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Research Highlights
VA Research Examines Functioning Alcoholics and Their Wives
Taken from the Veterans Health Administration Highlights dated September 27, 2002
Women married to alcoholics were three times more likely to abuse alcohol than those married to non-alcoholics and were three times less likely to be full-time homemakers, yet overall they manage their lives pretty well, according to VA research published this month in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Dr. Marc Schuckit, director of the Alcohol Research Center, VA San Diego Healthcare System, based his findings on personal interviews with 327 women who were the first wives of men whose fathers were alcoholics. The study is an offshoot of a long-term genetic study Schuckit and his colleagues are conducting on 453 sons of alcoholics.
However, Dr. Schuckit’s research found that women married to alcoholics had no higher rates for major depression or bipolar disorder than did the women who were married to non-alcoholic men, which contradicts other research in this area.
Since 1978, when the men were in recruited in college, most have married and had families. Ninety-two have become alcoholics. Schuckit continues to follow their lives to trace the prevalence of alcoholism in their children as well. As part of his study of the children, Schuckit thought it important to learn more about their mothers.
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