Women Alcoholics have many odds stacked against them. Physically alcohol affects them differently than it does men and society judges women more harshly than it does a man. Worst of all, men in AA generally do not treat alcoholic women as they would treat their own.
Women Alcoholics face greater risks to their health than their male counterparts. Alcohol increases a woman’s risk of developing serious illnesses such as:
- an increased risk of heart disease,
- liver disease,
- reproductive problems,
- memory loss.
These are just a few.
The effects of alcohol on the liver are more severe for women than for men. Women develop alcoholic liver disease, particularly alcoholic cirrhosis and hepatitis, after a shorter period of time than men. Proportionately more alcoholic women die from cirrhosis than do alcoholic men. In the “late stages” of alcoholism women develop hypertension, anemia, and malnutrition much quicker than alcoholic men, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
A study by the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that a woman’s risk of breast cancer rises with the amount of alcohol regularly consumed. Stopping drinking can reduce the chance of getting breast cancer. The study showed that women who drink two to five alcoholic drinks each day, were 41 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than nondrinkers. Excessive alcohol consumption also increases the risk of several digestive-tract cancers.
Alcohol also causes reproductive problems. The alcohol in the blood is carried into the baby’s bloodstream. Because the baby is still developing, consuming alcohol can lead to a miscarriage. It can also lead to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Effects birth defects, which are irreversible.
Health risk are even greater for the older women. Women are more likely than men to start drinking heavily later in life, and many times their alcohol abuse goes undiagnosed.
Stigma on women alcoholics
Dealing with addiction is hard, more so for a woman than a man. Society judges women more harshly than they would a man. Women are often stereotyped as promiscuous, slovenly, and immoral. Worse when there are children involved, women are considered bad and neglectful mothers.
A.A. approved text in the book “Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers” tells us how it was in the beginning:
However, Dr. Bob showed somewhat less assurance upon first confronting the most troublesome and, in some ways, the most unwelcome minority in A.A.’s olden days – women!
We have already seen some examples of his dismay at the thought of a woman’s coming into the Akron group. “He didn’t know how to handle them,” said Smitty. Others said Dr. Bob felt that the program would not work for women. Just the same, he tried to help several.
Bill recalled “explosions” that took place around the “out-of-bounds romance” and the arrival of alcoholic women at meetings. “Whole groups got into uproars, and a number of people got drunk,” he said. “We trembled for A.A.’s reputation and for its survival.”
Women alcoholics had to overcome a double standard that was even more rigid in the 1930’s than it is today – the notion that nice women didn’t drink to excess. This made it difficult for a woman to admit to the problem in the first place, to say nothing of being accepted in A.A.
Being a drunk is bad enough. Sadly enough many cultures make being a female drunk is doubly shameful even in this day and age. Over the last decades some steps were made forward and some backwards. Generally it is agreed that women are accepted better and more fairly by A.A. than before but there is still much room for improvement.
These are some passages of an article written as recently as February 2013:
Your mother, sister or daughter could be a closet drinker. You probably know it, perhaps consider it a dirty family secret and have run out of ways to camouflage the signs. It could be a matter of time before she’s alcohol-dependent, and you’ll either leave her to fate or seek a way out.
What holds Indian women back from coming out of the liquor closet is the shame of being ident