If Not for Yourself, Then for Another
According to the conventional wisdom of the ‘90s, people start to clean up their acts when they have children and realize the impact their bad habits have on another human being’s future.
But not according to University of Michigan researchers. What motivates people even more to give up excessive drinking, illegal drugs and sometimes even smoking are marriage, commitment and accountability to another adult.
In their huge study, “Monitoring the Future,” the researchers analyzed data from more than 33,000 young adults who have been surveyed every two years up to 14 years after leaving high school. They found that young adults, stunned by the fact of their own freedom, often act like balloons with the air let out. Once they leave home, teenagers increase their use of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. But once they marry or even get engaged, the use goes down. If they divorce, the use goes up again.
“Part of it is just being with someone else who cares about you and vice versa, often enough so that you don’t want to be stinking drunk or whatever,” said Jerald Bachman, a researcher at the Institute for Social Research and one of the authors of the book “Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use in Young Adulthood: The Impacts of New Freedoms and New Responsibilities.”
Just living together doesn’t make much difference, he said.
Neither does marriage have much of an impact on smoking. “That’s a behavior that doesn’t depend on going out to bars or parties,” he said. “The only appreciable dent in smoking is among pregnant women.”
Having children does change some habits--mostly among women. Indeed, the drop in heavy drinking and drug use is dramatic among pregnant women, but Bachman chalked it up to the changes in lifestyle that come with mutual commitment.
Looking back over a history of substance abuse that began when he was 11, one Los Angeles entertainer said he’s convinced the basic problem has to do with relationships and feeling unloved. “My thing was about loneliness,” he said.
Now happily married with children, he said his drinking interfered with finding a partner. “When I didn’t have anybody, the drinking was the only friend I had. . . . I was never able to stay in anything because of the use of these things. When [the relationships] ended, my alcoholism skyrocketed.”
After years of therapy, he said he was motivated to change only when a psychiatrist refused to treat him until after he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, he said his wife of seven years can barely believe the stories of his former life. His family provides continuing motivation to keep his act clean.
“I’m totally committed to my marriage,” he said. “I have so much more at stake now. God forbid if I ever took that first drink. I’d lose it all.”
Fortunately, Bachman and his colleagues stopped short of recommending early marriage or frequent pregnancy to help people avoid substance abuse. Nor would they discourage young adults from leaving home.
While the risk for worrisome drinking and drug use definitely increases in the first years of young adulthood, Bachman said many of the patterns are set when people are teenagers. The study provides another reason for kids to try to avoid excesses before they ever leave high school, he said.
The conclusion may be appear to be common sense. But, Bachman observed, “Common sense works best in retrospect.”
* Lynn Smith’s column appears on Sundays. Readers may write to her at the Los Angeles Times, Life & Style, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053 or via e-mail at lynn.smith@latimes.com. Please include a telephone number.
Once they leave home, teens increase their use of alcohol, marijuana and cocaine. But once they marry or even get engaged, the use goes down.
