Big Boozing Puts Marriage on the Rocks

Divorce rates highest if woman drinks much more than man
By Mark Russell,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 7, 2013 8:43 AM CST
Big Boozing Puts Marriage on the Rocks
A survey out of Norway suggests that heavy drinking is bad for marriages, especially if the woman drinks more than the man.   (Shutterstock)

'Til booze do us part? A new study out of Norway says that drinking and marriage don't mix—especially if the woman is doing the heaviest drinking, reports the Los Angeles Times. After looking at nearly 20,000 married couples, researchers found heavy-drinking couples had a divorce rate of 17.2%, versus 5.8% for light drinkers. But the worst results came from couples in which the woman is a heavy drinker and the man is a light drinker—a sobering 26.8% of those marriages end in divorce. When the man is the heavy drinker, that rate is 13.1%. "Couples who intend to marry should be aware of the drinking pattern of their partner, since it may become a problem in the future," says a Norwegian health official.

There's more bad news for women (and men) who like their booze mixed with diet soda: A new study found that tipplers who drank a cocktail of vodka and Diet Squirt had a breath-alcohol content 18% higher than those who sipped on a version mixed with regular Squirt, reports Time. The former group also didn't report feeling any more intoxicated than the latter group, and "they didn't feel any different as to how willing they were to drive a car," says a study author. Why Squirt? It's caffeine-free, and researchers didn't want the stimulant affecting the results. (More alcohol stories.)

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