[The "addiction trends" seen among the wives of alcoholics].

Abstract

It has been noticed that wives of alcoholics tend to show an unhealthy relation to their husbands characterized by "addiction," which might hamper the recovery of their husbands from alcohol dependence. Generally speaking, the addiction differs from person to person in its strength and its behavioral expression. The present authors thought that it might be helpful for both wives and therapists if the approximate picture of addiction could be grasped by means of a standardized form of questionnaire. The questionnaire, ASTWA, which consists of 24 questions, was designed to make clear the wives' character trends and their addictions. As for the character traits, the obsessive-compulsive tendency and the tendency to low self-esteem were estimated by four questions each. The two types of addiction, "control" patterns and "caring" trends, were tested. The former was checked in two directions, namely "dominating" tendency and "involved" tendency, with four questions each. The caring trends were estimated by eight questions. A total of 162 wives were asked to rate their answers to the 24 questions as 1, 2, or 3, which stand for none, occasionally, or frequently. The test was carried out at various stages of sobriety. A total of 78 married employees of the Mie prefectural government were tested as control. Those whose added score exceeded 39 points were rated to have a tendency to "addiction." More detailed assessments were done in terms of the character traits and the addictions. The wives who scored more than 14 points in the character traits category were considered to have an affinity toward "addiction." The two types of addiction, i.e., "relation addiction," and "care addiction," were clearly demonstrated in this test. It was noticed that in many cases the scores decreased favorably in parallel with the prolonged term of abstinence of their husbands.