I can't add anything that hasn't already been said. It worried me that her mother was an alcoholic so the first drink will trigger her obsession. In other words she will probably need to quit all together and realize she just can't drink at all. True alcoholics cannot "control" it. I hope you attend Alanon. I ended up in therapy from depression that my XAH wouldn't quit. My therapist saw him once on his own. She just said to me one day "he isn't responsible." She told me to give him an ultimatum to do 90 AA meetings in 90 days or we would seperate. He did not go to AA. We seperated and divorced after several years of the merry-go-round. But it was not merry. I got into Alanon. I worked the program I wished he would work. It is scary there are children. You are in the right place and are not alone. It is a terrible disease. The founders of AA and Carl Jung an aqaintanence of Bill Wilson's also believed it was a spiritual malady so hopefully your wife can address issues that cause her to want to escape.