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Stability/Instability in the Alcoholic Marriage: The Interrelationships Between Course of Alcoholism, Family Process, and Marital Outcome
Author(s) -
STEINGLASS PETER,
TISLENKO LYDIA,
REISS DAVID
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1985.00365.x
Subject(s) - psychology , marital status , predictability , alcohol consumption , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , alcohol , medicine , statistics , environmental health , population , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics
Thirty‐one alcoholic families who were originally studied in home, multiple‐family group, and laboratory settings were reassessed two years later to determine course of alcoholism and degree of marital stability. This paper presents data comparing baseline alcohol consumption and family interactional behavior at home with subsequent alcoholism and marital stability outcomes. Findings suggest that the relative degree of stability/instability in these marriages is best understood as a function of the “goodness‐of‐fit” between the relative predictability of drinking on the part of the identified alcoholic and the family's characteristic pattern of interactional behavior at home.