Hazardous Drinking to Save Your Marriage?

Los Angeles Times Reports on a Study Analyzing Divorce and Drinking Incompatibility

I enjoy spending time in California.  In fact, I love Los Angeles.  For me there is something about being among palm trees and movie stars in perpetually nice temperate weather which makes the city of angels irresistible.   Throw in a cup of gourmet coffee and a copy of the day’s Los Angeles Times and I cannot think of a better way to spend a morning.  Through the “magic” of the internet I can enjoy the paper with the coffee ….. minus the palm trees and movie stars…. of course. I was “cruising” the LA Times and I came across an interesting article Heavy drinking, ‘incompatible’ drinking tied to divorce, study says.  Being a divorce lawyer this was of interest to me so I clicke the link and read  the article   Admittedly, at first I did not know what “incompatible drinking” was.  The article discussed a Norwegian study that examined Norwegian married couples and their drinking habits.  The study found:

……spouses who consume about the same amount of alcohol were less likely to divorce than pairs where one partner is a heavy drinker and the other is not — especially when the wife is the one doing the drinking.

The report continued,

Among couples where the wife reported being a heavy drinker (a measure that including admission of an indication of “hazardous drinking”) and the husband a light drinker, the divorce rate was 26.8%; when the positions were switched and the husband was the heavy drinker, the divorce rate was 13.1%.   In couples where both members were heavy drinkers, the divorce rate was 17.2%.

I did not read the study (just the LA Times article) , however, the above result struck me as odd.  Worse yet, I think suggesting that if your spouse engaged in “hazardous drinking” you should too … to save your marriage is short sighted and irresponsible.  Admittedly, I have no formal training in social science and I am far from qualified to conduct a similar study to verify the findings.  That said the inference is absurd. The article does not report on the study’s finding about the impact of heavy drinking on children.  Having one parent who is a heavy drinker cannot be good for children.  Having both parents engage in hazardous drinking is surly a bad idea.  We have previously written about the problems with drinking and parenting time. If you or a loved one has questions regarding divorce, substance abuse and its impact on a family or any other family law matter contact the child custody and parenting time attorneys at DeMichele and DeMichele. For a confidential consultation to discuss your situation call, contact us online by clicking here or call us at (856) 546-1350.