Alcohol Intoxication, Violence, and Judge Kavanaugh

As Judge Kavanaugh was facing scrutiny for his reported sexual harassment of girls and women in his youth and his denial of the charges, large numbers of his friends and colleagues expressed disbelief that the person they had known would have behaved in such a manner. ”It would be out of character,” as several who know him best have said. At the same time, Professor Christine Ford’s charge that he had sexually assaulted her at a party in a fit of drunken violence seemed very convincing to others, and hard to reconcile with Kavanaugh’s description of his lifetime of public service, church-going, and showing respect for women.

We can make sense of the discrepancy here between the two conflicting portraits of Brett Kavanaugh by looking into the science of alcohol studies. What happens to the person when his or her blood alcohol level is very high? Are there personality or biological differences that emerge through very heavy drinking?

I would like to focus on the statement by the judge’s former roommate at Yale, James Roche. As quoted in the Huffington Post, Roche stated that the two of them would talk in evenings. “It is from this experience,” he said, “that I concluded that although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk.”

As an expert on alcoholism, a former alcoholism counselor and co-author of Addiction Treatment (2018, Cengage Publishing Co.), I find this description very significant. There are certain drugs closely associated with violence—these are cocaine, meth, and alcohol. This statement by the Yale roommate gives us a clue toward understanding some of the contradictions expressed in the media concerning the judge’s ethics and character.

One of Kavanaugh’s supporters interviewed on CNN, seemed sincerely perplexed by Professor Ford’s accusation. She disclosed that as Kavanaugh’s colleague, she had seen him drink wine and beer and he had never gotten aggressive. This is probably true, because it would take a lot more than one or two drinks before one’s personality was altered in any way. It could be that the personality is not really altered, but instead that when inhibitions are lowered through intoxication, unconscious drives and feelings come to the surface and are revealed. These actions and emotions often shock friends and family members who have not seen this side of the person previously.

A classic film once widely used at substance abuse treatment centers in the past, which was narrated by the late Father Martin, describes several types of drunks—lachrymose, amorose, jocose, and bellicose. Father Martin, a priest who was in recovery, drew on his sense of humor and pantomime ability to do an imitation of a bellicose Irish drunk. He knew, though, after his own years of heavy drinking, that alcohol has different effects on different people, and that sometimes, “under the influence,” the personality will seem totally changed. Every attendee of AA has heard a speaker (often a male) say, “I was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

I myself have seen these different personality traits come out in people who had had too much to drink. Some became the life of the party; others fell into a state of self-pity and got depressed. Some addiction experts call this drug-induced behavior, and with some drugs (such as meth), it likely is. I think the deep emotions, such as depression or anger, are released with alcohol intoxication. I didn’t see any fighting drunks, but heard stories of this from students who had been bartenders and from clients, as well as women in prison.

As we hear Judge Kavanaugh and his former partying friends deny that the reports of their bad behavior didn’t happen, or that they remember nothing of the sort, we need to take into account the tricks that alcohol in heavy dosages plays on the brain. Beyond a certain blood alcohol level, people don’t store their behavior in their long-term memories. Some experience the phenomenon known as blackout. This does not mean the person was unconscious or necessarily incoherent. It does not mean the person was not responsible for his or her behavior. It just means that the memory was impaired. Mark Twain wrote of this phenomenon in Tom Sawyer. In the novel, a man confesses to a crime he didn’t commit when falsely told by the murderer that he did it. There are people in prison today who confessed to crimes they were told by another, often the culprit, that they did.

So it may very well be true that Judge Kavanaugh does not believe he could have acted out sexually when drunk. And people who know him feel the same way. I think it likely that he could pass a lie detector test to the extent that he believes in his innocence. In my days doing alcoholism treatment, I often heard from clients of the wild things they had done that they never remembered. Some of these people had ended up in strange places and had no notion of how they got there. One man said his wife told him how he had behaved when drinking, and he didn’t believe her until she got him on videotape. That sprang him right into treatment.

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Consider also Kavanaugh’s prep-school friend, Mark Judge. Judge has even written a book aptly entitled Wasted that describes the debauchery that went on at Georgetown Prep. As Christine Ford stated in her letter to Congress, Mark Judge was present in the room where she was sexually assaulted; in fact, he came in and fell on top of them, which effectively allowed her to escape. Judge later said he didn’t remember being there, which is probably true. But then he went into hiding to avoid any further questioning.

As people try to decipher the truth in light of the contradictory reports and recollections concerning Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness to serve on the Supreme Court, it is useful to try to put politics aside, and consider how alcohol can bring out the worst in people, how it affects memory as well as behavior. Many crimes have been committed under the influence of alcohol.