thequest

Besides mixing other drugs with alcohol is there a difference between the happy or mean drunk? Does it really mean anything?

Should note the drinker already has a short temper and has been using things like steroids, stimulants and pot over the last couple of years.

I thought alcohol was a relaxer or closer to a sedative yet still see the mean or nasty drunk. Here the alkie/addict seems to be agitated or fired up more than usual. Over the last year or two the norm has been more of a slushy drunk.

Does being a nasty drunk indicate anything other than the drinkers mood. Simply suppressed anger or resentment coming out?

Refiner

Could be a suppression thing especially if there's a short fuse to begin with, but I do know that steroids causes major aggression, too. Add the two together, mix with some alcohol and BINGO.

Highwind

I'm a happy drunk.....until I'm not, then I'm a mean drunk for 1 day and then a happy drunk again. I don't think you are one or the other. I tend to find it amplifies mood, if I'm stressed and pent up I end up getting angry. Don't know the science behind it but its very rare if i start drinking in a good mood that I end up in a bad mood by the end of the night. Might be different for other people but I tend to know when I'm in a mood that makes drinking a bad idea. I tend to do it anyway but at least that's all behind me now.

Highwind

Sorry didn't realise this was in the friend and family section thought it was in the newcomers section.

FeelingGreat

I think alcohol removes inhibitions, so the angry person becomes more angry, the shy person more talkative, the passive more so. But add steroids and other drugs to the mix and all bets are off.
Change over time might indicate a change in the drug mix, or creeping brain damage.

Hawkeye13

I got to be a meaner drunk over time
I started off pretty happy, but over the years I changed.

That's not uncommon either

hopeful4

My X is an alcoholic. Starts out pretty happy, then turns into a nasty, vile person. It's so toxic.

LexieCat

When you think about it, the worse the alcoholic's life becomes--the more out-of-control--the more self-hatred there is, and the more it's likely to get turned outward. I think it's part of the progression of the disease in some people.

SadInTX

this is a great topic since I have experience with this too. My AH usually says it depends on how I react to him while he is drinking...if I am okay then he is a happy drunk...if I am upset, stand offish, etc. then he is not. But I am getting to the point where I don't want to deal with him at all since it is exhausting living this way....

Wisconsin

I remember when my STBXAH and I started dating. He was in recovery and working a program after getting his third DUI. Still, there were many, many red flags. One was his declaration that he wasn't an angry drunk; he was a fun drunk.

Ummmm...no. I can tell you without a doubt, that he was never a fun drunk. Not even once. He was a sullen, angry, ugly, abusive drunk.

SparkleKitty

How convenient for him to not have to take any responsibility for his behavior, good or bad! After all, it's your fault either way!

(Read: My sarcasm meter goes to 11)

There are as many different ways to answer this question as there are people who drink too much. And if you ask again in a year about those same people, the answer will probably be different.

We want to be able to predict behavior, especially if we think WE can control it by being a certain way ourselves or creating the right environment but it's all an illusion. Sometimes my mother was a happy drunk, sometimes a mean one. Same with my ex-boyfriend. There was no rhyme nor reason to it, and I had ultimately my only option was to decide whether or not I could live with that level of uncertainty. Or rather, it was when I was dating an alcoholic. When I was a kid I didn't have that choice.

LeeJane

No, this is rubbish! It is nothing to do with how you react to his drinking. It is all on his shoulders and is his responsibility not yours.

Don't believe him, SadInTX.

I don't know your back story but I found Al-anon a really big help to me. To me getting my strength back and starting to live my own life. Setting boundaries. Not allowing other people to dump their bad choices on me. Take care.

THippy

I'm going to agree with SiT here for a minute. Isn't that one of the points of Alanon? That our Codependant behavior adds to the crazy?
It's still early days for me, but at this point, I'd say that my AH is a less unpleasant drunk right now because I'm learning to let go of the control and not engage with him when he's drinking. He's still drinking, even more! But there is less animosity because I'm not nagging, bargaining, begging, pleading, crying, on and on and on.
Two points to make in my case:
Physical abuse is not an issue in my case.
And it's unlikely that our marriage will last this way. Eventually I'll get sick of waiting for the partner I think that I deserve to have and him not showing up for the position.
But I do think that it is within my power to make things ugly with him when he's drunk. I'm not choosing that anymore.

minime13

Even if people have the capacity to push our buttons, it is still our choice in how to act.

I found, a lot of times, that my ex took to mirroring my emotions at time. Some of our biggest fights occurred with my PMS symptoms - seriously. Do you know how that made me feel for a while? That I must be so unbearable while I'm PMSing that it drives him insane?

Oddly, that wasn't the case for any other relationship.

The thing is that they are not in check or in control of their emotions. In fact they put in a lot of work to not deal with them. For the normal person, suppressing only works for so long until you explode. The same is true for the alcoholic, but their explosions are amplified by both alcohol and the emotional immaturity that comes with alcoholism. How they deal with things is on them, though. It's not on you.

The mirroring may have to do with their own inability to deal with their own emotions. I didn't really bother to venture down that avenue to try to figure it out, though because in the end, it's not my responsibility to figure it out for someone else.

----

As far as the original question here - other drugs have other influences on behavior. Naturally. However, as alcoholism progresses, the alcoholic's general mood typically worsens. I mean, it's a disease of loving the effects of alcohol until you hate what it does enough to change. That's simplifying it, but it's a simple way to look at it.

schnappi99

I have heard of alcohol + xanax for multiplication of the effect of booze, ie get drunk for 1/3 the price yay- that combo nearly killed a friend of mine, apparently its also a preferred suicide combo.

and, alcohol plus ambien to change from the walking dead to wired and angry drunk.

Liveitwell

My ex used to he a happy drunk-then he was just a drunk-then he was a mean abusive drunk. Pretty sure that is how this thing progresss-at least it was for my situation. I too could get pretty vile when I drank-thankful to be sober over three and a half years now and healing.

Thomas45

Those two things you're talking about are completely unrelated. You can have people who are mean drunks who only drink alcohol, and you can have mean drunks who mix drugs. Similarly, you can have happy drunks who only drink alcohol, and happy drunks who mix. It depends on the individual.

Well there's your answer. You're talking about a person who already has a tendency to be mean/aggressive, and now you're adding in drugs. They aren't a mean drunk, they're a mean person who gets drunk.

Alcohol is a mood enhancer. Technically it is considered a depressant. But if someone is happy, it will make them happier (only up to a certain point). If someone is angry, it will make them angrier. And it causes people to fixate on subjects because it inhibits memory, meaning that they might state something and forget they stated it, so they state it again. So when someone is quite drunk and something comes to mind that makes them angry, they will fixate on that angry thought for long periods of time and work themselves up to greater anger.

It indicates that the drinker shouldn't be drinking alcohol because being nasty to people isn't socially acceptable.