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Show Studies on alcoholic women probably stay with'him if he makes a proper sustained effort to arrest his illness. Mr. Joseph reports that the Utah Alcoholism Foundation, which is the parent organization to the Southern Utah Alcoholism Council, still operates a remarkably successful facility for suffering women alcoholics. The House of Hope in Salt Lake City will give treatment, strength and hope to any woman alcoholic who has an honest desire to stop drinking. For information you may contact Mr. Joseph at 586-8113, or by calling directly to the House of Hope - 359-8374, Salt Lake City, Utah. (Editor's Note: This material has been prepared by Kenneth M. Joseph, Director of the Southern Utah Alcoholism Council and manager of the Alcoholism Recovery Center in Cedar City.) - -:- . .Recent studies have made it possible to isolate certain recurring characteristics among alcoholic women. A review of the literature finds fairly general agreement that a higher than usual incidence of alcoholism exists in the immediate families of these women. A home where the mother is dominant and emotionally distant and the father is weak and passive are more likely to produce alcoholic women than alcoholic men. In a study of 25 alcoholic women at the Washingtonian Hospital in Boston it was found that these women had suffered emotional deprivation in early childhood.1 There was not one alcoholic among the mothers of the 25 alcoholic women studied. However, the mothers could be described as strict, moralistic, nagging or nervous-in general ungiving persons either by circumstances or by nature. Of the fathers of thp 25 women, 40 percent were reported to be excessive drinkers and somewhat weak, and in some instances downright cruel. A home environment of this sort probably fosters a narrow view of self -worth and personal value. Some researchers say that women, more than men, point to a specific incident in their lives which they believe precipitated heavy drinking. These women are more prone to severe depressions and more frequently exhibit suicidal tendencies than would men in the same or similar circumstances. What reasons do women give for drinking? It makes them feel more feminine! It makes them feel personally "worthy!" It makes them feel "valuable" (a threatened woman may well wonder why should I sit here alone and doubt myself when $5.00 will buy enough alcoholic beverage to make me feel like a princess). A woman can truly gain artificial feelings of womanliness, abate self doubt and feel beautiful rapidly but temporarily. Unhappily, but unerringly, heavy drinking eventually makes her feel less of a woman. These new threats to her sense of feminine adequacy can cause her to drink increasingly in-creasingly more heavily and she may become completely dependent on alcohol. Marital problems are common for .alcoholic persons. Unfortunately Un-fortunately for an alcoholic woman her chances are one in ten that her husband will see her through to recovery or stabilization. The reverse is true of an alcoholic man. Nine of ten wives of alcoholic husbands v) |
