Associations Between Divorce Histories and Unhealthy Alcohol Use Among Middle Aged and Older Adults

Background: Unhealthy alcohol use has been considered a coping strategy related to stressful and traumatic life events such as relationship loss. Yet, the effects of marital status on health behaviors are generally studied cross-sectionally or over one transition. We explored associations between the frequency and quantity of alcohol use with the number of episodes and duration of separation/divorce events across adulthood among English adults in mid to later life. Methods: This study used life history data from wave 3 (2006/07) of the English Longitudinal Study of Aging to compute marital sequences based on marital status at each year of age from 18 years of 6,355 adults aged 50-80 years. These sequences were used to compute the portion of adulthood spent separated/divorced and the number of episodes of divorce. These variables were used as predictors in logistic regressions predicting unhealthy alcohol use, while also controlling for current marital status. Results: We found that the number of episodes of separation/divorce increased the odds of drinking ≥5 days/week and binge drinking (≥6 drinks/occasion for women; ≥8 drinks/occasion for men), whereas the portion of adulthood spent divorced was not associated with drinking frequency or binge drinking. Some nuances by gender were also noted. Conclusions: Recurrent transitions into separation/divorce over adulthood appears to increase risk of unhealthy alcohol use in mid to later life beyond the risks associated with current marital status.