Couples who share vices may live longer
“Happy wife, happy life” is a phrase thrown around often. The colloquialism means a household is at peace when both partners feel loved and respected. At least in my marriage it does. Prolonged exposure to stress, on the other hand, may lead to mental health problems and maybe a shorter life. Having a quality way to relax is a great way to avoid this issue.
Everyone is different when it comes to mellowing out. My husband enjoys a beer while I like to spark a joint or dive into a delicious pint of ice cream. People find their chill in personal ways. For couples, data points to longer-lasting relationships when people have the same vices.
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Married couples who drink together live longer
The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) surveyed long-standing married and cohabitating couples over 50 in the U.S. every two years from 1996 to 2016. The 4600 heterosexual couples answered at least three waves of surveys to be considered in the study.
Researchers found that those who both had a drink in the last three months lived longer compared to partnerships where one person partook and one did not. These couples also had a higher survival rate than spouses who stayed sober. This data proved especially prevalent among wives. Overall, those whose drinking habits were considered light lived longer.
Sharing drinking habits with a partner will sway one person from fretting over the other. In other terms, less stress. Loving someone who has an unhealthy relationship with alcohol can be highly stressful, which could lead to the higher mortality rate in unmatched spouses. According to this data, couples who know how to release the stress valve a little at a time are more apt to live long lives.
Weed consumption and long-term lovers
When it comes to cannabis, there’s not a lot of research spanning multiple decades, but there are couples in the world with differing weed needs. I consume cannabis medically and recreationally and do so most of the day. My husband doesn’t. He prefers to have a beer or cocktail to unwind. There have been periods when we both consumed cannabis, and I found them to be light and goofy. However, non-smoking times are still rich–just different.
GreenState editor Rachelle Gordon met her fiance, Kurt Kinneman, at a cannabis industry event. Kinneman is sober from alcohol and credits the plant in his recovery. While the pair both consume cannabis, their rate of consumption differs. Kinneman smokes more than Gordon, but she trusts he knows what works for his endocannabinoid system.
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Both couples have individual needs when it comes to the plant, highlighting further that alcohol habits can’t be compared outright with weed. Will they live longer than those who face blunts together on the regular? Only time will tell, but we all hope so.
Couples who share vices stay together?
While alcohol and weed are very different compounds, people use both to blow off steam, relax, or enjoy quality time with friends and loved ones. When it comes to survival rates of cannabis-consuming couples, more data collection is needed to compare directly.
However, according to personal accounts, cannabis contributes to the mental health of these real couples. Good mental health contributes to the happy wife of it all. Provided everyone is consuming safely, stoners may not need to marry fellow stoners to live a long, joyful life together.
