ABSTRACT

When the long period of doubt, anxiety, and evidence-gathering culminates in the conclusion that her husband is an alcoholic, what follows might be described as a compassionate crusade by the wife, a time when she seeks to help him or "save" him. This is the beginning of a new period in the lives of the drinker and the spouse: the home treatment-a period with a career of its own during which a range of strategies are tried by the wife in the hope of accomplishing the desired reform. Once again, the reactions of American and Finnish wives paral­ lel each other in many cases, while showing the effects of cultural dif­ ferences in others.