Problem drinking and marital adjustment.

To examine the interdependency between alcohol misuse and marital adjustment, emphasis was placed on investigating how different patterns of alcohol use vary with different levels of marital satisfaction, and how such relationships might be mediated by the sociobehavioral consequences of problem drinking within the family. It was found that the likelihood of marital disruption was greater in heavy drinking households than in nonheavy drinking households. However, differences between heavy drinking and nonheavy drinking settings with respect to the marital relationship became largely nonsignificant when the number of sociobehavioral consequences of alcohol use for the marriage was controlled. The relationship between patterns of alcohol misuse and marital adjustment seems to be complex and variable and is in need of further investigation. Findings in the present study are compared with other research on the alcoholic marriage. Recommendations are offered for future studies on this topic.