Sober living

Exploring Your Relationship With Alcohol

By 19 January 2023October 12th, 2024No Comments

how does alcohol affect relationships

Alcohol is often a contributing factor in intimate partner violence, child abuse, and child neglect (3). If you feel like alcohol addiction is affecting your relationship, it’s important to know that help is available. There is a direct correlation between alcohol use in relationships and the quality of intimacy among partners. More specifically, the severity of relationship distress is influenced by alcohol consumption by one (or both) people’s alcohol consumption.

While it can be challenging to convince a loved one to seek professional help, identifying how sobriety bromide detox would benefit their lives can often help them take that first step. It’s essential to avoid becoming codependent if you feel you’re in a relationship impacted by alcohol addiction. As stated above, keeping a distance is necessary to avoid enabling and ensure you don’t become emotionally dependent on helping them. The connection between alcohol, interpersonal violence and codependency is widely documented.

Lack of Intimacy

Leaving isn’t always the best answer, but letting a partner’s addiction control your life isn’t healthy either. Your job as a loving and supportive partner is to encourage your loved one to get help, but maverick house sober living you can’t force them. Recovery is a process that requires a lifelong commitment, and they have to be dedicated to it. However, sometimes the actions you take out of love may be enabling your partner to drink.

Over an extended period of time, drinking too much can lead to impotence in men and impaired fertility in women. The reason drinking can become a problem is because of how alcohol affects the brain. Alcohol use disorder is a complex condition that can wreak havoc on relationships. Fortunately, there are several ways to address or prevent alcohol problems in your relationship. April Eldemire, LMFT, is a psychotherapist who specializes in marriage and couples issues, new-parenthood transitions and blended family dynamics.

More Arguments

Fortunately, there are more ways than ever to get support if alcohol is harming your life and happiness. Ria Health is one online program offering comprehensive help—from coaching meetings to anti-craving prescriptions—100 percent from your smartphone. With Ria, you won’t have to rearrange your life to start improving your drinking habits, relationships, and overall well-being. If your partner struggles with alcohol addiction, you cannot change them.

  1. By taking a closer look, you might find that you or your partner’s drinking habits are at the core of many of your disagreements.
  2. The survey results showed that people in committed relationships who use alcohol during intimacy were more likely to be sexually aggressive toward their intimate partners.
  3. Alcohol can greatly increase the chance of aggressive behavior in some people and often plays a role in intimate partner violence.
  4. Reach out today at and talk to one of our compassionate and knowledgeable admissions navigators.

Building healthy relationships with people who don’t drink not only helps you steer clear of alcohol but also gives you an opportunity to expand your friendship base. Adopting an exercise program, joining a support group, or talking with a mental health professional are all excellent ways to stay sober. Support groups can help people with alcohol addiction and those who are codependent on someone with alcohol use disorder.

When Is It Time to Leave a Partner with an Alcohol Addiction?

Relationship problems are a common byproduct of alcohol addiction, though there are several ways to combat it. Professionals can provide family support for loved ones affected by addiction and help individuals reach recovery at the same time. After all, partners and families are part of the journey and deserve help returning to normalcy. The bottom line is that it can cause more arguments, hurt intimacy, and make a person unable to fulfill their role at home.

how does alcohol affect relationships

If so, it may be time to consider how alcohol is impacting your relationship. By taking a closer look, you might find that you or your partner’s drinking habits are at the core of many of your disagreements. 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. Similarly, we can be affected by the drinking how long does molly stay in your hair of our partner, friend or loved one, causing tension and disagreement, or leading us to drink more.

Partners and friend groups should have activities they enjoy doing together. While every person’s response to alcohol is different, your reaction may make your partner uncomfortable. You might act inappropriately in public or appear irritable due to alcohol withdrawal. Addiction can cause you to value spending money on alcohol instead of prioritizing financial health for yourself and your family.

A partner of someone addicted to alcohol may believe they’re helping the other person by enabling the addiction to continue. In reality, they’re doing it for themselves while encouraging an unhealthy dynamic. Alcohol use disorder can lead to lost friendships, estranged marriages and family conflict.