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.