Probably more than 1,000,000 American women are Victims of alcoholism. Here are the shocking facts.

THE HOUSEWIFE’S SECRET SICKNESS

By DON MURRAY

In every American town, on almost every “The neighbors never knew,” one green, shaded street, live housewives who are recovered alcoholic woman told me, “that my desperately ill but who do not seek the bedroom floor was skid row.” The Fairfield treatments which are available. They remain County (Connecticut) Council on Alcoholism has prisoners in their homes, isolated by their own estimated that there are nine hidden alcoholics guilt and hidden by their families’ shame. These for each one who is known. lonely, terrified women all suffer the same secret The woman drunk is protected by their sickness: Alcoholism. husband, her parents, her children, her family The woman alcoholic is rarely seen physician. In a good neighborhood there is a intoxicated by her neighbors, but she exists just conspiracy of discreet silence. The woman the same. “There are just as many woman alcoholic is treated for “female troubles” by her drunks in the suburbs as men, perhaps even family doctor and admitted to the private hospital more,” says Mrs. Thomas Delaney, founder and for “a nervous disorder.’ Her name does not director of CHR-ILL (“chronically Ill”) Service, appear on the police blotter and, when the and its alcoholism information center in East woman alcoholic dies, there is rarely an autopsy. Orange, New Jersey, which is operated under The cause of death is listed delicately as “heart the auspices of the Essex County Medical failure.” Association. Despite this protective conspiracy, the Her experience is supported by Dr. woman alcoholic is beginning to reveal herself Marvin Block of Buffalo, New York, chairman of and to seek treatment. I have attended meetings the American Medical Association’s committee of Alcoholics Anonymous – once a on alcoholism. Says Doctor Block: ”In my own predominantly male organization – where there practice, alcoholism is as common among were as many women as men. The number of women as among men. And I have found that women coming for help to the sixty-one the same thing is true with other private alcoholism information centers affiliated with the physicians who treat alcoholic patients.” National Council on Alcoholism is increasing Statistics on alcoholism in the United steadily. States – 80,000,000 drinkers; 5,000,000 male The problem of the woman drunk is as alcoholics; 850,000 female alcoholics – do not old as the grape, and there is no evidence that yet reflect the facts as they are known by the percentage of women drinkers who become workers in the field, and for good reason. Such alcoholics is increasing. What is startling is the estimates are based on public records, and most fact that today most young women drink in women alcoholics remain hidden. college, in bars on the way home from work, in “The stigma of being a woman alcoholic the suburbs after they are married. The woman is so great that women with a drinking problem who has never had the first drink cannot become hide it,” according to Mrs. Marty Mann, who is an alcoholic. Since World War II the number of founder and head of the National Council on woman drinkers has multiplied dramatically and Alcoholism. Most women alcoholics are secret so, inevitably, has the number of women who drinkers who satisfy their compulsion with cannot control their drinking. primitive cunning. Take a drive through a pleasant New Jersey suburb with Mrs. Delaney, as I did, and

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you’ll begin to see the dimensions of the apartments. “Career women come to us too. problem of alcoholism in women. They take care of their parents or seek a career “She has five children, and she’s been in a man’s world, sacrificing everything for sober five months this time,” Mrs. Delaney told success, and then something happens. In one of me grimly. “She’s a lovely girl when she isn’t those apartments over there is a young woman drunk. She was married in her teens, and she with a Ph.D., but she’s a drunk. was an alcoholic as a teen-ager too. Meet her “She’s been in to see us, but she isn’t and you’d like to have her for a neighbor, yet ready for help yet.” Mrs. Delaney pulled away she’s been in and out of half a dozen mental from the curb. “Her employees don’t know, institutions and tried about every cure there is. although they may be wondering why she’s sick Last time she hit bottom, and she may make it so many Monday mornings. She’s a falling down now. Some have to go all the way down before drunk, but her booze is delivered, and you never they can start up.” see her on the street. If you met her, you As we drove off, I thought of what a wouldn’t suspect it. She’s charming, graceful, member of the Fairfield County Council told me. intelligent – and very sick.” She said, “We have 12,000 alcoholics, but the When we arrived at her office, Mrs. alcoholics have 60,000 people in their Delaney summed up our trip, “People think of immediate families. We think they are all the woman drunk as an old hag, a blowzy involved in the problem of alcoholism.” creature who would never live in a nice “This isn’t the Bowery, is it?” Mrs. neighborhood. They won’t believe that people Delaney brought me back to New Jersey and they know are alcoholics, and therefore they pointed to an English manor house set high on a won’t help them get treatment. That’s the double lot. “The woman who owns that home is trouble. They won’t admit alcoholism is a in the hospital now. She’s a physical wreck who disease and that the woman who has a serious looks at least twenty years older than her real drinking problem could be their next-door age, fifty-eight. You’d never think she was a lush neighbor, their best friend, even a member of if you met her. She’s a lady – genteel, soft- their own family.” spoken, gracious. Information from authorities on Mrs. Delaney nodded sadly. “It’s an old alcoholism across the country confirms Mrs. story. By the time her children grew up and left Delaney’s picture of the woman alcoholic. “The home, her husband was a success. He traveled large majority of the women alcoholics I know a great deal, and she was left alone. She never are best described by the word ‘dainty’” writes drank in front of anyone, but she started to drink Mary C. Clark, executive director of the alone; and after he died, she rarely left the Monterey Peninsula Council on Alcoholism in house, didn’t even get dressed for weeks. Time Carmel, California. “Their portrait is in pastel turned upside down, until night was day and day tones, the skin delicate, the voice gentle, the was night. She drank until she passed out and manner feminine.” Sarah A. Boyd, director of the drank herself into oblivion again. We never Berks County Committee on Alcoholism in would have found her if she hadn’t gone to Reading, Pennsylvania, has found that the doctor for another ailment.” average woman alcoholic is of superior “Why didn’t her children do something?” I intelligence, has a better-than-average income, asked. is usually between thirty-six and fifty years old “They didn’t know,” Mrs. Delaney smiled. and has two or three children. Mrs. Boyd’s “Women alcoholics are the most convincing liars experience confirms the National Council on in the world. She wrote them about her busy life. Alcoholism estimate that less than 3 percent of When they wanted to visit, she’d tell them she all confirmed alcoholics are derelicts. was going to Europe, or something. Only once in Reports from alcoholism information a while did she make a heroic effort to dress up centers in Houston, Honolulu, Cleveland, and face them.” Detroit, Greensboro, North Carolina, and other We drove on until Mrs. Delaney parked cities – as well as conversations I have had with in front of a group of expensive garden physicians, psychiatrists and recovered

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alcoholics – all indicate that the woman alcoholic can “earn” the dividend, if she needs a drink may be shy or vivacious, young or old, too busy before going to a party and another after she or too idle, married or single, but they all have comes home, if she drinks alone, if she plans one thing in common: There is a vacuum in their social occasions which will give her an excuse to lonely lives that they desperately try to fill with a drink, if she “sweetens” her own drinks, if she bottle. “needs” a drink to face a crisis, she’d better The woman alcoholic has lost her way in watch out. life, and drinking has become a way of living. If she blacks out, lies to herself and “Instead of facing reality, they try to change it others about the number and the strength of with a drink,” one psychiatrist told me. Mrs. drinks she has had, drinks “the hair of the dog” Delaney adds, “They all need a crutch to get in the morning and hides a reserve supply, then through life. They try alcohol, then they find they she is in trouble and should seek help can’t get along without it.” immediately. Doctor Block adds some advice of For years alcohol seemed an efficient his own: “Pay attention to valid criticism from crutch. With a drink in her hand the too-busy those in your family who care about you. If they mother finds the momentary stimulation to face are worried about your drinking, don’t pass it off another chore or a moment of calm in the – consider it. They may have something to worry confusion of children’s demands, errands and about.” social obligations. The bored woman finds a Too often the woman speeds past all warming hour of fulfillment, another hour of warning signs and becomes an alcoholic. Then fuzzy contentment and, finally, a night of liquor controls her life, then the next drink is oblivion. more important than anything else – the care of According to a studies at the Yale Center a child, the love of a man, her health, her home, of Alcohol Studies in New Haven, Connecticut, her reputation, her God. As her thirst begins to and elsewhere, women alcoholics tend to start rule her life, a woman runs head on into a drinking later in life than men, and then progress double standard. Among men, heavy drinking is faster through the final stages of alcoholism than often taken as a sign of virility, and the phrase, males. Yet there are usually long years while “Drunk as a lord,” is a tribute. No one ever said they are clear-headed drinkers, while they have approvingly, “She was drunk as a lady.” The no hang-overs, while they still drink heavily by woman with an unquenchable thirst must lead a choice. But somewhere they cross over the line. life of unrelenting deception. They take a drink as a stimulant before a party One recovered alcoholic told me she and another as a sedative afterward. Insidiously used to slither down the side of her bed and the drink becomes all things at all times. Social crawl to the bathroom to make sure she wouldn’t affairs are planned as an excuse to drink, the fall and develop revealing bruises. A woman five-o’clock cocktail becomes a reward – and a alcoholic will hide a jug in the diaper pail, fill the daylong goal. Getting the first drink – and the hot-water bottle with Scotch, stash a fifth in the dozens which inevitably follow – becomes a way vacuum cleaner, spike the vinegar bottle. A of life. career woman with perfect eyesight wore Alcoholism is a progressive disease, with spectacles with thick, uncorrected lenses to hide permanent danger signals for the woman who her bloodshot eyes. One woman fooled her will allow herself to see them. The National husband by keeping gin in the water carafe by Council on Alcoholism, the members of her bed; another buried half-pints in cereal Alcoholics Anonymous, physicians and boxes. psychiatrists and other experts recognize the Many women keep changing doctors so same warning signs along the road which leads one won’t catch on to the true nature of their from the drink which is chosen to the one which disorders. Mrs. Elizabeth D. Whitney, executive can not be refused. director of the Boston Committee on Alcoholism, If a woman has become “a slow cooker,” has known several women who drank perfume delaying dinner so there will be time for an extra for its alcoholic content, so their breath wouldn’t Martini, if she insists on mixing the drinks so she smell of whiskey. Vanilla extract has been a

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staple of women alcoholics for generations, as uncorrected for major offenses and then has his have many patent medicines with high alcoholic bike taken away for a month for trivial content. Many of these tonics and elixirs are still misbehavior. One daughter does not have a popular in rural areas and among elderly birthday party, but her sisters and friends are women. treated to birthday lunch in the private dining A woman with a drinking problem room of a fancy restaurant. develops an extraordinary ability to rationalize. The road of the woman alcoholic is not She needs a drink because she is tense, and an easy one. A.A. experience has shown that a she needs another to perk her up; she drinks mother who is a drunk loses the respect of her because her husband is away on a business children earlier than a drinking father does and trip, and she drinks to celebrate his return home. is less likely to win it back. Husbands are more Women alcoholics may not always fool others, apt to divorce an alcoholic mate than a woman but they almost always deceive themselves, and is. A woman usually has economic reasons to that self-deception is the most dangerous of all, stick with her husband. He is a feeble reed, but for it keeps them from seeking and accepting he may be her only support. treatment. When a woman “blacks out,” an The ability of a woman with a drinking experience shared by all alcoholics and a problem to delude herself is astonishing. “I only universal danger signal, she suffers a special drink sherry,” is a popular, self-righteous refrain horror at the thought of what might have that may hide the fact she drinks half a gallon or happened while she was unconscious. It is more a day. A Connecticut mother, who is now a biologically and psychologically impossible for a member of A.A., knew she didn’t have a drinking woman to be casual about blackouts. There are problem because she never touched a drop until promiscuous women drunks, of course, but the the children were in bed. Of course, she kept infidelities of a woman alcoholic are more often putting them to bed earlier and earlier in the imaginary than real. Much of the scorn heaped afternoon and then drinking until she passed on the woman alcoholic implies that she has out. Another A.A. member told me she been sexually uninhibited. Mrs. Mann of the convinced herself she was not an alcoholic, National Council on Alcoholism has a blunt because she always hung her clothes up neatly answer to that supposition. “Who wants a before she blacked out. drunken woman?” she asks. “When men are Richard Silver, executive director of the interested in her, she’s only interested in the Seattle Committee on Alcoholism, has found next drink. When she passes out, she’s that husbands often encourage such dangerous vulnerable, of course, but it isn’t likely that self-delusion by denying their wives’ alcoholism. anyone will take advantage of her. She’s hardly False pride prevents many a man from admitting an attractive woman by then, and her virtue is his wife could be an alcoholic. Worse still, he usually quite safe.” prevents his wife from facing her problem, the According to such authorities as John T. first step in any successful treatment of the Crane, executive director of the Flint (Michigan) alcoholic. Committee on Alcoholism, the woman alcoholic The woman alcoholic has particular is likely to be a plateau drinker who keeps difficulties because she is a woman. As a wife herself on an even keel, although she is and a mother her erratic behavior has a consistently sodden and awash like a bashed-in devastating effect on her family. Mrs. Delaney dory floating just under the surface of the water. has found that the woman alcoholic is usually a Many experts feel the compulsive woman perfectionist who swings wildly from one drinker usually has more serious emotional ills, emotional extreme to the other. She cleans the in addition to her alcoholism, than the male – entire house at once, or doesn’t wash a single and of course, no treatment can be given until dish. She refuses to allow her husband near her, she is sober. Her nervous system sometimes or smothers him with aggressive affection. She triggers heavy drinking in the premenstrual will have no guests in the house and then invites periods, or during the menopause. Mrs. twenty to a formal dinner. Her son goes Delaney, who also runs a rest home for

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alcoholics, finds that women drinkers are likely which once kept the victims of tuberculosis and to suffer extreme physical damage in a short cancer from receiving treatment. Education is time. She believes that the physical ravages of changing the public attitude on mental illness. heavy drinking cut deeper in the female than in The same process of illuminating truth is the male. removing the dark shadow which falls over the Most alcoholics suffer extreme woman alcoholic. malnutrition from drinking without eating. Today the facts about alcoholism can be Cirrhosis of the liver, the fifth highest killer of obtained from the National Council on men and an increasing disease of women, is not Alcoholism, 2 East 103rd Street, New York City, caused by the amount of liquor drunk but by the or its sixty-eight affiliates which operate sixtylack of proper food. Women alcoholics often one alcoholism information centers in twentyconfuse their loss of appetite with the will to diet, seven states and the District of Columbia. There and drink but do not eat – a certain road to also are tax-supported agencies working with physical ruin. alcoholics in thirty-nine states. The techniques of Modern drugs offer a special hazard to the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program the woman. Doctors often casually prescribe have been proved by the lives of more than barbiturates, bromides and tranquilizers to calm 250,000 members, and groups can be reached their nerves, ease their female difficulties, cure through a great many local telephone books or their insomnia. Mrs. Delaney believes the by writing Box 459, Grand Central Station, New woman alcoholic is particularly addictive, and York City. One of the best books of many on Alcoholics Anonymous has issued a special alcoholism is Marty Mann’s New Primer on pamphlet on the subject of drugs and the Alcoholism, published by Rinehart and Winston. alcoholic. For whatever the psychological facts When the Boston Committee on may be, the person who depends on alcohol to Alcoholism was formed sixteen years ago, it was face life is likely to let drugs take control of him the first of its kind. Now Mrs. Whitney, it’s too. In some especially tragic cases a woman founder, can say, “This is what we tell women who has won the struggle to stop drinking is set who come to us today: The stigma of being a off on a binge by cough syrup liberally laced with woman alcoholic is being removed, and alcohol, or she substitutes capsules and pills for treatment is available for every woman who the bottle until she finally becomes a drug wants it.” addict. Once the housewives’ secret sickness is With or without the problem of drugs, the brought into the open, it then can be healed woman alcoholic faces a long, lonely struggle, successfully. but she can face the future with hope today. THE END Education has already removed the stigma

Source: Saturday Evening Post, January 27, 1962

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