Does Marriage Help or Hurt Alcohol Addiction Risk?
When it comes to marriage, birds of a feather tend to flock together. In other words, people often marry someone similar to themselves in background, interests, and socioeconomic standing. This includes a risk or vulnerability to alcohol addiction. But something rather unexpected happens when this risk is thrown into the marriage mix. A study from 2007 explains how a married couple with risk of addiction can actually be a positive thing.
Research Shows Marriage Can Help Prevent Addiction in Both Spouses
Researchers don’t quite know why, but their 2007 study at the Washington School of Medicine in St Louis showed that two spouses with addiction risks didn’t necessarily both end up having addiction problems. One would think that both people might be just as likely to become alcoholic, especially since they share the same living environment and overlapping social circles.
Whatever the case, this apparently positive influence is too important to ignore. What might drive one spouse towards addiction while the other moves away from it? How does that person buck their vulnerabilities and risk factors to make different choices with alcohol? Does this happen equally among wives and husbands, or more for one gender? And most importantly, how might this affect the addicted person being willing to go to alcohol treatment? The relationship dynamics and individual personalities within a marriage create so many different possibilities. It may be challenging to figure out what really happens here.
Drug and alcohol addiction does so much damage to marriages and families around the world. Communication worsens, emotional intimacy is lost, and isolation creates a cavernous distance between family members. It makes one wonder what it might take for the one spouse to start turning away from drugs and alcohol despite their own risk for addiction. Do they start to feel the emotional gulf widen before their addicted spouse? Do they notice the behavior changes? How do they perceive the way alcohol play into their own emotional pain so they turn away from it? How else do they choose to cope with their spouses addiction aside from drugs and alcohol?
New Questions About Marriage And Drug Addiction
Obviously, there are many questions about how marriage and alcohol addiction work together. This does give hope that some children of parents at risk for alcoholism may end up with at least one healthier parent. Still, alcohol treatment may be an inevitable part of the picture. There is still hope that after alcohol treatment, both spouses have a good chance of becoming healthy individuals with a more solid marriage. The more researchers look into this phenomenon, the more they may be able to help spouses put their family back together after alcohol addiction pulls it apart.
