Who Could Ever Compete With The Moon? The True Stories Of The Astronaut Wives Club

The Wives Were So Stressed They Turned To Drinking And Drugs

Photo by Herbert C. Lanks/FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

While some of the wives like the ever collected “Saint Louise” managed to hold it all together, a lot of the other women turned to substances to help them get through the stress. Not just gin and tonics and bourbon, but tranqulizers too.

“Yes, some of us did ask our doctors for a trauqilizer for limited times, just to handle the barrage of reporters and the neighbor’s predictions that there would be accidents. It was nerve wracking,” one of the wives said. Susan Borman, the wife of Apollo 8 astronaut Frank Borman, became so reliant on alcohol that she had to go to rehab.