#and definitely don't do it while feeding into gross stereotypes for those with addiction that already primarely target communities of color

[normal-thoughts-official]

Someone just wrote a fic about Magnus abusing Alec and Magnus being a alcoholic and I don't know how to feel about it because Magnus being abusive doesn't sound right but I do think he is addicted to alcohol and I want your opinion on it

oh yikes on bikes, not that shit again

i mean personally i don’t consider him an alcoholic, not because oh no being alcoholic is so bad uwu but because like... alcoholism is specifically linked to the inability to stop or have temperance, and while magnus drinks frequently, we’ve only seen him drunk once. and he had just gone through one of the most dramatic experiences of his life, so like... i think classifying him as an alcoholic because of that is a little, idk, hasty?

and even then, he decided that he was going to quit drinking the next day basically and he didn’t seem to be distressed or think that would be particularly hard (and like one of the symptons of alcoholism is distress when not being drunk/drinking) so i don’t think he’s An Alcoholic. i do think that he has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, as he does have a tendency to turn to it when he’s in distress, and that that’s something he has to work with cuz that bitch is self medicating with a highly addictive and complicated substance lol and he knows that too, which is why i think he said he would take a break - he knew that he was toeing the edge then, going way over his limit and even being late for a date for like the first time ever, and turning to it when he couldn’t deal with his pain. so like unhealthy tendencies for sure, but idk if id call it addiction. reading the criteria for alcoholism, i don’t think that any that is something that we’ve seen with magnus except for literally one scene

but either way i don’t think it’s like A Problem or Invalid to hc him as an alcoholic, but i do wish people would stop thinking that being an alcoholic = being abusive. while there is a correlation between domestic abusers and drinking (drinking specifically, not necessarily Abusing Alcohol, at least not in the statistics i’ve found), alcoholism doesn’t turn someone into an abuser, means that someone is an abuser, or trigger abusive episodes (same source), because correlation does not equal causation. it’s important to take note that the studies on this are usually “is this domestic abuser an alcoholic?” and not, “is this alcoholic a domestic abuser?”. finding that domestic abusers usually drink doesn’t mean finding that people who drink or abuse alcohol are usually domestic abusers. also, finding that domestic abusers drink doesn’t..... mean a lot. most people drink, for starters. the one statistic i found regarding domestic violence and alcohol abuse actually shows that abuse victims are more likely to abuse alcohol

and i find that important to say because the stereotypes on alcoholism and drug abuse are fabricated by anti-drugs propaganda, which are historically directly related to the need for increasing police state and control over marginalized people, especially people of color (here’s Nixon’s very own aide admitting that they made up most of what are today’s stereotypes on heroin and weed use with the explicit intent of incarcerating black people and the anti-war movement, and here’s a review of a book on the war on alcohol that goes, among other things, into how the prohibition was strictly linked to lynchings and repression of black and immigrant communities). uncritically buying into stereotypes like this, especially when there is implied to be a direct causation between drug abuse and violence, is very dangerous and serves to further marginalize and stigmatize people with substance abuse, as well as justify mass incarceration and policing, which has been talked about plenty of times (if you know little about this and would like to start, i’d recommend watching the documentary The 13th Amendment. it’s on netflix. also, follow and read BLM activists, who have been saying this since forever. do read and watch Angela Davis, one of the most brilliant scholars on the subject and member of the Black Panther Party) 

that is my own personal opinion, but i find it way more likely that alcoholism and alcohol abuse are correlated not by causation, but because alcoholism is born out of a person’s frustrations/suffering, and that, paired with toxic masculinity in certain specific environments and a tendency for violence, also causes domestic violence. i don’t have any data to prove this so this is my own personal hypothesis born out of what i know about addiction (here’s a list of articles by an expert that talks about how addiction has biopsychosocial causes, with an emphasis on social) and also about abuse and domestic violence. i find it way more likely that they are correlated, not that alcoholism causes domestic violence. but i’m far from an expert and this is an ongoing debate among those who are

and either way, even if there is a possible causational relation, not every substance abuser is abusive and that’s just a fact. which i know because i have plenty of friends who struggle or struggled with substance abuse, including alcoholics and crack/coke addicts. obviously it’s a terrible situation that raises many issues, but it doesn’t mean that everyone who struggles with substance abuse or alcoholism is abusive. and magnus has never shown to be abusive, so even if you hc him as an alcoholic (which i honestly don’t necessarily see a problem with, even if i disagree) that doesn’t mean he would abuse alec. magnus has never been shown to be anything remotely close to abusive towards alec, or anyone else for that matter. on the contrary, he is extremely compassionate, kind, and caring, to the point of self sacrifice. so if you want to write about magnus struggling with his issues and with his unhealthy relationship with alcohol, i’m genuinely all for that. we deserve more in-depth analysis of magnus and his issues and its consequences. but don’t turn him into something that he’s not, and stop fucking thinking that everyone who struggles with substance abuse is an abuser, because that is, frankly, just a spit in the face of abuse victims who have turned to drugs to cope with that (the case of literally all of my friends who struggle or have struggled with substance abuse) and just people with addiction in general who are already villainized for something that hurts them first and foremost more than enough

so yeah, that’s my opinion. you can 100% headcanon magnus as an alcoholic and still don’t think he would abuse or be violent because of that - in fact, i encourage you to, because we need to start talking about addiction with more empathy and less villainizing, and that absolutely does include fiction