The real motivation behind domestic violence
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: “Although substance abuse, unemployment and poverty may add fuel to the situation, a desire for control and power over the partner is the real motivator behind [domestic violence].”
So says Jule Klotter in the November 2004 “Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients,” citing the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence and the American Medical Association “Domestic Violence,” www.medem.com. This is yet one more instance of confusing cause and effect.
Substance addiction (not “abuse”), which is a genetic disorder causing the afflicted person to process drugs in such a way as to cause distortions of perception and memory that result in destructive behaviors, is usually the fuel behind domestic violence. Addiction, especially to the drug alcohol, makes the addict view everything he or she says and does in a self-favoring light. Since he feels he can do no wrong, he begins to feel god-like, resulting in controlling and power-seeking behaviors, which are observable. Therefore, substance addiction, not unemployment or poverty, is both the fuel and primary motivator behind the physical abuse of others.
In my first book, Drunks, Drugs & Debits, I cite a 1977 study by Maria Roy, founder and then executive director of Abused Women’s Aid in Crisis, Inc., which found that out of 150 abused women, 85% of violent husbands had an alcohol or other drug problem. The reason the link escapes so many commentators is that, as Roy found, the assaults often came during periods of abstinence. More recent studies suggest that men who complete domestic violence counseling programs or anger management courses show no improvement in their abuse, which only escalates, unless they are in a program of sobriety in which abstinence is combined with ego-deflation. The real motivator behind domestic violence, then, is alcohol and other drug addiction and the cure is sobriety.