A survey of 123 Al-Anon wives in the Washington, D.C. area revealed that these women delayed an average of more than 7 years after the first occurrence of problem drinking before finally seeking help. The various drinking-related problems antecedent to the wives' seeking help clustered into four time periods composed of similar types of problems; (1) nonthreatening events, such as arrest, occurred 7 years prior to help seeking; (2) acts of physical violence, 5 years; (3) intervention by outside authorities, 3 years; and (4) recognition by significant others that the drinking was out of control, 2 years. The phenomenon of extended delay before recognition of the problem and help seeking is consistent with the paradigm developed from studies of mental patients and their families: pathological behavior becomes defined as a problem only after a long accumulation of bizarre episodes.