Outside AA

ABOUT 700,000 of the nation's 41/2 million alcoholics are women, says Dr. Edith S. Lisansky, Yale psychologist. Most women alcoholics, according to her study, fall into the "respectable" rather than the "public nuisance" class because they drink at home. They largely avoid arrest and hospitalization and "manifest a relatively good degree of social integration . . . taking small swigs all day long sufficient to dull the edges of reality but not enough to hamper their functioning seriously."