cases in which battered women report that the level of physical abuse decreases, they often report a corresponding increase in other forms of coercive control and abuse—the threats, manipulation and isolation intensify (Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women, 1992).

The provision of appropriate services for families affected by domestic violence and substance abuse is further complicated by the belief that battering itself is addictive behavior. This belief may arise in part from an attempt to explain why violence often increases in severity over time. The progressive nature of the violence is likened to the progressive nature of the disease of addiction, inviting the use of an addictions model for responding to the problem of battering.

An addictions framework assumes that there is a point at which a batterer can no longer control his abuse, just as an addict experiences loss of control over the substance use. The experiences of battered women, however, challenge this view. Battered women report that even when their partners appear "uncontrollably drunk" during a physical assault, they routinely exhibit the ability to "sober up" remarkably quickly if there is an outside interruption, such as police intervention.

Batterers also exhibit control over the nature and extent of the physical violence they perpetrate, often directing their assaults to parts of their partners' bodies that are covered by clothing. Conversely, some batterers purposefully target their partners' faces to compel isolation or to disfigure them so that "no one else will want them." Batterers can articulate their personal limits regarding physical abuse, reporting, for example, that while they have slapped their partners with an open hand, they would never punch them with their fists. Others admit to hitting and punching but report that they would never use a weapon (Ptacek, 1987).

The escalation in the severity of violence over time does not represent a batterer's "loss of control" over the violence, as the analogy to addictions would suggest. Instead, violence may get worse over time because increasing the intensity of the abuse is an effective way for batterers to maintain his control over their partners and prevent them from leaving. The violence may also escalate because most batterers experience few, if any, negative consequences for their abu