Jealousy, Love and Alcohol, a mixture that does not bode well in certain settings.
So here is a setting that we know all too well, you in the club with your partner and a group of friends having a good time, the alcohol is flowing and you start noticing that your partner is receiving coy glances from other men or women.
Some men take that as a compliment and a huge self-esteem boaster like ‘yeah bud, that’s my girl’.
Others might not be so chilled, especially when you having a bit too much to drink. However a recent study found that people, who find their self-worth in a relationship and think that their partner is going to cheat on them, are known to cope by drowning their ‘perceived ‘sorrows with a strong drink.
The study was done at the University of Houston with 227 people, being asked how much they rely on their romantic relationship to boast their self-esteem, how bad is their ‘green eyed’ monster , how intimate is their relationship and their alcohol consumption.
According to Medical Daily, “Eighty-seven percent of the people that were surveyed were female. The results showed that people whose self-esteem relies on their relationship turned to alcohol because of their jealousy.”
You’re probably thinking females tend to suffer from ‘green eyed ‘monster’ syndrome more than men, but hold on as Dr DiBello, psychologist and lead author of the study says that we all experience bouts of jealousy from time to time as there are many people that are in romantic relationships that are not healthy and use alcohol as a coping mechanism.
“Romantic jealousy is a shared human experience, but very little work has looked at how it is related to alcohol use, misuse, and associated problems. This research helps to highlight the associations between these factors and show how our emotions, thoughts, and behaviours are related in potentially harmful ways.”
It might be true that people who rely on their romantic relationships for their self- worth are more likely to drink but the research showed that it was more prevalent in people who felt disconnected from their significant other, less satisfied and not as committed to their relationship.
Before you jump the gun, researchers were quick to add that, like most things in life; it is not a one-sided affair.
“Feelings of self-worth that are tied to the relationship reflect an unhealthy form of self-esteem put upon the other person in the relationship. In a 2007 study published in College Student Journal, researchers found that both men and women reported using alcohol because of feelings of jealousy in their relationships”.
Unlike the ‘jealousy makes you nasty’, saying; here is a new one for you to remember- jealousy could make you drink.
The crazy bit is that a 2007 study published in the College Student Journal, found that not only can jealously drive you towards the bottle but also towards narcotics. As 21.7 % of women admitted to using drugs or alcohol to cope with jealousy; whilst men prefer their hard liquor with a 49.6 % of men admitting to using drugs and alcohol, however the proportion of men who like knocking back a strong drink was higher.
Sources: Medical Daily, Science Direct, Addictive Behaviours
Alice Paulse
