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How Can You Beat Alcoholism? By Getting Married, Says Study
Marriage can combat alcoholism (REX)
Marriage can result in a huge reduction in alcohol consumption – even among severe addicts – according to a new study.
Research conducted at the University of Missouri found that a dramatic change in one’s role – such as becoming a husband or a wife – can help people beat addiction and get on the straight and narrow.
Matthew Lee, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Missouri, said: “A key conceptual framework psychologists use to explain maturing out and the ‘marriage effect’ is role-incompatibility theory.
“The theory suggests that if a person’s existing behavourial pattern is conflicting with the demands of a new role, such as marriage, one way to resolve the incompatibility is to change behaviour.
“We hypothesised that this incompatibility may be greater for more severe drinkers, so they’ll need to make greater changes to their drinking to meet the role demands of marriage.”
The study used data from a huge, ongoing study of familial alcohol disorders by the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University in the US. Around 50 per cent of the participants in the study were children of alcoholics.
Looking at how the alcohol consumption of participants changed between the ages of 18 and 40 – and whether or not they got married – scientists were able to conclude that tying the knot helps combat the disease.
Dr Lee said: “Confirming our prediction, we found that marriage not only led to reductions in heavy drinking in general, this effect was much stronger for those who were severe problem drinkers before getting married. This seems consistent with role incompatibility theory.
The researchers believe the study could play a key role in understanding problem drinking and alcoholism in future.
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