Marital interactions and the duration of alcoholic husbands' sobriety

Recent studies of the family interactions of alcoholics have suggested that the alcoholic's general drinking adjustment may influence marital interactions. The present investigation examined the marital interactions of 30 male alcoholics who had maintained continuous sobriety for various lengths of time ranging from a few days to over 7 years. It was predicted that longer periods of sobriety would be associated with less conflict and fewer struggles for control between husbands and wives. The findings supported the hypothesis, in that the duration of the husbands' sobriety was significantly negatively correlated with the number of statements of disagreement emitted by husbands and wives. Also, there were trends for duration of sobriety to be negatively associated with the frequencies of question-asking and aggressive behaviors by husbands, and positively associated with the amount of talk time by husbands. Contrasts of 11 high sobriety couples (duration of sobriety: 2 years or longer) and 11 low sobriety couples (duration of sobriety: less than 4 months) revealed that high sobriety husbands asked fewer questions, stated fewer disagreements, and emitted fewer aggressive behaviors than husbands in the low sobriety group. In addition, high sobriety husbands displayed a trend toward more active talk time, and their wives showed a trend toward asking fewer questions than their low sobriety counterparts. The results suggest that marital functioning is superior in couples with longer periods of sobriety. The need for examining possible causal links in this relationship is emphasized.