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These mental health symptoms can last longer than the withdrawal period, especially if the person with SUD hasn’t learned healthy coping mechanisms to deal with unwanted feelings. But originally, it was created to describe the romantic partners (usually women, although we now know that men can become codependent as well) of people with SUD. But the stress that comes along with constant arguing can become a trigger for the person living with SUD to use drugs or alcohol.

Risk factors

This disorder also involves having to drink more to get the same effect or having withdrawal symptoms when you rapidly decrease or stop drinking. Alcohol use disorder includes a level of drinking that’s sometimes called alcoholism. Codependency can also cause the non-addicted partner to unwittingly enable unhealthy behaviors, which may encourage substance use and addiction. There are over 40 million people in the U.S. alone living with substance use disorder.

You’ll become acutely aware of social pressures to drink.

But there’s not much guidance on how to quit drinking safely, particularly for people who don’t seek treatment because they think their drinking isn’t severe enough to warrant “detox” or “rehab” programs. As a clinical psychologist who specializes in addiction treatment, I get pretty nervous when people talk about quitting drinking “cold turkey” because there are significant and somewhat unpredictable risks of being abstinent abruptly. There are also social aspects of going alcohol-free that you may not be expecting.

• Many couples are both surprised and disappointed that they continue to have many fights and arguments after the substance abuse has stopped.
• Severe alcohol withdrawal can lead to fatal grand mal seizures, strokes, and cardiac arrest.
• According to the study, women who had partners that drank more experienced more intimacy but more conflict in their relationships, while men who drank at higher levels had more distrust of their partners.

Life after sobriety

But drinking too much can also take a toll on your friendships, family relationships, and even how you interact with your colleagues at work. When it comes to how alcohol affects relationships, you might notice more lying or deception from yourself or your spouse. For instance, how does alcohol affect relationships someone with alcohol addiction might lie to their spouse about where they are (e.g., a bar or friend’s house) because it involves drinking. Or they might hide how much they were drinking, who they were hanging out with, or what they were doing in order to avoid a fight.

If you’ve reached the point where it’s hard to communicate with your partner, consider reaching out to a therapist who specializes in couples and family counseling for help getting back on track. Given that alcohol can contribute to all these issues, it’s likely that alcohol use has the potential to lead to separation issues in some couples. Alcohol use, especially when it’s excessive, can put a strain on your relationship with your intimate partner or spouse.

A few studies provide evidence that alcohol use facilitates social interaction. A few experimental studies have considered whether alcohol administered to dyads or groups influences social interactions. These studies suggest that drinking with others increases self-disclosure and verbal and nonverbal expressiveness. Among groups of unacquainted people, groups who drank alcohol (relative to placebo or no alcohol) displayed higher positive and lower negative affect and reported greater social bonding in unscripted conversations (Sayette et al., 2012). Similarly, groups who drank alcohol exhibited greater verbal activity and self-disclosure in a subsequent discussion than groups who did not (Lindfors & Lindman, 1987). We have been able to locate only one study that considered the effects of administered alcohol on the social interactions of community couples.

Substance Abuse and Intimate Relationships

Participants completed an informed consent prior to completing measures for the current study, which was also provided online. After obtaining consent, the measures were presented with standardized instructions. Participants were provided a list of local referrals for psychological services after completing all measures and were given credit as partial fulfillment of a social science course in return for their participation. All procedures were approved by the institutional review board at the university where the study was conducted.

Simon Sherry, Ph.D., is a psychology professor at Dalhousie University. He is also a clinical psychologist at CRUX Psychology, a Canadian-based psychology practice offering online and in person services. Take our short alcohol quiz to learn where you fall on the drinking spectrum and if you might benefit from quitting or cutting back on alcohol. Participants also cited high levels of conflict and arguing, another significant contributor to divorce, according to research from 2017. Alcohol can negatively impact a relationship to the point of breakup or divorce. Alcohol can have a huge impact on the way you interact with others and the quality of your closest relationships.

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