Addicted to Marriage?

In my new role as Medical Director of Jackson Recovery Centers, I have become a member of ASAM, the American Society of Addiction Medicine. I am currently studying the massive textbook “Principles of Addiction Medicine” as part of my educational program in preparation for the certification exam, which ASAM gives every two years. I am hoping to take the exam in December of 2008.

As I plow through this ponderous academic tome, it has occurred to me that particularly interesting pearls of wisdom and factoids of information are just too juicy and too interesting not to just drop everything, run out, find someone and tell them. Maybe it’s just me.

So I thought from time to time I would leave something interesting I have learned here on my blog just to see what you think about it. I don’t know, it might just all be ho hum, but I’m going to give it a go. Here’s something I learned today.

According to a study in 1991, individuals in stable marriages had the lowest lifetime prevalence of alcoholism (8.9%), as opposed to cohabiting adults who had never been married (29.2%).

But wait, there’s more.

According to a study in 1992, individuals who lived with a significant other but had never married had the highest lifetime prevalence of drug disorders. Cohabiting unmarried men had a 50.2% lifetime prevalence of an illicit drug disorder, compared to a 3.6% prevalence for married men. Cohabiting women had a lifetime prevalence of 19.9%, compared to 1.8% among women with a stable marital history.

These numbers raised my eyebrows. I feel smarter already.

Ta ta, for now.