Alcohol Awareness – Alcohol and Relationships

Forward Leeds is encouraging people to test their knowledge of alcohol and relationships

We have created a short quiz to encourage people to think about mental health and drinking

How can drinking alcohol affect our relationships?

Alcohol is a psychoactive drug it changes the way we feel and the way we think

It can make us more likely to make swift decisions and poor choices. This may mean we start arguments and get into fights we later regret

If we drink regularly, we may be ignoring the needs of our loved ones or not fulfilling our responsibilities in a relationship, as a parent or a partner or even as a friend.

Someone else’s drinking can also impact us. We may feel that we are always coming second to our loved one’s drinking, or that they’re not there for us when they are drinking either physically or emotionally 

Drinking can make our sex life worse.

How can our relationships affect our drinking?

If you are in a close relationship with someone who drinks heavily, or many of your social circle drink heavily we are much more likely to drink heavily too.

Our drinking may become a way of coping with the bad relationships.

Stresses at home like financial concerns or a crisis in the family may lead us to drink more

A death in the family or a break-up can be a prompt causing us to increase our drinking to unhealthy levels

Just being on your own or feeling isolated can also cause us to drink more than we should – to counter the effects of being lonely.