Casey and Mike Davidson always enjoyed drinking together.
The 49-year-old couple met after graduating from university while working as a consultant for the same company. The romance blossomed at work, spending the remaining time in a bottle of wine on a long day.
In their mid-twenties, the pair moved to Seattle and formed a group of friends who were always out for drinks. The afternoon was for hiking, kayaking and drinking drinks at Lake Union. The evening was a shaking dinner party.
But by their 30s, their drinking habits diverge. Davidson drank his own bottle of wine most nights, increasingly uneasy about it, and Davidson settled into life as a self-described “single beer night drinker.”
“I was really observing my drinking,” Davidson said.
Like Davidsons, many couples had to tackle the role alcohol plays in partnerships. When a partner decides to cut or quit altogether, their relationship can still be shocked.
“It can drive wedges among people in terms of how they socialize, how they relax and relax, or how they can drive wedges amongst people in terms of bedroom activities,” said Ruby Warrington, author of “Sober Curious.” “It can really be uncomfortable.”
We asked couples and substance use experts how to navigate changes in tolerance for drinking within a relationship.
Find a new route for a connection
Davidson, who now lives in Redmond, Washington, never smacks people on the dramatic rock bottom, but at age 40 she quit forever and is now working as a drinking coach.
She slept well and felt uneasy or fog free, but worried that her new drinking might hurt her marriage. “It was scary for me to stop drinking because I wondered how we were going to connect,” she said.
Studies on alcohol and marital well-being suggest that couples who abstain and drink heavily suggest that couples who drink couples tend to report comparable relationship satisfaction.
But there can be problems, says Kenneth Leonard, director of Buffalo's Clinical Institute, where one partner drinks regularly and the other has been studying the topic for decades. That biased dynamic can lead to increased relationship dissatisfaction and the likelihood of divorce.
The reason likely is complicated, he said, but that couples often drink to connect slowly and may initially lose it at a certain cost. Even if neither party has substance use issues, people often don't realize how stained alcohol is ingrained in their relationship, experts said.
Julie Craft, a licensed marriage and family therapist and co-author of the “Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction,” said the main advantage of “serene and strange movements” and abstinence challenges like Dry January, is that they provide opportunities for self-reflection.
“Do I use alcohol to relieve stress?” she said. “Do I feel like I'm using it to connect with my partner? Do I use it to avoid my partner?” One of the first things she discusses is discussing with a couple who are trying to make changes. It's about brainstorming these spaces and ways to meet your needs.
Davidsons found a connection point that was not accompanied by alcohol, including going to a local cafe on Saturday night to watch live music.
Arthur Tinsley, 41, from Oxfordshire, England, was also afraid that drinking would change his marriage. Although he grew up immersed in British pub culture, in recent years he and his wife have both experienced long-term abstinence, critically looking at their drinking habits.
Sitting together in a lovely restaurant and sharing a bottle of wine was one of his most precious activities. “All the established, habitual ways we are partners have had to change, or are in the process of change,” he said.
What date will they depend on now? “It's going to sound really boring,” he said, “but we're going for a walk.”
Connect with your “why”
When one or both partners work with couples who want to ease or stop drinking, Laura Heck, a licensed marriage and family therapist based in Bend, Oregon, emphasizes the importance of understanding why things are making a difference.
“Each person has to connect with their 'why',” Heck said. She provided her relationship as an example. Her husband stopped drinking a few years ago due to his heart condition. Heck has also abstained like this recently, but not for him. She not only wants to understand better how drinking has become a habit for her, but she also wants to improve the Marathon Times.
Experts also emphasize that partners cannot force change on each other.
“One thing we remind is that their journey is their own,” said Andrea Pain, executive director of Moderation Management, a nonprofit that runs peer support groups for those who want to cut back on drinking. “I have set this new intention for myself, so no one can expect to change what they're doing.”
The Davidsons admit they are lucky. Their marriage was fundamentally healthy before Davidson stopped drinking, she said, and Davidson never felt threatened by her decision, and he refused to derail her efforts.
They found their rhythm. Davidson has been drinking moderately, Davidson is calm. “The way I think about it doesn't mean that if I decide to become a vegetarian, then that doesn't mean that Mike must be a vegetarian either,” she said. “But he certainly won't take me to the steakhouse.”
