Spouses have strong influence on risk for alcohol misuse

It’s long been known that spouses tend to resemble each other in alcohol consumption and misuse, the study team writes in JAMA Psychiatry, but it hasn’t been clear whether that’s because people with similar habits seek each other out, or because partners exert a strong influence on one another.

When the researchers looked at whether people had alcohol use disorders before their first marriage, and what happened in second and third marriages, they found that one spouse experiencing the disorder strongly influences the other’s current risk. Read more here.