This is Annie Grace and you're listening to this naked mind podcast where without judgment,

pain or rules, we explore the role of alcohol in our lives and culture.

Hey, it's Annie Grace. I have everybody's doing great. So I have a question from a reader that I want to answer.

So, okay, how can I remain alcohol-free when my spouse tries to sabotage my efforts?

He buys me drinks when he eat out and buys my favorite liquor and has it waiting for me when I get home.

I haven't had a drink yet, but I feel like I have to choose between my health or my relationship.

So, this is a great question. And they're really transparently, I have done research on this, and there is difficulty in relationships when one spouse stops drinking.

And I think at the foundation of that, and I can find the exact statistic for you, although I don't know, I don't know.

I always like to filter things like statistics and whatnot through, like, is this helpful? How does it make you feel? How does it make you behave?

And because if it doesn't make you feel good or behave in a good way, then it might not be helpful at all.

But the exact statistic about this, let me just find it really fast.

Sorry. I should have pulled this up before.

But I think it is that 39% of marriages end in divorce as of, that was the statistic in 2000, in 2018.

And it looks like that if one, if both partners have, are drinking at the same level, then it's the same.

Okay. No. The University of Buffalo study says if one partner is a heavy drinker, and the other isn't, couples are more likely to break up than if both partners have the same drinking habits.

Nearly 50% divorce rate versus 30% when they have the same drinking habits. So if couples have the same drinking habits, you're down from the national average by about 9% in terms of divorce rates.

If couples have one, one partner is a heavy drinker and one is not, you're up above the national average.

Now, again, I think filtering that statistic through how does that make you feel and how does it make you behave is a really good filter. But I also think if you want to like really ensure your marriage, you need to be very honest with yourself about the realities of this.

And I think what if the realities is that we just expect that, here's the framework that I think we approach something like this.

I think we have the framework that I made a really positive, healthy change for myself. That should be really positive and healthy for my marriage.

But the marriage as an organism, if you will, or a structure outside of the individuals, it is a thing as well. There is a thing in the marriage in terms of the interactions between the two of you, the relationship, all of this stuff, it exists.

There is a thing called the marriage. And the marriage itself doesn't see change as positive necessarily. In fact, change takes adaptation. So change can be seen as a threat.

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