Do you think Dave kept pouring scotch into her glass on accident? He knows society has a tendency to excuse behavior from a drunk person that they'd never accept from someone sober. You're not excusing his behavior directly, but by suggesting that alcohol is relevant to this situation, you're promoting a narrative that abusers love to exploit.
Excellent point. I opened up the book "Why Does He Do That?" about abusers to find a relevant quote, but when I got back to the thread you had beat me to the punch. Here's what I was going to post:
Alcohol does not a change a person’s fundamental value system. People’s personalities when intoxicated, even though somewhat altered, still bear some relationship to who they are when sober. When you are drunk you may behave in ways that are silly or embarrassing; you might be overly familiar or tactlessly honest, or perhaps careless or forgetful. But do you knock over little old ladies for a laugh? Probably not. Do you sexually assault the clerk at the convenience store? Unlikely. People’s conduct while intoxicated continues to be governed by their core foundation of beliefs and attitudes, even though there is some loosening of the structure. Alcohol encourages people to let loose what they have simmering below the surface.
The book argues that the common thread among all abusive people is a sense of entitlement.
To an untrained eye, this looks more like an "MO". Maybe it's insecurity, maybe it's inability to relate, maybe he needs something to "relax" him [and target], maybe it's what's worked in the past for him. I don't know him. But it appears that his MO involves getting people to drink alcohol and him laying it down thick [in parlance, "put his moves on"].
