Alcohol and drug use are often comorbid. Similarly, perpetrators of alcohol-related aggression are also often perpetrators of drug-related aggression — especially because perpetrators often misuse both of these substance categories (Pihl & Sutton, 2009). Alcohol has the clearest link to aggression, with powerful correlations between alcohol misuse and aggression observed in large-scale epidemiological studies and causal effects established in laboratory experiments (Parrott & Eckhardt, 2018). Alcohol’s ability to increase aggression is contingent on dispositional and situational factors. For example, alcohol tends to increase aggression only among individuals who are already dispositionally prone to aggressive behavior (Giancola, 2002). Further, alcohol elicits greater aggression in response to interpersonal provocation but has no effect on unprovoked, proactive aggression (Giancola et al., 2002). Alcohol’s effect on aggression is complex, which also holds true for drugs’ effects on aggression.
