I was reading about Mel Gibson’s anti-semitic rants, and his apology about being drunk* when I remembered this meme. I agree with the meme, that our brains tend to feed us what we’ve heard from our environment, but our conscious mind overrides that with our processed thoughts.
People use “he didn’t mean it, he was drunk/high” as an excuse for racist/misogynist/whateverist comments. The response is typically “you don’t become racist when drunk, you just drop your inhibitions and reveal who you are.”
But if you agree with the First Thought meme, what if being impaired isn’t revealing what you really think, but is preventing you from thinking at all, and just getting stuck on your conditioned response?
*Gibson is just an example. This post is not about litigating whether he personally is racist, but about this sort of behavior in general.
Sounds like a bad spot to be in. Do you have access to professional help?
My dad was an alcoholic. In rehab he/we where thought that at a certain point the person is no longer themselves but a monster who is stuck in a different kind of alcohol instinct.
Either way physical or emotional abuse is never ok. Don’t try to reason that it’s somehow not abuse and you deserve it. Making someone feel worthless about themselves is a red flag. The fact your wife poisons herself to a predictable negative result says she has not figured out life either.