I agree with Embraced. I think the book is outdated and very heavy on what we unfortunately see here sometimes: poor, poor alkie who needs everyone to understand him and focus on his recovery; and the non-alkie needs to sweep all the misbehavior under the rug and be 'understanding' and put the alkie's feelings first by ignoring ones own feelings of anger, contempt, outrage, sense of fairness, etc... so as the poor alkie isn't burdened by the non-alkie's problems too.
I suppose Bill thought he was right in his 'To the Wives' section, but it really is horrible advice, very very self serving. I suppose he was a product of his times and culture as much as anything else, but he really was a horrible husband and made that woman's life miserable and has no business advising any woman on how to deal with an alkie husband.