The Relationships Among Spiritual Practices, Marital Satisfaction, and Length of Sobriety

Thirty-five married couples participated in this study of the relationships among spiritual practices, marital satisfaction, and length of sobriety. The husbands were recovering alcoholics, and both husbands and their spouses were participants in 12-step programs. The spouse's length of time in a 12-step program was associated with both alcoholics' and spouses' reports of marital satisfaction, the spouse's recovery process inventory and the spouse's general level of spirituality. Alcoholics' length of time in a 12-step program correlated with the spouses' report of marital satisfaction and alcoholics' length of sobriety but not the other measures. The recovery process inventory explained 20 to 27% of the variance in length of sobriety by the alcoholics' and spouses' reports.