Emmanuel is a 50-year-old truck driver. He's one of those men whose friends and family say, with exhaustion and sometimes fear, is a "bad drunk." Emmanuel has been drinking since he was a teenager, with a sordid history of sexual violence in his family, both his parents incarcerated for raping his sister, and he himself placed in a home. His life has been tormented by alcohol. "I've been drinking for 37 years," he said, agreeing to testify anonymously. In October 2023, in a fit of anger, he threw a chair at his daughter and insulted his wife. The gendarmes arrested him, and the court in Béziers in southern France ordered six months' treatment as an alternative to prosecution. "All my past was eating away at me, and alcohol provided my relief," he said. "But it makes me very cruel and, when I start drinking, I can't stop."

For years, his wife had managed to avoid risky family dinners and dinners with friends, where alcohol would have been part of the party, and later, part of the nightmare. Their lives were lived on a knife-edge. "I was always nasty. That's why I don't have any friends – I always end up being aggressive." During this latest episode of violence, his daughter had the idea of recording him so that he would become aware of it. "I didn't recognize myself. Listening to my own words put my brain back in place. I've stopped drinking since then."

His six months of abstinence was a fragile first step. Sitting opposite him, Anne Krugler, a counselor from the Support and Social Rehabilitation Association (AERS), encouraged him, while emphasizing the difficulty of getting free from addiction: "Awareness is not easy, and the perpetrators often reject their responsibility."

This story is sadly commonplace in the life of a court, where domestic violence, group brawls and nightclub exits are judged, with their direct victims and collateral damage. "Alcohol-related violence is part of our day-to-day work, that of the prosecutor's office, which handles the aftermath of police custody, that of immediate appearances and that of sentencing judges," said Béziers prosecutor Raphaël Balland, who is behind a ground-breaking study into the role of addictions in violent behavior.

'Astronomical' social and health costs

Over 800 cases of intentional violence studied in the court's jurisdiction revealed that, in three-quarters of cases, the perpetrators had consumed alcohol, narcotics or both. "The role of alcohol and narcotics in this violence is inversely proportional to their role in public debate," said Balland. "When it comes to delinquency, we only look at the consequences, with little interest in the root causes."

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