Marital Status and Alcohol Abuse

¶ … Marital Status and Alcohol Abuse

Danielle Barwise

Alcohol Abuse and Relationships

Gaps in Previous Research and Need for the study

Participants

Measures

Marital Status

A significant amount of previous research has focused on the association between alcohol abuse and relationship status, including but not limited to the status of primary intimate relationships such as those seen in marriage and relationships associated with family and others. The significance of this research is that there is at least some evidence that the two factors, close relationship status and the presence or absence of alcohol abuse are somehow related. This work demonstrates an attempt through a careful analysis of secondary data from a primary research article to help illuminate what if any relationship there is between marital status and alcohol abuse. The author hypothesizes that alcohol abuse has a negative relationship in relationship however there

The Association between Marital Status and Alcohol Abuse

Introduction

Is there a correlation between the status of a person's relationship and that person's use of alcohol? Are married people or single people more likely to use or abuse alcohol, and how does that alcohol use affect the relationships that they have? What about the other relationships that person has or has had in the past? Those are questions that can and should be answered, in order to provide better treatment for people who abuse alcohol, and also to provide better treatment for those who have difficulties with relationships.

There are two issues to be addressed when it comes to the potential association between alcohol use and relationship status: whether the relationship status affects the use of alcohol, and how the use of alcohol affects the status of the relationships. The work of Goodman, Salyers, Mueser, Rosenberg, Swartz, Essock, Osher, Butterfield, & Swanson (2001) will be used to provide a data set for the study in order to examine those issues and make a determination as to their correlation. In addition, however, it is important to look at recent literature on the subject of alcohol and relationships.

Alcohol Abuse and Relationships

According to Beck (2011), the author of an interesting memoir dealing with alcohol abuse and relationship communication, people can and do turn to alcohol when relationships go bad. In addition, they also turn to alcohol as a way of celebrating when relationships are good, so it would not be possible to say that alcohol is only used as one of the coping techniques by people who are struggling in their relationships or who have relationships that have ended badly. Yet, Beck (2011) does go on to say that there are many factors that would cause a person to use or abuse alcohol, including codependency, anxiety, and depression. The relationships that are seen among different people are generally more complex than one would think when just looking in from the outside, and that is important to consider when looking for correlations between alcohol abuse and relationships.