Author: Gary Jackson

How to Tell When Alcohol Is Affecting Your Relationships

Even when you have a strong connection with your significant other, your feelings can be reduced due to a strong need and desire to drink. For example, if you’ve forgotten important dates due to drinking or canceled plans from a severe hangover, your drinking may be causing relationship problems. Alcoholism is a family disease and can drastically affect the lives of everyone around you. It can significantly impact your relationships with others and ruin them beyond repair.

Below, learn about the effects of alcohol on relationships, along with six signs that drinking might be impacting yours. Alcohol addiction can drive a wedge within a family and within a marriage. Below we discuss how alcohol can disrupt your most important relationships.

How Alcoholism Affects The Family

Contact a treatment provider today to explore your treatment options. 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. In addition to self-care, partners of those affected by alcohol addiction can intervene by helping them find rehabilitation services. While it can be challenging to convince a loved one to seek professional help, identifying how sobriety would benefit their lives can often help them take that first step.

  • Drinking problems can adversely change marital and family functioning, but they may also increase due to family problems.
  • You might spend extra money on booze, rather than shared activities with your partner or family.
  • It affects every member’s life, attitude, and way of thinking and can lead to significant relationship dysfunction.
  • However, if a parent struggles with alcohol use disorder, it can cause instability in the household, and harm parent-children bonds.

Alcohol use has the potential to affect any close relationships in your life, including those with romantic partners, as those in relationships are inextricably linked. Since many people with substance use disorder believe they’re healthy, an intervention can help. By communicating openly with patience and compassion, friends and family members can convey the importance of sobriety to their loved ones. When drinking becomes the focal point of every activity, alcohol addiction is a concern. 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.

You’ve Replaced Certain Activities With Drinking

And when this dynamic is present in your relationship, it can lead to frequent, full-blown arguments about alcohol use. If someone in a relationship has a drinking problem, it can leave the other person feeling disconnected and distant from their partner. And even if both parties drink together, they might only feel a sense of connection while the alcohol is involved. This can lead to reduced intimacy and a disconnect in the relationship as a whole.