We do not choose which family we are born into. You may have spent most of your childhood in an abusive family and being so young, you don’t have control of what is happening at home. The questions of what could be causing the problems mostly go unanswered to children at a young age. Some people claim that there is no relationship between abusing alcohol and being violent at home.They support their claims by arguing that if the two were related, every alcoholic would be violent at home. If it is true, why are there so many fights at bars which sometimes become fatal? When an alcoholic is intoxicated, even the smallest of things might be irritating.
This translates back home when you are done fighting over a lady whom you barely know in a bar, and take it out on your wife at home.According to National Council on Children and Family Violence, 80% of parents who take alcohol are believed to be abusive to both their spouses and children. Most men who are heavy drinkers use alcohol as an excuse to get violent on their women, shifting the blame to the drug. Alcohol withdrawal is the only way you can avoid such problems with your spouse so as to a healthy family.
What makes an alcoholic become violent?
Aggressiveness
It is true that domestic violence is a habit that is learned however, when you are drunk, you develop feelings of anger and are bound to get aggressive. If you don’t know how to control your emotions, you may act upon these feelings on your wife and children. Fighting alcohol withdrawal symptoms may also lead you to become more aggressive since you feel that nobody understands that you may be trying to break the habit.
Previous habit
It might be that it is not the first time you laid your hands your partner. If it has been happening in the past and then you start drinking alcohol, the situation will definitely become worse.
Inaccurate perception
When you are drunk, the possibility of hearing things differently or interpreting them wrongly is high. This causes arguments at home since chauvinism kicks in where you want to control everything. This is how men start developing phrases like ‘they are the man of the house’ as they try to exercise more power on their women. In case your woman tries to challenge this through her words, domestic violence becomes a daily routine.
Dependence
Such stress is what makes a woman join her man in drinking with the perception that if both of them are in this together, problems may reduce. When both parties abuse this drug, alcohol dependence may start affecting their children more than they think and domestic violence may become two ways.
Economic control
Spending too much money buying drinks rather than providing food for your family may cause domestic violence. This is because, with alcohol, there is no controlling how much finances you waste in the club, treating all your friends while your spouse is at home wondering how they will feed. Too much alcohol causes irresponsibility and negligence of family duties. Waking your wife in the middle of the night demanding for food yet you did not leave any money may cause a heated argument which becomes violent. Since you want to control the family’s finances, diverting all your salary on alcohol rather than your family, this leads to endless quarrels at home.
How does alcohol and domestic violence affect the family?
Physically
A study carried out in Australia shows that spouses who die due to violence under the influence is 13 times higher than those who succumb to sober domestic violence.With such numbers, it is evident that death is a physical condition that could occur due to aggression accelerated by alcohol.
Other than that, victims tend to cover their wounded bodies with scarfs and pull necks just to hide the injuries.If you are in abusive relations accelerated by too much drinking, stop hiding the marks and seek help from law enforcers because nobody deserves such a life.
Emotional damage
Victims often suffer emotional distress in that they live with the fear of their spouses coming home drunk in the middle of the night intimidating and controlling every aspect of their life.Children are not spared from emotional torture. It is reported that sons who grow up seeing their fathers beat their mothers are likely to emulate this with their wives.
Self-blame and confusions may make a child engage in alcohol themselves as they try to understand the situation with no one to pay attention to their emotional damage. Frustration and anger may cause them to engage in risky peer pressure just to avoid coming home to a violent drunk father.
Sexually
Rape cases in families is often associated with alcohol abuse.A man, in his quest to demand for his conjugal rights may end up raping the wife or even hitting them if they refuse to satisfy his demands. Some cases of fathers raping their adopted children when drunk is a shameful act that sometimes happens. No man in his right state of mind can cause such embarrassment to his family without being under alcohol and drug influence.
What should you do?
Detoxification
The first step towards healing for an abuser should be alcohol detox. Get help from professionals who guide you on how to stop abusing the drug. If you are already and addict, seek rehabilitation and give your family some time to heal from all the torture as you cleanse your body of chemical toxins caused by the substance.
Family therapy
Counselling as a family helps you address domestic violence issues so that your relationship can grow. This will help you build healthy forms of communication so that you can address problems rather than hiding them in alcohol and blaming the drug for the cause of your aggressive nature.
Final thoughts
In as much as people argue that alcohol and domestic violence are not related, with lack of control, alcoholics are likely to develop violent behaviors. The risk of domestic violence increasing due to alcoholism remains undeniable.Weekly cases of drunkenness that leads to death of partners should be taken with lots of seriousness so that victims can get help as more step are taken towards healing our land.
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