Yes, living with an alcoholic creates traumatic experiences that cause lasting psychological damage. The ongoing emotional distress, unpredictability, and potential for abuse often result in trauma-related disorders such as PTSD, anxiety disorders, and depression for both partners and children. Treatment resources include 24-hour hotlines, detox centers, and rehabilitation facilities throughout the country. SAMHSA’s National Helpline provides free, confidential support connecting families with treatment and counseling services. These resources help you navigate the complex process of encouraging treatment while protecting your own mental health when married to an alcoholic. Professional counseling and therapy services complement support groups by addressing individual family dynamics.
3.2. Relationship between alcohol consumption and marital interactions
They experience repeated work problems like tardiness, missed deadlines, or job loss. Financial hardship results from the inability to maintain steady employment or poor decision-making while intoxicated. You wake up each morning wondering which version of your loved one you’ll encounter today – the charming person you fell in love with or the unpredictable stranger alcohol has created.
Set Boundaries
There is some limited evidence to suggest that light or moderate patterns of use are adaptive. For example, within alcoholic samples marital satisfaction is positively correlated with spouses’ alcohol consumption for in-home and steady drinkers, while it is uncorrelated or negatively correlated to alcohol consumption for binge and out-of-home drinkers. Another explanation for null effects found by some studies is that the relation between alcohol use and abuse and marital satisfaction is different for different subgroups of alcoholic couples.
- For those of you living with an alcoholic husband, their drinking habits may lead to physical dangers such as domestic violence.
- It is essential to remember that seeking help for your spouse should not come at the cost of your own well-being.
- Jacob and Krahn (1988) conducted a study prototypic of this design by evaluating group differences in marital interaction patterns with a sample of alcoholic couples, couples with a depressed partner, and normal control couples.
Seek External Support
While these communities do not replace professional help, they can provide immediate emotional support and valuable insights into coping strategies. For example, some researchers distinguish between “steady” and “binge” drinkers (Epstein, Kahler, McCrady, Lewis, & Lewis, 1995). Steady drinkers are more likely to drink a smaller volume of alcohol and do so more frequently, whereas binge drinkers are likely to consume heavy amounts of alcohol less frequently.
Typical measures of alcohol consumption will assess how often an individual drinks (frequency) or how much an individual drinks in one sitting (quantity). Quantity–frequency indices are often employed by studies in the current review and are used to calculate average daily or weekly estimates of a drinkers’ volume of alcohol consumption. Heavy use is a term that is also used in the alcohol literature, and although there are no standard measures, it is often operationalized as having five or more drinks in one sitting or getting “drunk” or “very high” on alcohol. Individual counseling or therapy can provide you with coping strategies, emotional support, and guidance on how to navigate your specific situation. Encourage your spouse in any way possible to seek professional help for their alcoholism.
Support for Loved Ones of Alcoholics
You’re at increased risk of developing trauma-related disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), due to the chronic exposure to unpredictable and often dangerous situations. Both types experience identical health consequences, including liver damage, cardiovascular problems, and mental health issues. The effects of living with an alcoholic spouse remain equally devastating regardless of their functioning level. Your emotional well-being suffers whether your spouse drinks openly or secretly maintains their addiction. The effects of living with an alcoholic are both short-term and have lasting consequences. Spouses of alcoholics are more likely to be victims of domestic violence, may suffer emotional harm, may neglect their own health, and may become socially withdrawn.
- Living with an alcoholic creates ripple effects that extend far beyond the individual struggling with addiction.
- Other intervention techniques use alcohol-related topics as “vehicles” (McCrady & Epstein, 1995a, 1995b) for addressing communication deficits and teaching adaptive communication skills.
- Dependence primarily refers to a cluster of symptoms that involve physiological and psychological tolerance of alcohol and withdrawal symptoms in the absence of alcohol.
- Project Courage can help you find clarity and support, whether or not your spouse is ready for change.
- Explore how Project Courage’s approach empowers individuals to prioritize their healing while navigating a loved one’s addiction.
Children Can Also Suffer
The information we provide is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It should not be used in place of the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider. Celebrities have often aired their dirty laundry across the media, especially in divorce cases and custody disputes. One thing that does not change is the effect that an alcoholic spouse can have on the situation. In the past, stories like Ike and Tina Turner have culminated in movies and memoirs that depict the impact of substance abuse and alcohol on a marriage. Ike’s controlling nature, paired with his substance and alcohol abuse led to a long history of domestic violence.
No one really knew the extent of her illness, however, with the support of her the effects of living with an alcoholic spouse husband, she was able to get treatment and even went on to create the Betty Ford Clinic. Thousands have undergone treatment there, breaking free of the cycle of alcohol addiction. Dr. Christine Traxler MD is a Minnesota-based family practitioner and writer, having written dozens of medical texts, study guides, and scientific articles.
In addition, one of the most comprehensive theoretical and empirical models of dissolution suggests that marital satisfaction, interaction, and violence are central components of the dissolution process (Gottman, 1994). Given the strong association between alcohol use and these marital processes, longitudinal studies that evaluate their course over time and their contribution to dissolution are paramount. One putative mediator of the relation between alcohol use and marital satisfaction is marital interaction patterns. Marital interactions have been used for decades to distinguish between distressed and nondistressed couples (for reviews, see Schapp, 1984; Weiss & Heyman, 1990, 1997) and are typically assessed using the Marital Interaction Coding System (MICS; Weiss, Hops, & Patterson, 1973).
For instance, withdrawing and hiding is a strategy of avoidance that may provide some temporary relief. Over time, though, the spouse who withdraws simply waits while the problem gets worse, and in the meantime becomes more distant from friends and extended family. Most of the issues these women faced were emotional, but it is clear that living with an alcoholic partner also impacts social health, physical well-being, relationships with children, and finances. Other studies and statistics indicate that violence and being harmed is one of the biggest problems that spouses and partners face.
Avoid cleaning up alcohol-related messes or hiding evidence of drinking from family members. Dealing with an alcoholic spouse often results in social isolation as you withdraw from friends and family to hide the reality of your situation. The unpredictability of your partner’s behavior makes it difficult to maintain normal social relationships or engage in activities you once enjoyed. Nearly 60% of violent incidents against domestic partners occur under the influence of alcohol, according to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, highlighting the serious safety risks you may face. When offers to help, pleas to stop or slow drinking, and additional interventions with loved ones fail to help moderate behaviors, a spouse may have no choice but to end the relationship or at least separate for a time.
Accepting abusive behavior of any kind—whether verbal, emotional, physical, or financial—puts your safety at risk and normalizes unacceptable conduct. Prioritize your own emotional needs by scheduling activities that satisfy you, independent of your spouse’s behavior. Pursue hobbies or interests that existed before your spouse’s drinking became problematic. Living with an alcoholic creates ripple effects that extend far beyond the individual struggling with addiction.
