A member of the local magistracy has come out against the abuse of alcohol, claiming that it is the root cause of domestic violence, and stating that 100 per cent of the domestic violence cases that come before him in Berbice, where he is based, are related to alcohol. While it would be hard to argue with Magistrate Tejnarine Ramroop’s heartfelt pronouncement – who feels it knows it, as Bob Marley sang – the fact is that there has been no real research done here on the correlation between domestic violence and alcohol abuse, or any kind of substance abuse for that matter.
Data from Help and Shelter, the major organisation in Guyana dealing with domestic violence, indicates that a great number of alcoholic men physically, mentally, emotionally and economically abuse their spouses. So there is some relationship between the two behaviours. However, a significant number of men who do not abuse alcohol – some of them do not even drink – also batter and otherwise abuse their partners and families.
Strangely, it would appear that none of the latter group of men resides in Berbice, or if they do they have never been arrested and charged. There is also a third possibility: that Magistrate Tejnarine Ramroop’s magisterial district has an epidemic of alcoholism.
While the use and abuse of alcohol can impair a person’s judgement, slow down their reflexes and cause drivers to become involved in vehicular accidents, there is a school of thought which says that men who batter their wives use drunkenness as an excuse for their violent behaviour. The reasoning is that these men would batter their partners anyhow, but blame their alcohol consumption rather than accept responsibility for their actions.
In seeking to understand the relationship between alcohol and domestic violence, a study undertaken by the Research Institute on Addictions of the University of Buffalo in the USA seven years ago, found that men who are abusive and who also drink alcohol are more likely to be violent when they drink – a predisposition long known as Dutch courage.
What the study also found, however, is that many male alcoholics do not batter their female partners and numerous men who beat their female partners do not drink excessively. This is also borne out in local data.
What is known internationally is that domestic violence is learned behaviour. Endless research has been done which proves that children who are products of violent households go on to become abusers and/or battered spouses when they become adults. It does not happen in every single instance, since there are cases where a change of environment in the person’s life either as a child or as an adult and sometimes interventions such as counselling can break the cycle.
There is also evidence that children of alcohol-dependent parents run a higher risk of developing an alcohol problem than other children. Some scientists believe that it can be hereditary – just as parents pass on personality traits to their children. Some believe too that it can be environmental – if children see their parents and the adults around them drinking constantly they will do the same. This makes alcoholism, like domestic violence, learned behaviour.
And the similarities do not end there. Alcoholism and domestic abuse can both be centred around control and power and can both involve denial or an attempt to down play the problem. There is a lot that we still do not know about the relationship between alcohol abuse and domestic violence. What we have seen however, is that when combined, they tend to result in greater injury, even death to the battered spouse. Clearly, a lot more needs to be done to address these social ills both separately and where they co-exist. Lumping them together oversimplifies the problem as it assumes that treating alcohol addiction will end domestic violence, and that can be just as dangerous as ignoring the issue altogether.
