The Effects of Alcoholism on Families: How Alcoholism Effects Families

If your loved one agrees to seek treatment, you as their spouse (or other family member) need to actively support them in their recovery. Sometimes, however, that support might require you to give them time and space so they can do the hard work recovery necessitates. Your loved one may want to stop treatment early and even ask you to help them do so. Finances are about more than the dollars earned; they also include earning potential.

Can alcohol change a person?

Acetaldehyde is a toxin that can damage the body’s organs and tissues before it is further broken down into acetate. Years of moderate to heavy drinking can cause liver scarring (fibrosis), increasing the risk how does alcohol affect relationships of liver diseases like cirrhosis, alcoholic hepatitis, fatty liver disease, and liver cancer. The impact on these areas of mental functioning could influence your behavior and personality, says McDonagh.

Alcohol’s Effects on the Body

If you’re trying to take control of your relationship with alcohol, it’s important to take a step back and look at your relationship with your romantic partner. For instance, a worried husband may voice his concerns when he sees his wife pouring wine after work every day. And when this dynamic is present in your relationship, it can lead to frequent, full-blown arguments about alcohol use. Too much drinking can lead to less time spent together—and the time you do spend together can feel less meaningful.

Does alcohol bring out your true personality?

Further, the caregiver grows accustomed to a relationship with the person misusing alcohol that is primarily based on caregiving. The line between helping an individual who is misusing alcohol becomes blurred with enabling them to maintain the addiction. Although even the strictest accountant or budgeter can make an allowance for entertainment expenses, ongoing drinking can quickly cause people to spend beyond their allotment for socializing. It is well established that alcohol misuse can lead to serious financial problems, but not only because of the actual money spent on alcohol. Also, consider setting boundaries to ensure your own physical and mental health.

This self-medication may divert attention away from the problems experienced in a dysfunctional relationship and lower the motivation to actively work toward improving it. Lastly, it may be that the presence of a dysfunctional relationship increases the desire to engage in heavier alcohol use in order to blunt or distract from unpleasant experiences (Swendsen et al., 2000). We often think about how drinking can affect our romantic relationships, but may not consider how it affects our friends and family.

• When someone starts drinking in order to feel happy, their partner may see this change as a reflection on themselves, and internalize that their partner is unhappy in their relationship.
• More specifically, the severity of relationship distress is influenced by alcohol consumption by one (or both) people’s alcohol consumption.
• Over time, heavy, excessive drinking characteristic of alcohol misuse and AUD may result in brain damage and permanent personality changes.
• Or do you feel like you can’t seem to have a single good day anymore, no matter how hard you try?
• The connection between alcohol, interpersonal violence and codependency is widely documented.

Experts have known for a while that heavy drinking — meaning eight or more drinks per week for women and 15-plus per week for men — raises your risk for high blood pressure (a.k.a. hypertension). When blood pressure, the force of blood flowing through your arteries, is consistently high, that ups your risk for heart attack, stroke and heart failure, as well as vision loss and kidney disease. Alcohol is a depressant that affects the central nervous system, which can lead to a range of mental health symptoms or disorders. People who struggle with alcohol use disorder may experience depression, anxiety, mood swings, and sleep disorders. Excessive alcohol use is a term used to describe four ways that people drink alcohol that can negatively impact health.

Mental Health and Psychological Effects

The less alcohol you drink, the lower your risk for these health effects, including several types of cancer. Moderate drinking is having one drink or less in a day for women, or two drinks or less in a day for men. Beyond this, by definition, consuming enough alcohol to cause a “brownout,” “blackout,” hangover, or other overt brain symptomatology is evidence that the alcohol you’ve consumed is creating problems in your brain.

• Children of alcoholics are more likely to experience cognitive and emotional problems than children who grow up in sober homes.
• Fortunately, there are several ways to address or prevent alcohol problems in your relationship.
• Naturally, the old adage applies here – you can lead a horse to water, but can’t make it drink.
• Alcohol can affect not only your ability to be intimate with your partner but also the way you interact with your partner sexually, according to a 2020 study.

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