Finding the person you’re sure you want to spend the rest of your life with (at least for now) is a wonderful thing. Love is something to be celebrated, but there’s also something to be said for taking your time and taking a more cautious approach to marriage. This is especially true since a new study has discovered that in certain circumstances, getting married early can lead you to develop alcohol issues.
- The researchers published their findings in the journal Development and Psychopathology. The study, performed by researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University and titled “Using a Developmental Perspective to Examine the Moderating Effects of Marriage on Heavy Episodic Drinking in a Young Adult Sample Enriched for Risk,” studied the drinking habits of 937 people as well as their marital status.
- The findings were pretty startling. Those who tied the knot earlier were more likely to become alcoholics, but only in particular circumstances. “In a sample of young adults, we found that marriage was not uniformly protective against alcohol misuse. In fact, we found that early marriage (i.e., by age 21) seemed to exacerbate risk for alcohol use among individuals with a higher genetic predisposition,” said study author Rebecca Smith, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology in the College of Humanities and Sciences. “Thus, early marriage does not have the same protective benefit in terms of attenuating genetic predispositions that has been observed for marriage later in adulthood.”
- The findings were interesting for a variety of reasons. This is especially because it allows researchers to see how much life circumstances play into behavior and habits depending on age. “These findings are important because they demonstrate how risk and protective factors may intersect in different ways at different points across the lifespan,” Smith said. “Although marriage is typically considered to be protective, when considering the role of development a different picture emerges, such that early marriage may increase the risk of heavy episodic drinking among people who have high genetic predispositions for alcohol use. It contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the role of marriage.”
- In many cases, marriage protects against alcoholism. Previous studies have found that marriage has a positive influence on alcohol consumption within relationships, moderating intake in those who are genetically predisposed to developing alcoholism. However, that’s only true for older couples rather than those who marry younger.
- Bottom line? Approach love with caution but don’t let it slip you by. The findings here are by no means binding, and there’s so much context and nuance that affect how a person does and doesn’t react, develop, behave, etc. However, it is interesting to see!
