I'd agree. Although alcohol and functional alcoholism was a part of my childhood abuse, it wasn't the whole trigger for the abuse, though it certainly didn't help. In fact, I'd say that the alcoholism was another symptom of the dysfunctional nature of my childhood family rather than a cause of it. It certainly wasn't a part of my first relationship. What makes people abusive? If it were that easy to tell, then it wouldn't be difficult to find/deal with them. In some cases, they've previously been abused themselves. Certainly a lot of them are typical bullies, using the abuse to deal with their own feelings of inferiority and so on. Sometimes there are other psychological issues like depression or whatever, and they're lashing out at the person nearest to them. However, there isn't just one simple cause. After all, what causes schoolyard bullying? Lots of complex factors. Like batsgirl says, you can't simply blame X for triggering the abuse, although the abuser would certainly do so (where x also includes the person Doing Something To Deserve It). Not every person suffering depression or who drinks or is abused becomes an abuser and each individual case needs to be looked at to discover why it's happened. But sadly, it appears that in a lot of cases the abuser cannot or will not accept that they have a problem, and will simply move onto the next target. Personally I think the idea that without X the abuse wouldn't happen is the wrong way to go, in this respect, because there'll always be another X to explain the abuse away (on the abuser's part).