By Their Fruit: Alcohol, Coercive Control, and the Test of the Pattern

Who this is for

This article is for families, friends, welfare teams and ecclesial leaders facing a painful situation: a husband or father is said to have a serious alcohol problem, while his wife and children describe fear, intimidation, manipulation, blame-shifting and control.

The question often becomes: Is this addiction, or is this abuse?

That question is understandable, but it is too narrow. A man can have a real alcohol problem and still use alcohol as part of a wider pattern of coercive control. He can be genuinely addicted and still manipulate his wife and children. He can be drunk and still be responsible for the fear he creates. He can be ashamed and still be unsafe. He can attend treatment and still remain committed to control.

So the better question is not, "Is he an alcoholic or an abuser?" The better question is: “What fruit is being produced?”

Start with the fruit

Jesus said, "Each tree is known by its own fruit" (Luke 6:44).

John the Baptist said, "Bear fruits in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:8).

Paul said, "Let no one deceive you with empty words" and "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them" (Ephesians 5:6, 11).

These passages give us a simple but searching test. We are not asked to be impressed by religious words, emotional apologies, public sorrow, treatment attendance or promises of change. We are asked to look at the fruit.

In family abuse, the fruit test asks:

• Does the family become safer?

• Does the wife regain freedom, dignity, peace and agency?

• Do the adult children become less afraid and less burdened?

• Does the person who caused harm take responsibility without excuses?

• Does he accept boundaries without punishing others?

• Does he stop using illness, alcohol, shame, treatment or relapse to control the family?

• Does he welcome accountability that he does not control?

If the answer is no, the words are not yet repentance. They may be regret, embarrassment, reputation repair, fear of consequences or grief at being exposed. But they are not yet the fruit Scripture calls repentance.

Safety comes first

Where there is fear, intimidation, threats, stalking, violence, sexual coercion, suicide threats used as leverage, financial control, weaponised children or escalating behaviour, the first question is safety.

Families or ecclesias should not try to investigate the matter by confronting the person directly, arranging family meetings, or pressuring the wife and children to explain themselves in front of him. In coercive control, direct confrontation can increase danger. It can also give the controller more information, more targets and more opportunity to rehearse a better defence.

A safer first response is to:

• believe the disclosure;

• ask about immediate safety;

• protect confidentiality;

• support specialist domestic and family violence advice;

• avoid couple counselling where coercive control may be present;

• document behaviour carefully and safely;

• avoid making the wife or children responsible for his recovery.

This is not unkindness. It is wisdom. "Love does no wrong to a neighbour" (Romans 13:10). Love does not expose the vulnerable to further danger in order to preserve appearances.

Do not get trapped by the wrong question

Families and ecclesias often want to know whether the man is really addicted or merely pretending. That desire is understandable. If he is faking, the family can name manipulation. If he is addicted, they may feel they must be patient, forgiving and endlessly supportive.

But that binary is a trap.

The research is careful here. Alcohol and other drug use are associated with intimate partner violence, but they do not automatically explain the whole pattern of abuse. Australian research makes the same point: alcohol and other drug involvement can increase risk and severity, but it is not a simple excuse-producing cause.[1]

So the better question is: How does alcohol function inside the pattern?

Alcohol may be:

• a genuine disorder requiring treatment;

• a disinhibitor that increases risk;

• a ritual that signals danger to the family;

• an excuse used after harm;

• a threat used to control others;

• a way to recruit sympathy;

• a means of avoiding accountability;

• a tool for making the family organise life around him.

Scripture does not require us to read the heart perfectly. It asks us to examine what the conduct produces.

How alcohol can become part of control

Domestic violence and alcohol treatment have often been handled in separate systems. That can hide the real issue: the alcohol problem may be treated while the coercive control remains untouched, or the abuse may be addressed without enough attention to substance-related risk.[2]

This is why the question cannot be merely, "Was he drunk?" It must also be, "What did the drinking do inside the relationship?"

For example, if a woman has previously been assaulted after he drank, the next drink may itself become frightening. The bottle, the tone, the isolation, the repeated messages or the change in mood may tell the family what is coming. In that situation, alcohol is not just sitting beside the abuse. It has become part of the mechanism of control.[3]

The prudent person sees danger and hides himself (Proverbs 22:3). A family that learns to fear the next drink is not overreacting. It may be reading the pattern accurately.

The fruit test for alcohol and coercive control

A family or ecclesia does not need to settle the diagnosis before it can assess harm. The following questions are more useful.

What happens before, during and after drinking?

• Does drinking occur before intimidation, threats, accusations, surveillance or demands?

• Does drinking follow moments when his wife or children set limits?

• Does he drink after being challenged, then use intoxication to avoid responsibility?

• Does the family become afraid when he opens a bottle, changes tone, isolates himself or begins messaging?

• Do family members alter ordinary behaviour because they know what alcohol usually signals?

Who changes their behaviour because of his drinking?

• Does his wife become quieter, more careful, more compliant or more isolated?

• Do children or even adult children monitor his moods, avoid visits, or step in to protect their mother?

• Does everyone manage the timing, wording, tone and content of conversations?

• Are ordinary family decisions organised around his drinking, moods, treatment, relapse risk, shame or threats?

• Does his recovery become the family's burden?

This is central. Coercive control is not seen only in what the controller does. It is also seen in what others must do to survive him. Good assessment looks at whether a pattern diminishes the wife's and children's freedom, autonomy and space for action.[4]

Scripture calls this bondage. Christ came "to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18). If the practical effect of his drinking is that everyone else loses liberty, the fruit must be named.

Does the alcohol story reduce accountability?

• After harm occurs, does he say, "I was drunk", "I blacked out", "I relapsed" or "I am sick"?

• Do those explanations lead to repentance, or do they shift attention away from the wife and children?

• Does he use shame, illness, treatment, relapse or self-pity to make others stop asking hard questions?

• Does he describe himself as the main sufferer while those harmed are expected to comfort him?

• Does he accept consequences without retaliation?

There is a crucial difference between explanation and excuse. A genuine alcohol problem may explain risk. It does not erase responsibility. "Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy" (Proverbs 28:13). Confession without forsaking is not repentance.

Is the loss of control selective?

• Can he control himself around police, employers, doctors, wider family, ecclesial leaders or respected brothers?

• Does he become calm when outsiders enter?

• Does he remember enough to defend himself but not enough to repair harm?

• Are his worst behaviours directed mainly towards those with less power?

• Does he show discipline when consequences are immediate but lose control when his wife or children are the only witnesses?

This is not cynicism. It is discernment. Coercive control often hides because the public presentation and private reality differ. Some tactics cultivate dependence, denial, silence and self-blame, which makes the abuse harder to expose. Jesus says, "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment" (John 7:24). Ecclesias must not mistake public self-control for private safety.[5]

What is the impact on the wife, children and adult children?

• Are they afraid?

• Are they exhausted?

• Do they feel responsible for his drinking, sobriety, emotions, survival or reputation?

• Have they lost confidence in their own judgement?

• Are adult children drawn into roles as rescuers, messengers, peacekeepers, protectors or witnesses against their mother?

• Are they pressured to forgive, reconnect, visit, mediate or honour him while the pattern remains unsafe?

• Has their spiritual life become associated with fear, pressure, guilt or being disbelieved?

This is where the focus must stay. Domestic violence-informed work looks at the impact of the perpetrator's pattern on the whole family, not merely at the perpetrator's treatment journey. Documentation that records only his attendance at treatment can be misleading if it does not also record the pattern of coercive control, the effects on children, and whether he is actually changing the harmful behaviours.[6]

Scripture repeatedly commands us to see those who are harmed: "Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute" (Psalm 82:3). "Open your mouth for the mute ... defend the rights of the poor and needy" (Proverbs 31:8-9). In this setting, the wife and children are not secondary witnesses. They are often the people who know the pattern best.

Listen to the wife and children as essential witnesses

The wife and children are essential witnesses - not because they must supervise him, manage him, or carry responsibility for his recovery, but because they know the pattern and its impact.

Scripture recognises the importance of witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:16; 1 Timothy 5:19). But coercive control usually happens in private. Witness may therefore include the wife's account, children's accounts, adult children's observations, messages, financial records, medical records, behavioural changes and corroborating patterns over time.

The man's own account is not enough. He may be telling the truth. He may not be. Risk cannot be properly assessed if the people harmed by the pattern are shut out of the assessment.[7]

This aligns with Proverbs 18:17: "The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him." That proverb must not be twisted into unsafe both-sides processes. Wisdom listens carefully, protects the vulnerable, and tests claims by fruit.

Treatment is not the same as repentance

Treatment may be necessary. It may be a mercy. It may help him stop drinking. But treatment attendance is not repentance.

Ask:

• Has treatment made the family safer?

• Has his wife gained freedom, not just heard better apologies?

• Are the children less anxious?

• Has he stopped blaming alcohol, trauma, stress or family members?

• Does he tell treatment providers the truth about coercive control, threats, spiritual misuse and family impact?

• Does he allow appropriate accountability, or does he control what counsellors, elders and family members are allowed to know?

• Does he use treatment attendance as evidence that others must now trust him?

The evidence on interventions for men who use substances and perpetrate intimate partner violence is limited. That should make families and ecclesias cautious. "He is in treatment" is not enough. John the Baptist did not say, "Speak words in keeping with repentance." He said, "Bear fruits in keeping with repentance" (Luke 3:8).[8]

Boundaries expose whether control has ended

One of the clearest tests is what happens when boundaries are set.

Ask:

• If his wife separates, does he respect the separation?

• If adult children set limits, does he respect them?

• If he is asked not to contact, message, visit, attend the same meeting, or use others as intermediaries, does he comply?

• Does he threaten relapse, suicide, reputational damage, legal action, financial consequences or spiritual judgement?

• Does he recruit ecclesial members, relatives or children to pressure the wife?

• Does he present himself as the victim of everyone else's unforgiveness?

A repentant person may grieve boundaries, but he will not punish them. Boundaries show whether the project of control has ended.

Paul says that "godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret" (2 Corinthians 7:10). He then describes the fruit: earnestness, eagerness to clear oneself, indignation, fear, longing, zeal and readiness to see justice done (2 Corinthians 7:11). In abuse cases, that means accepting limits, consequences and loss of trust without retaliation.

Read the pattern, not just the incident

Families should stop trying to solve the matter through isolated incidents.

Questions such as these may matter, but they are not enough: Was he drunk that night? Did he mean it? Was it technically a threat? Did he actually hit anyone? Was she also angry? Were the children disrespectful? Did he apologise afterwards?

Coercive control is understood by pattern, function and impact.

Pattern: what repeats?

• intimidation;

• minimising;

• denial;

• blame-shifting;

• threats;

• surveillance;

• isolation;

• financial control;

• weaponised spirituality;

• using children, including adult children;

• crisis after boundaries;

• remorse followed by pressure;

• alcohol used before, during or after accountability.

Function: what does the behaviour achieve?

• silence;

• compliance;

• access;

• sympathy;

• control of the narrative;

• avoidance of consequences;

• division among family members;

• restoration of his authority;

• pressure on the wife to resume her role.

Impact: what happens to others?

• fear;

• exhaustion;

• confusion;

• shrinking freedom;

• hypervigilance;

• guilt;

• spiritual distress;

• divided siblings;

• adult children parentified;

• wife isolated or disbelieved;

• family energy consumed by him.

This is the fruit. This is what must be assessed.

Substance use coercion

Domestic violence research uses the term "substance use coercion" for situations where an abusive person interferes with another person's substance use, recovery, treatment, credibility or safety. The concept also helps families see how alcohol and other drugs can be woven into control.

A perpetrator may:

• pressure a partner to drink;

• sabotage her sobriety;

• threaten to report her substance use;

• use her distress or coping against her;

• block treatment;

• discredit her as unstable;

• use his own drinking to create fear;

• threaten relapse if she leaves;

• use recovery language to regain access;

• make the family responsible for preventing relapse.

In ecclesial settings, this can become spiritually intensified:

• "You must forgive me."

• "You are causing me to stumble."

• "A good wife would support recovery."

• "The children must honour their father."

• "Separation is unbiblical."

• "You are bitter."

• "You are gossiping."

• "The ecclesia should help restore him."

Scripture must never be used to make the oppressed carry the burden of the oppressor's repentance. Forgiveness is not the same as access. Compassion is not the same as trust. Reconciliation is not the same as safety. Honour is not the same as enabling sin.

What families and ecclesias can do

1. Map the pattern safely

If he is still in the home, do not create records in a way he can find. Safety comes first.

If he has left the home, the wife and children may be able to go back over past episodes together, carefully and without pressure, to understand the pattern and its impact. This can be clarifying where everyone has been trained to minimise, forget, explain away or carry separate pieces of the story.

This is not about building hatred. It is about recovering truth.

A family review can ask:

• What happened?

• What led up to it?

• Was alcohol involved before, during or after?

• What did he say the cause was?

• What did each person do to stay safe?

• What changed afterwards in the wife's freedom?

• What changed afterwards in the children's behaviour?

• Who was blamed?

• Who carried the consequences?

• Did the episode increase his control?

Use behaviourally specific language. Not "he was awful", but "he stood in the doorway and would not let her leave". Not "he relapsed", but "after she said she would not answer calls after 9 pm, he drank, sent repeated messages, threatened suicide, and told the children she was abandoning him".

2. Separate treatment questions from safety questions

Alcohol treatment asks: How does he stop drinking?

Safety asks: Are his wife and children free from fear, coercion, retaliation and control?

Both questions matter. They are not the same question. Sobriety alone does not prove safety. Relapse does not excuse abuse. Treatment engagement does not equal repentance. A man may stop drinking and continue controlling through money, silence, reputation, spiritual pressure, legal threats or adult children.

3. For ecclesias: listen separately, not jointly

This is especially for ecclesias, elders, arranging brethren, welfare teams and pastoral carers.

Do not gather the wife, children, adult children and alleged abuser into one room to talk it through. That is often dangerous. It turns a justice and safety issue into a family communication exercise. It also gives the controller more information and another opportunity to intimidate, charm, deny or divide.

Speak separately. Listen carefully. Keep information tightly held. Do not pressure adult children to mediate or give evidence beyond what they freely choose to share. Do not make the wife responsible for proving everything before support is offered.

Scripture requires careful judgment, not naive neutrality. "Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (Matthew 10:16). "Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter" (Proverbs 24:11). The ecclesia's role is not to appear balanced. It is to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).

4. Refuse diagnosis-led excuses

A faithful response keeps both truths visible. Alcohol misuse may be real. Abuse may also be real. One must not erase the other.

An ecclesia may need to say:

We are glad you are seeking help for alcohol. But the issue before us is also the fear and control experienced by your wife and children. We will not treat alcohol recovery as a substitute for accountability and repentance from abuse.

5. Look for costly repentance

Signs of genuine repentance include:

• full responsibility without blaming alcohol, wife, children, stress, illness or ecclesial politics;

• truthful disclosure to treatment providers;

• willingness for specialist domestic violence intervention;

• acceptance that wife and children may need distance or boundaries;

• no pressure for forgiveness, contact or reconciliation;

• financial fairness;

• no reputation management;

• no threats of relapse or self-harm to control others;

• long-term behavioural change verified by those harmed.

Repentance is not proved by tears, programme attendance, Bible quotations or a moving testimony. It is proved by fruit over time - energetic and costly repentance (2 Corinthians 7:10-11).

6. Protect the family from being recruited into his recovery

Support is good. Enmeshment is dangerous.

The wife and adult children should not be made responsible for:

• monitoring his drinking;

• preventing relapse;

• answering crisis calls;

• transporting him;

• managing medication;

• explaining him to others;

• defending his reputation;

• reporting on his progress;

• reassuring him;

• absorbing emotional collapse;

• proving their forgiveness.

Those tasks can become another form of bondage. Christ's yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30). A recovery process that places the weight of his sobriety, emotions, reputation and restoration on those he harmed is not the yoke of Christ.

What ecclesias must not do

An ecclesia must not:

• pressure the wife to stay;

• pressure adult children to maintain contact;

• treat relapse threats as the family's responsibility;

• confuse forgiveness with access;

• accept the man's account without checking impact;

• use couple counselling where coercive control may be present;

• allow religious language to obscure harm;

• make the wife prove abuse through perfect documentation;

• treat sobriety as repentance, tears as transformation, or public humility as private safety;

• rush reconciliation to preserve appearances.

The priest and Levite passed by on the other side. We must not do the same while using gentler language.

Conclusion: the test is fruit

In the end, the family may never know with certainty how much of the alcohol problem is addiction, avoidance, manipulation, shame, compulsion, habit or strategy. But they can know the fruit.

If the fruit is fear, silence, shrinking freedom, confusion, blame, isolation and children carrying adult burdens, the tree is not good.

If alcohol treatment does not produce safety, it is not enough.

If apologies do not produce freedom for those harmed, they are not repentance.

If the family becomes responsible for managing his sobriety, moods, reputation and spiritual restoration, the project of control is still alive.

Christ calls us to truth. He calls us to mercy. He calls us to defend the oppressed. He calls sinners to repentance. He calls the community to walk as children of light.

So we look at the pattern. We listen to the impact. We test the fruit.

And we do not let alcohol, diagnosis, sorrow or religious language hide the works of darkness.

[1] Cafferky et al. (2018), Psychology of Violence, 8(1), 110-131, meta-analysis on substance use and intimate partner violence: https://doi.org/10.1037/vio0000074. See also Meyer et al. (2024), Research on Social Work Practice, 34(7), 781-792, Australian pilot findings on domestic violence and alcohol/other drug use: https://doi.org/10.1177/10497315231201366.

[2] Humphreys et al. (2022), Child & Family Social Work, 27(2), 299-310; Callaly et al. (2025), Journal of Family Violence, on siloed responses to domestic violence, mental health and substance use: https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12885; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-025-00898-x.

[3] Humphreys et al. (2022) discuss how substance use can become part of fear and control in domestic violence: https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12885.

[4] Tolmie, Smith and Wilson (2024), Violence Against Women, 30(1), 54-74, on coercive control and reduced 'space for action': https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012231205585.

[5] Veldhuis (2024), Gender Issues, 41, article 10, review of coercive tactics that foster dependence, denial and self-blame: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-024-09327-7.

[6] Isobe et al. (2025), Journal of Family Violence, on pattern-focused, all-of-family, behaviourally specific documentation: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-025-00811-6.

[7] Meyer, Burley and Fitz-Gibbon (2022), Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(9-10), NP7369-NP7393, on affected family member input in risk assessment: https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260520969244. See also Meyer et al. (2024): https://doi.org/10.1177/10497315231201366.

[8] Stephens-Lewis et al. (2021), Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 22(5), 1262-1278, systematic review of IPV interventions for men who use substances: https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838019882357.