respond to two class discussion posts on alcohol and violence

1) I have personally never had any experiences with alcohol and violence. I grew up in a home that did not have alcohol. I have known and seen friends that I grew up with that had alcohol in their homes, unfortunately some off those homes also had violence. I never firsthand saw any acts of violence; however, I could see the difference in the atmosphere of the home whenever I was there. It personally made me grateful for the fact that I was not exposed to such violence in my life. I would say that alcohol itself does not turn one person violent, there are a lot of other contributing factors that make someone violent after consuming alcohol. I do believe that alcohol can take someone out of their normal state of mind, which is why you are not allowed to drink and drive. I am a firm believer that it is not an excuse for any actions that someone may take while under the influence. I have been out many times and have seen people who once they drink a few alcoholic drinks and they become obnoxious and at times they start looking for a fight. I can see how alcohol can play a role, but as I stated before I do not believe it is the only contributing factor.

Jorge

2) Rarely have I experienced violence due to alcohol consumption firsthand. However, my mother and father both have told me stories about violent situations that were created or fueled by alcohol that they had experienced when they were younger. Because of situations like these, children create psychological behaviors that transfer over to adulthood (Crespi & Ponzetti, 2003). In the past, both sides of my family have associated alcohol consumption with both hardship, happiness, and anything in between which resulted in negatively impacting the lives of the children that witnessed the events. My parents were both witnesses to family feuds that were a results of binge drinking. My parents witnessed family members being pulled out of bars, fighting at family events, and being sent to the hospital all because of alcohol consumption. These episodes or violent situations were often times created because of alcohol dependency. A majority of these situations were created because a family member was unhappy with how much another family member consumed alcohol. People who experience these kinds of events at a young age can grow up to develop permanent psychological behaviors (Korsmeyer & Kranzler, 2009).

In my experience I have only witnessed alcohol cause violence in other peoples’ lives. I have never directly been a part of an altercation because of alcohol, but I have experienced other people hurt themselves, or other people, because they were intoxicated. Consuming large amounts of alcohol leads to aggression (Korsmeyer & Kranzler, 2009), and because of this I have seen plenty of people engage in physical altercations that would have never happened if they were not intoxicated. While attending university, I experienced plenty of aggression related to alcohol consumption.