Drunk and Violent – Look Out for The Quiet Ones

You’re having a quiet drink in your favorite local pub. Near you is a biker dude in full regalia – chains, leather, etc. – chugging down large quantities of brew and with an angry scowl on his face. Also nearby is a solitary guy who looks like a clone of Bill Gates, very shy and introverted. He’s also drinking heavily but his demeanor suggests he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Which one do you think is about to explode into a violent, dangerous rage?

If you’re answer is the biker dude, you’d be wrong.

Look Out For the Quiet Shy Type

According to Scandinavian researchers, it’s the introverted types, those who tend to keep their emotions to themselves, who are the most likely to have a bad – indeed, very bad – experience when they drink to excess. Looks alone don’t tell the entire story, they say.

“Alcohol use may be related causally to violence, but the effect of drinking is confined to individuals who are inclined to suppress their angry feelings,” concluded the researchers.

Violent or Not? (Image via CrunchBase)

The study was based on based on information gathered from a survey of young Norwegians over several years. The first survey in the form of surveys and questionnaires took place among almost 3000 people when they were 16 or 17 years of age. They were surveyed again at ages 21 to 22.

The More Anger Is Suppressed, the More Danger

The participants were divided into three evenly divided groups and studied to determine the levels at which they tended to suppress their anger in a variety of situations. For the individuals who reported a high inclination to suppress their feelings of anger, there was a 10 percent increase in drinking to the point of being drunk which was associated with a five percent increase in violence.

When the researchers matched those observations with volunteers who had shown little or no inclination to suppress their anger they were less disposed to become violent when they had too much to drink.

The researchers concluded that while “only a tiny fraction of all drinking events involve violence … whether intoxicated aggression is likely to occur seems to depend on the drinkers’ propensity to withhold angry feelings when sober.”

So, when drinking looks can be deceiving. I’ll drink to that.

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