Souses' Spouses

Although the wives of heavy drinkers usually complain bitterly about their husbands' behavior, liquor can be the cement that holds the union together. Many a spouse of a souse, the University of Pittsburgh's Dr. William Browne told the A.P.A., has an unconscious need for an alcoholically incompetent mate, because only thus can she be dominant. Curing a husband of alcoholism. Dr. Browne said, may make the wife ill, even drive her to drink.

In every such case studied at two Pittsburgh clinics, the wife knew of her husband's drinking problem before marriage. ("Marriage to an alcoholic is no accident," echoed the University of North Carolina's Dr. John A. Ewing. "Some women repeat it two or three times.") Dr. Browne cited one woman of 27 who had been beaten as a child by her father, kicked out of the house at 14 by her mother, married at 20 to a drunk. She could take these buffetings, but when her husband was cured of his addiction, she deliberately provoked arguments to start his drinking again.

Another woman, 30, rarely drank herself, but when her dipsomaniac husband sobered up after periodic weeklong binges, she became so upset that she went on eating jags, gained 10 Ibs. in two weeks. ''I'd rather he drank." said she simply.

In a third case, both man and wife were recurrent alcoholics, but always out of step: when he drank, she swore off; when he gave it up, she tippled--each partner getting a vicarious satisfaction and feeling of superiority from the other's drinking to the point of incapacity. "Alcoholism tends to preserve such marriages," said Dr. Browne. His prescription : psychiatric treatment for both partners.

Dr. Ewing agreed. Simultaneous treatment of husbands and wives at Chapel Hill has brought better results than tackling the husbands alone. But nearly all the wives have shown resistance because of unconscious motives; some have become so ill as to need hospitalization. and others have openly sabotaged the doctors' efforts to dry out their husbands.

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