Ways Alcohol Can Affect Relationships I Psych Central

Alcohol can affect relationships in various ways, and this can look different for each person. By Lindsay CurtisCurtis is a writer with over 20 years of experience focused alcohol effects on relationships on mental health, sexual health, cancer care, and spinal health. Over time, your brain’s structure and function change, leading to tolerance, meaning you may require higher amounts of alcohol to achieve the desired effects.

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• Interestingly, this effect was not seen in individuals with lighter cannabis use.
• Substance abuse can affect the addicted individual’s ability to maintain stable employment, reducing household income and increasing dependency on other family members.
• If you or someone you care about are struggling with alcohol use disorder (AUD), learning about the effects of alcohol on relationships and the types of alcohol addiction treatment available can help you make an informed decision about your care.

Alcohol and Friends and Family.

• Future research should further explore the specific determinants of perceptions of partner problematic drinking, and how those determinants influence various aspects of dyadic adjustment.
• Alcohol is often a contributing factor in intimate partner violence, child abuse, and child neglect (3).
• Do relationship conflicts unrelated to drinking exaggerate the sensitivity with which people pay attention to their partner’s drinking?
• The link between alcohol abuse and poorer relationship outcomes is well established (e.g., Dawson et al., 2007; Leonard & Eiden, 2007; Leonard & Rothbard, 1999; Marshal, 2003).
• Alcohol has been reported to account for 16% of adult drinkers’ total energy intake in the United States 68, with men consuming about three times the amount consumed by women 68.
• When alcohol has become a core part of our relationships, it can stand in the way of us taking action to change our own drinking habits, even when they aren’t making us happy.

We do not receive any commission or fee that is dependent upon which treatment provider a caller chooses. Join our supportive sober community where each day becomes a step towards personal growth and lasting positive change. For one, “Birds of a feather flock together.” If you’re a heavy drinker, you may spend more time with (and date) those who do the same. Taking an honest look at your relationship with alcohol is not easy, but for many of us, it is necessary. If unpacking all of this on your own is causing excess stress or anxiety, consider asking an expert for help.

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• This discrepancy in attitudes about what constitutes a drinking problem, and subsequent perceptions of problematic drinking, may have important implications for the amount of strain and dissatisfaction the couple experiences.
• Addressing these issues requires professional support, such as therapy, counseling, and intervention programs, to help families establish a safe environment and break free from the damaging cycle of addiction and abuse.
• Alcohol use has the potential to affect any close relationships in your life, including those with romantic partners, as those in relationships are inextricably linked.
• The presence of domestic violence and abuse in a household affected by addiction can create a cycle of abuse, where children exposed to violence may later repeat these patterns in their own relationships.
• While every person’s response to alcohol is different, your reaction may make your partner uncomfortable.
• The authors indicated that negativity expectedly increased from baseline to experimental interactions among husbands assigned to the alcohol condition only.

Conceptualizing AUDs as occurring more often with males—and the corresponding norms about alcohol use and gender—may undermine emphasis on actual male problems and exaggerate emphasis on female drinking problems. The investment model of relationships (Rusbult, 1980, 1983; Rusbult & Martz, 1995) provides another framework through which to consider the gender effect. The investment model posits that relationship commitment is dependent upon the extent of one’s investment in the relationship, satisfaction with the relationship, and the perceived quality of alternative partners.

How Alcohol Affects Relationships

Intercourse is a form of intimacy, and alcohol addiction can negatively impact this aspect of a relationship by disrupting normal body processes. It can contribute to sexual dysfunction, thereby impacting the quality of sexual intimacy between partners. There is a direct correlation between alcohol use in relationships and the quality of intimacy among partners.

As you spend more time together, you’ll share more experiences and environments, likely impacted by each other’s drinking habits. Leonard and Roberts (1998) recruited a sample of 135 married couples and observed a baseline interaction before exposing the husbands to a randomly assigned no-alcohol, placebo, or alcoholic beverage condition and observing a second, experimental interaction. The authors indicated that negativity expectedly increased from baseline to experimental interactions among husbands assigned to the alcohol condition only.

Long-Term Health Risks

Using data from heterosexual couples in committed romantic relationships, the current research seeks to evaluate the effect of perceptions of one’s partner’s problematic alcohol use on relationship outcomes beyond the partner’s self-reported alcohol use. Data was collected from both partners in committed heterosexual romantic relationships. Furthermore, because the dyads are heterosexual, we are able to evaluate whether the dyads are distinguishable by gender and thus whether this effect differs for males and females. The current research evaluates how relationship satisfaction and commitment vary as a function of partner drinking and perceptions of partner drinking as problematic. Previous research shows that even when controlling for one’s own problematic drinking, one’s partner’s problematic drinking predicts relationship outcomes (e.g., Cranford et al., 2011).