The present work is based on research on emotional regulation in partner relationships and alcohol use during the epidemic. In the theoretical part, we define in the first chapter the fundamental role of the relationship, from which the partner relationship is derived, and in the second chapter the attachment styles in childhood and adulthood. The partner relationship is a space where patterns of behaviour and feelings familiar from the primary family are repeated, and a hope that the couple will be able to resolve these disputes in an understanding and respectful way. In a partnership there is a strong sense and desire for freedom and autonomy, but at the same time closeness, contact and understanding, which means acceptance and affection between the partners. In relationships, we want security, emotional warmth and trust, but the path to satisfying intimacy is often paved with our own and our partner's emotional damage, which needs to be healed through compassionate conversation (Gostečnik 1999, 13-5). In the context of facing distress and anxiety, emotion regulation, which we discuss in the next section, is an important internal and external process that is used to adapt and monitor emotional reactions to environmental stimuli (Thompson 1995). Emotional regulation happens without the individual's awareness, conscious control and insight into emotional conflicts (Sotres-Bayon and Quirk 2010, 231-5). Cvetek (2014, 5) states that the inadequate handling of emotions is one of the biggest factors of disintegration in marital and family relationships. She goes on to say that well-regulated emotions help people to have good relationships and a functional life, and contribute to well-being in relationships (6). A regulated emotion in an individual demonstrates their ability to face and recognise, experience and feel an emotion. The experience teaches them to accept themselves compassionately and not to experience themselves as a helpless victim (40). Anxious individuals who are unable to regulate their emotional outbursts use alcohol as a mechanism of regulation, whose use was on the rise during the epidemic. Chapter five focuses on alcohol use, causes of alcoholism, alcohol as a mechanism of emotional regulation, alcohol-related aggression and violence, and the treatment of alcoholism. At the end of the theoretical part, we touch upon the COVID-19 epidemic, which has drastically affected our daily lives, changed and affected our routines and caused unimaginable stress.
In the empirical part, we present our findings based on a sample of 115 participants, 90 female and 25 male, with an age range between 18 and 60 years. In the assessment of the epidemiological impact on the increase in alcohol use, we started on the assumption that due to sudden stress, depression and health risks partners drank more alcohol and found it harder to regulate their emotions. Both claims were rejected. Furthermore, we hypothesised that there was an increase in physical violence and an increase in alcohol consumption among women who had lost their jobs. Both claims were rejected. In the end, we discarded another of the main assumptions that study participants had experience with a parent alcoholic in childhood.
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