Living with the consequences of an intimate partner's drinking

Heavy drinking is a key factor linked to intimate partner violence (IPV) and related harms. The study aims to examine how intimate partners of heavy drinkers, predominantly women, understand and navigate these experiences and to categorise the associated harmful behaviours and impacts. Using semi-structured interview data collected in 2023 as part of the Alcohol’s Harm to Others (AHTO) qualitative study, we analysed interviews with a sub-sample of fourteen people (ten women and four men) who indicated they experienced harm due to their intimate partner’s heavy drinking. Reflexive thematic analysis was applied, including inductive and deductive coding to address the aims of the study. The themes identified concerned how partners’ drinking led to failure to fulfil roles; socially inappropriate behaviour; and emotional and physical abuse. In turn, partners were impacted by additional responsibilities and having to adapt; emotional distress and psychological effects; and relationship deterioration and breakdown. Women described being more seriously affected than men by their partners’ heavy drinking. Women often attributed their partners’ violence to excessive drinking rather than to gendered power dynamics. Our findings demonstrate that heavy drinking within intimate relationships contributes to cyclical interconnected harms that disproportionately burden women and impact their wellbeing. Future surveys of alcohol’s harm to others should add measures of relationship breakdown, shame and isolation. Impacts of alcohol use should be addressed within behaviour change programs, with men and women discouraged from regarding intoxication as an excuse for IPV. Alcohol-related IPV should be screened in healthcare and community services.