Have not dealt with issues that alcohol helped them bury and thought helped them cope with.

And they may still be angry, making themselves a victim of their own actions, lashing out at others.

https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/dry-drunk/


Neurologist believe long term heavy alcohol abuse rewires the neural "circuits" and thus some who go off alcohol without any intervention whatsoever, especially counseling, can manifest significant personality changes, often including manifest resentment towards others, volatile and uncontrolled anger patterns, depression and increases in previously controlled negative behaviors.

While there is undoubtedly some biologic component, the failure to receive any kind of counseling or other treatment, results in the individual less likely to develop coping mechanisms.

Certainly doesn't affect everyone who ever drank heavily or gave it up cold turkey if they did,however.

after stopping drinking.

Alcoholism, like other dependencies, is not simply a physical addiction to the "drug". It is a psychological profile that leads one to drink as an attempt to satisfy some need.

If the alcohol is taken away, that need is still there, and it's a lot easier to treat the alcohol than it is to treat the need.

that is the bottom line of dry drunks

He states he still drinks beer so he is not dry. The nasty comment to Senator Klobuchar was a direct challenge to his possible alcohol abuse “What do you drink?”. (Her father was an alcholic) It is quite possible he gets angrier when he drinks. There is every chance that his anger issues would become greater if he stopped drinking hence the term “dry drunk”. Based on his testimony and the angry and dismissive manner he dealt with actual questioning alcoholism with sexual predation is a real possibility. This is not easy to hide when actually investigated.

I went to meetings for over a decade and I'm still clean but I'm sure fellow AA members would call me a dry drunk just because i don't go to meetings anymore

Remember the crap stain at the Bejing Olympics smashed.

... the idea of alcoholism/addiction being a "family disease" where people learn maladaptive behavior patterns, regardless of if they drank or just lived with it.

Just quitting the booze doesn't fix what motivated the person to escape life by drinking, and after a quit people around the alcoholic/addict often still interact with them in the same unhealthy ways -- walking on eggshells to prevent a relapse vs walking on eggshells to prevent being treated badly by the drunk is still walking on eggshells.

Essentially, drinking and drug addiction are far more often symptoms of the real dysfunction than the cause. But people around the alcoholic identify the alcohol as the problem, and it often does become its own reinforcing issue. Just quitting drinking, like my stepfather had to do after twice vomiting up pints of blood from esophageal varices, doesn't fix learned behavior, family dynamics, or underlying issues.

Often when people finally quit drinking they find a whole shitton of things they've suppressed, blocked, or otherwise refused to deal with. IMHO dealing with those is the real work in recovery. And if you don't do the work and just leave out the booze... well, you fall back into behavior that is just as dysfunctional as it ever was, even if you've gone total straightedge as far as the substances you physically ingest.

..

It was the '50s and town was a 14 mile drive each way.