A study was published in the Journals of Gerontology B: Psychological Sciences on June 27th that announced findings indicating couples that drink together are happier.

The study evaluated the happiness of older couples in correlation to their alcohol consumption and found that happiness was more common in older couples that had similar drinking habits, whether it be that both partners drank or abstained from drinking.

The study also found that couples that had conflicting practices in alcohol consumption were less happy. If one partner in the couple drank and the other abstained it was shown to lead to an increase in unhappiness, specifically for wives in heterosexual relationships.

The sample was drawn from across the U.S. and included roughly 8,000 participants both married and unmarried over the age of fifty. Dr. Kira Birditt, one of the authors of the study told Reuters that it isn’t necessarily the alcohol that leads to the happiness but “it could be that couples that do more leisure time activities together have better marital quality.”

The study also found that 20 percent of the males and 6 percent of the females studied had a serious drinking problem. This is indicative of the casual attitudes Baby Boomers have towards alcohol that is thought to be leading to an increase in consumption.

Image Courtesy of Cheon Fong Liew via Flickr