TO WIVES

With every man who drinks others are involved; the wife who trembles in fear of the next debauch; the mother and father who see their son wasting away. Among us are wives, relatives and friends whose problem has been solved, as well as some who have yet found a happy solution. Wives of Alcoholics need to address the wives of men who drink too much. What they say will apply to nearly everyone bound by ties of blood or affection to an alcoholic.

This article is to help leave you with the feeling that no situation is too difficult and no unhappiness too great to be overcome. You have traveled a rocky road, there is no mistake about that. You have had long rendezvous with hurt pride, frustration, self-pity, misunderstanding and fear. These are not pleasant companions. You have been driven to maudlin sympathy, to bitter resentment. Some have veered from extreme to extreme, ever hoping that one day their loved ones would be themselves once more. Your loyalty and the desire that your husbands hold up their heads and be like other men have begotten all sorts of predicaments. You have been unselfish and self-sacrificing. You have told innumerable lies to protect your pride and your husbands’ reputations. You have prayed, you have begged, you have been patient. You have struck out viciously. You have run away. You have been hysterical. You have been terror stricken. You have sought sympathy. You have had retaliatory love affairs with other men.

Your homes have been battle-grounds many an evening. In the morning we have kissed and made up. Your friends have counseled chucking the men and you have done so with finality, only to be back in a little while hoping, always hoping. Your men have sworn great solemn oaths that they were through drinking forever. You have believed them when no one else could or would. Then, in days, weeks, or months, a fresh outburst. You seldom had friends at your homes, never knowing how or when the men of the house would appear. You could make few social engagements. You came to live almost alone. When you were invited out, your husbands sneaked so many drinks that they spoiled the occasion. If, on the other hand, they took nothing, their self-pity made them killjoys.

There was never financial security. Positions were always in jeopardy or gone. An armored car could not have brought the pay envelopes home. The checking account melted like snow. Sometimes there were other women. How heartbreaking was this discovery; how cruel to be told they understood your men as you did not! The bill collectors, the sheriffs, the angry taxi drivers, the policemen, the bums, the pals, and even the ladies they sometimes brought home—your husbands thought you were so inhospitable. Next day they would be themselves again and you would forgive and try to forget. You have tried to hold the love of your children for their father. You have told small tots that father was sick, which was much nearer the truth than you realized.

They struck the children, kicked out door panels, smashed treasured crockery, and ripped the keys out of pianos. In the midst of such pandemonium they may have rushed out threatening to live with the other woman forever. In desperation, you have even got tight yourselves—the drunk to end all drunks. The unexpected result was that your husbands seemed to like it. Perhaps at this point you got a divorce and took the children home to father and mother. Then you were severely criticized by our husband’s parents for desertion.

Usually you did not leave. You stayed on and on. You finally sought employment yourselves as destitution faced you and your families. You began to ask medical advice as the sprees got closer together. The alarming physical and mental symptoms, the deepening pall of remorse, depression and inferiority that settled down on your loved ones—these things terrified and distracted us. As animals on a treadmill, you have patiently and wearily climbed, falling back in exhaustion after each futile effort to reach solid ground. Most of us have entered the final stage with its commitment to health resorts, sanitariums, hospitals, and jails. Sometimes there were screaming delirium and insanity. Death was often near. Under these conditions you naturally made mistakes. Some of them rose out of ignorance of alcoholism.

Sometimes you sensed dimly that you were dealing with sick men. Had you fully understood the nature of the alcoholic illness, you might have behaved differently.

How could men who loved their wives and children be so unthinking, so callous, and so cruel?

There could be no love in such persons, we thought. And just as you were being convinced of their heartlessness, they would surprise you with fresh resolves and new attentions.

For a while they would be their old sweet selves, only to dash the new structure of affection to pieces once more. Asked why they commenced to drink again, they would reply with some silly excuse, or none. It was so baffling, so heartbreaking.

Could you have been so mistaken in the men you married?

When drinking, they were strangers. Sometimes they were so inaccessible that it seemed as though a great wall had been built around them.

And even if they did not love their families, how could they be so blind about themselves?

What had become of their judgment, their common sense, and their will power?

Why could they not see that drink meant ruin to them?

Why was it, when these dangers were pointed out that they agreed, and then got drunk again immediately?

These are some of the questions which race through the mind of every woman who has an alcoholic husband.

Perhaps your husband has been living in that strange world of alcoholism where everything is distorted and exaggerated. You can see that he really does love you with his better self. Of course, there is such a thing as incompatibility, but in nearly every instance the alcoholic only seems to be unloving and inconsiderate; it is usually because he is warped and sickened that he says and does these appalling things. Today most men are better husbands and fathers than never before. Try not to condemn your alcoholic husband no matter what he says or does. He is just another very sick, unreasonable person. Treat him, when you can, as though he had pneumonia. When he angers you, remember that he is very ill.