OBJECTIVE: to analyze the discourse of women on the interface between marital violence and alcohol use by the partner.
METHOD: qualitative exploratory research, based on the methodological reference of oral history. We interviewed 19 women with a history of marital violence and involvement with drugs. The data were analyzed through discourse of the collective subject.
RESULTS: the participants' discourse points to consumption of alcohol by partners as a potentiating element of violent episodes, also experienced by their parents, signaling to its transgenerational character; it also calls attention to the danger of marital violence resulting from men's reactions to having their alcohol consumption questioned by their partners. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: the study identifies alcohol as a precipitating and/or potentiating factor of conjugal violence, as well as the intergenerational character of violence based on male domination and intolerance.