Pubdate: Mon, 09 Feb 2004
Source: Daily Times, The (TN)
Copyright: 2004 Horvitz Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.thedailytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1455
Author: Steve Wildsmith

WOMEN FACE DIFFERENT ISSUES IN ADDICTION

Just For Today

Men and women face a lot of the same problems when it comes to drug
addiction -- but there are gender-specific issues that each must contend
with to get better.

Women, specifically, come into recovery grappling with damaged self-esteem
and feelings of self-loathing that they eventually must face in order to get
better. That's one reason that recovery urges newcomers to avoid starting a
new romantic relationship for the first year, because it's all too easy to
substitute our drugs for another person. It's painful to deal with what's
wrong on the inside, so rather than address it, we seek someone to fix us
and comfort us the way we sought solace in the drugs.

And as broken as my spirit was when I first entered recovery, I can't
imagine what some of my sisters must have gone through: abuse, prostitution
and other humiliating and degrading lows that addiction brought them to.

I can't explain to women seeking recovery what it's like for them during the
healing process, just as they can't explain to me what it's like for them in
their active addiction. But I sat down with Dawn M., a recovering addict
like myself and a close friend, and talked with her about issues women face
in addiction and recovery.

``I think in active addiction, women have a lower self-esteem and feel that
they can't find somebody to treat them as they deserve to be treated, to
treat them with the self-worth that they need to treat themselves with,''
she said. ``And they wind up, most of the time, with men or people that are
controlling, physically abusive, mentally abusive or emotionally abusive. It
can come in a whole package of all three, or one or two.

``The combinations are endless, and they get to a point where their dope is
their escape. Their dope is their self-worth, and it's hard to recognize
that, because you're in such a bottomless pit emotionally and mentally, and
it seems like a hopeless state. You don't recognize that there is a light at
the end of the tunnel, and you don't know that there is a way out. At some
point in time, you sit back and look at your life and think, `This is all I
have and all I'm worth,' and you sink further into that abyss.''

Dawn, who's been clean for almost 18 months now, is in the process of
getting her life back on track. She's a responsible mother today, and even
though she realizes she has a long way to go, to see her come as far as she
has is a blessing for me.

Her moment of clarity, she said, came when she realized her addiction had
robbed her of a relationship with her newborn daughter.

``I realized when my daughter was 6 months old that she didn't know who I
was,'' Dawn said. ``I was out partying, and when I was home, I was caught up
in the drama of the using life and emotionally cut off from myself and her
and pretty much anybody I loved and cared about.

``She didn't cry for me, she cried when I held her, and I allowed that to
push me further into addiction and push me into numerous unhealthy
relationships with men while I was separated from my husband.''

Although her marriage didn't work out, recovery did -- even though she was
resistant to the idea at first. Having entered the program when she was 22,
she struggled for months over whether she was ready to give up drugs for
good and turn her life around.

``I thought the recovery meetings were retarded -- a bunch of people being
emotional and sappy and lovey, and it made me feel very uncomfortable,'' she
said. ``I didn't want to open up and share about the problems that I had,
because it just didn't feel right for me. But I started to attend an
Intensive Outpatient Program and had the choice not to go, because I had
gone back to my husband after having lost my daughter to him through the
court system.

I chose to still attend the I.O.P., not so much because I was done using,
but emotionally I was worn out. I needed something different in my life. I
needed it to go in a different direction, and nothing I had tried in the
past -- not religion, not men, not drugs -- none of it worked. So I decided
to try it, and my whole life changed.''

It wasn't an instantaneous transformation. Recovery never is -- after all,
we didn't become addicts in one day, so we're not going to heal in a single
day, either. The process can take months or years, and even after we've
dealt with the baggage of the past, we continue the process to become better
people in the future.

``I started to attend meetings regularly and just listening,'' she said. ``I
started to allow myself to feel a lot of things that I was afraid to feel,
but I did it within the support group of recovery and slowly gained back
that relationship with my daughter, who at this time was 8 months old.

``Since I've been in recovery, I chose to take myself out of the
relationship with my husband, and I've learned to be a wonderful mother and
to be true to myself and respect myself in all aspects -- emotionally,
mentally, physically.

``I just went through the process to learn not to use drugs, and slowly I've
reaped the benefits of not using. The program promised me that I would never
have to use again if I followed it, and I haven't used, but I've also picked
up many wonderful benefits along the way.

``I guess in short, I've become one of those respectable women I never
thought I could be,'' she added. ``I don't go to bed anymore wishing I would
never wake up. I don't sit in the bathroom floor anymore cutting my arms
with a razor, wishing I had enough strength to cut deep enough to end the
pain, or doing it to see if I could still feel pain because I was so
emotionally numb from the abuse, the drugs and the stress that comes along
with the lifestyle.''

Just as women in recovery were there to help her and continue to support her
today, Dawn has involved herself with the program, doing service work and
sponsoring women entering the rooms for the first time. She isn't perfect,
and her life isn't perfect -- but because of recovery, it has a beauty and a
luster she never found during her addiction.

``I think there's a lot of emotional attachments to recovery for women,''
she said. ``Naturally, women are more emotional for whatever the reason:
hormones, attitude, society. We're just more emotional. But by no means are
we weak, nor do we have to be weak. I've seen some very resilient women in
this program that have come through so many things and grow stronger all the
time.

``A lot of times there is the wreckage of the past that goes along with what
we did to score our dope -- for lack of a better term, the sins that we
think are unforgivable. Sometimes, it's hard to come to that place where we
realize that we are forgivable -- that what we've done to ourselves, our
children, our marriages, our families, that it is forgivable. Because in our
heart of hearts, that's not who we are. We just suffer from something we
don't know how to control. And that's why recovery is there.'' 
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MAP posted-by: Josh