"MARTYR" MATES KEEP ALCOHOLICS ILL

PALMERSTON NORTH, NZ.

The wife who becomes a "saving martyr" while her abusing husband sinks into alcoholic disease actually plays an important role in keeping him ill, according to Victoria M. Fries, assistant director of the Dr. Phillips Alcoholism Treatment Center of Bethel, Alaska.

"She starts to enable his sickness as she gains more and more family responsibility and power, something she's reluctant to give up should he start to get well," she said at the New Zealand National Society on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence meeting here.

"Everyone, of course, recognizes what an awful burden she has and gives her much needed sympathy. Unfortunately, this is done in such a way as to encourage her to carry on her behavior rather than to seek any improvements."

Ms. Fries said the whole family develops rigid roles around the illness which hurts all of them as they seek love and attention any way they can get it. The alcoholic and abusing husband most likely will have a deep sence of guilt and anger but have difficulty expressing these feeling positively. "He often blames those around him for his problems and will generally not be able to see his own need for help.

What one often finds deep inside is a very scared, insecure person, who gains ego strength belittling those around him. He is hurting but does not want to let anyone near." There are many reasons why an abused woman returns to a violent home situation, she said. "If they are not experiencing a martyr syndrome, one should realize that these women love their husbands and they hope he will soon return to what he was like when they married him.

Often, too, women don't have any money with which to leave, and no training or skills to overcome that handicap. Some women even fear for their lives if they should leave. "Then, too, one must be aware of the law of inertia, so true in many counselling situations.

It is easier to return than try to change a seeming hopeless situation. The mere thought to a woman about creating waves and then rocking the boat, it probably doesn't seem worth it to her at this point. If she is depressed she will unlikely have enough energy to do more than get through her day.

Many professionals are eager to split a family up, to help the woman become "liberated and happy," Ms. Fries said. Many fail to understand why she returned to the man, and give up on her when she does.

Unfortunately she then loses her first real ally, someone who could have really been the impetus into helping the family." In helping an abused woman, a counsellor should not forget that other family members desperately need help and understanding. If the husband will not come for counselling, he may begin to learn through the woman and children once they under the situation and begin to cope more effectively with it.

If there is an alcohol or dependency problem in an abuse situation, it must be addressed before other problems can be resolved she said.

THE JOURNAL

DON says: It is very important that the woman, in this situation, contact a counsellor, even though her husband refuses to. She can get advice and hope, to be able to overcome a very unstable and unsatisfactory situation.