A government-funded study looking at why couples drink alcohol discovered that love-birds who drink alcohol together share “increased intimacy,” among other benefits.
The study, conducted at the State University of New York at Buffalo received a total of $592,693 in taxpayer-funded grants, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
The researchers wanted to understand the motivations for drinking alcohol within romantic relationships, as well as the risks, in hopes of addressing alcohol abuse in domestic situations.
“Understanding the relationship-specific motivations for alcohol use, as well as the risk and protective factors associated with relationship drinking processes as they occur in real-time in couples’ natural environments, is crucial to addressing problematic alcohol use in relationships,” the grant application for the project says. “This understanding can ultimately inform prevention and intervention efforts to improve the health and well being of romantic couples.”
Analyzing daily diary entries of 118 couples over the period of 56 days, the researchers found that “women’s relationship drinking is associated with intimacy enhancement, whereas among men it is associated with social effects.”
The day after drinking alcohol together, the couples reported “increased positive relationship functioning.” When couples drank alone or apart from each other, both men and women reported “significantly greater next-day negative relationship functioning.”
The National Institutes of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $100,000 a year for the past five years to fund the study.
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