Heavy drinking linked to divorce risk

 Posted on March 11, 2013 in Divorce

Heavy and incompatible drinking, or when one spouse consumes a significantly higher amount of alcohol than the other, has been shown to increase the chance of divorce. This has been proven in a study of almost 20,000 Norwegian couples that was recently released. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health collected and reviewed data from 19,977 married couples in one county in Norway, and found that spouses who consumed similar amounts of alcohol were less likely to get a divorce than couples in which one spouse was a heavy drinker and the other was not. When the wife was the one who was drinking more alcohol, the risk of divorce was especially high. Norwegian Institute of Public Health director Ellinor F. Major was especially interested in the fact that when women were the heavy drinkers, the divorce rate was higher. “The risk of divorce is estimated to be tripled when the husband’s level of drinking is low and the wife’s drinking is heavy, compared with couples where both drink lightly,” reported Major in the online edition of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. Another researcher from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health Fartein and author of the study Ask Torvi suggested possible explanations for why heavy drinking in women, specifically, may increase the chance for divorce: “One of them is that women in general seem to be more strongly affected by heavy drinking that men are. Thus, heavy-drinking women may be more impaired than heavy-drinking men,” said Torvi. He added, “A wife’s heavy drinking probably also interferes more with general family life – that is, the caring role of the mother, upbringing of children, etc. Perhaps the husband is more apt to leave their spouse than is the wife when major problems occur.” This study is not the first time that researchers have linked alcohol consumption to marital status. A study was presented in August 2012 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, which indicated that married women drink more than divorced and widowed women, in part due to the men that they lived with that who had higher rates of alcohol consumption. Married men, however, seemed to drink less than their divorced and single counterparts. If alcohol consumption has interfered with your marriage and you are considering filing for divorce, contact Goostree Law Group today. Located in Kane County, IL, these experienced divorce lawyers can help you with a smooth, painless divorce.