The couple that drinks together, stays longer together?
Couples who drink together might live longer together, too, according to a study – “Alcohol Use and Mortality Among Older Couples in the United States: Evidence of Individual and Partner Effects Get access Arrow” by Kira Birditt, Angela Turkelson, Courtney A Polenick, et al – that appeared in The Gerontologist.
For this study, the researchers used data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative study of adults aged 50 and older in the US. It includes couples who are interviewed every two years. Participants included 4,656 married/cohabiting different-sex couples (9,312 individuals) who completed at least three waves of the HRS from 1996 to 2016.
The study found that couples who are concordant in their drinking behavior (that is, both members drink alcohol) tend to live longer. Specifically, “couples in which both indicated drinking alcohol in the last three months lived longer than the other couples that either both indicated not drinking or had discordant drinking patterns in which one drank and the other did not,” said Birditt.
Also: Couples who drink together tend to have better relationship quality, and it might be because it increases intimacy, Birditt said.
In alcohol literature, there is a theory called “the drinking partnership”, where couples who have similar patterns of alcohol use tend to have better marital outcomes (such as less conflict and longer marriages). And this may be true here, according to the researchers.
But while this may sound like that’s a recommendation to drink more with your spouse, Birditt cautioned against that reading. This is because “behaviors that are good for marriage are not necessarily good for health,” Birditt said.
