Pubdate: Wed, 02 Aug 2006
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Copyright: 2006 St. Paul Pioneer Press
Contact:  http://www.twincities.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/379
Author: SARA SOLOVITCH, Public Access Journalism
Note: Sara Solovitch is a freelance journalist and former Knight 
Ridder Newspapers reporter.

ADDICTION'S ONE-TWO PUNCH

Abuse, Social Messaging Make Women Harder To Treat

When a man and a woman drink too much alcohol - by far the most 
widely abused substance in the country - they not only do it for 
different reasons, they also get different results.

Where men may use alcohol to feel "powerful," women usually drink to 
fight feelings of hopelessness and anger.

Though women generally drink less than men, the risk of alcoholism 
kicks in a lot faster: Seven or more glasses a week is considered 
risky for a woman, compared to 14 or more for a man.

Alcoholism also carries greater risks to women. Heavy drinking 
increases the chances of a woman becoming a victim of violence and 
sexual assault. Most women who abuse alcohol and drugs - studies show 
as many as 80 percent to 90 percent - have a history of physical or 
sexual abuse.

Women are more likely than men to develop liver inflammation and to 
die from cirrhosis. They are more vulnerable to alcohol-induced brain 
damage and cardiovascular disease. And heavy drinking appears to 
increase the risk of breast cancer, as well as cancers of the digestive tract.

The stigma for using drugs and alcohol also is greater, and it's 
often one of the biggest obstacles to a woman seeking treatment. She 
fears - rightly - that she will lose custody of her children if she 
admits to having a substance abuse problem. Or she's so busy being 
the caregiver that she puts off asking for help, often for so long 
that she develops serious ailments.

The numbers, fairly consistent since the 1990s, say it all: Of the 
15.1 million people who abuse alcohol, 4.6 million are women, and 
only 25 percent of them are in traditional treatment, according to 
the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Women also 
tend to go more nontraditional routes for help with addiction, 
looking to either their doctors, therapists or psychiatrists.

During the past decade, segregated treatment has become a key to 
success for women, providing a more nurturing environment that 
encourages patients, often childhood victims of physical and sexual 
abuse, to open up and talk about the traumas that led to their substance abuse.

"Eighty to 90 percent of the women in our treatment program, in all 
programs, have been significantly abused in their life," says Marsha 
Nadell Penrose, executive director of The Next Step, a 14-bed 
intensive treatment center in Albany, N.Y. "It's a vicious cycle: You 
get abused, which makes you end up drinking. You drink, so you end up 
getting abused."

But many programs fail to address that cycle. And few programs offer 
child care.

The Next Step, one of three women's programs in upstate New York, 
made a deliberate choice not to provide quarters for children, and 
Penrose thinks it's a double-edged sword.

"The women usually feel terribly guilty when they first get here 
because their children are in foster care," she says. "I try to tell 
them to think of this as the only time they can focus just on 
themselves. I tell them, 'You can't take care of your children unless 
you're OK.'"

Some studies, however, show that women-and-children programs are 
twice as successful as women-only programs.

The Mothers' and Toddlers' Program, a National Institutes of Health 
pilot project in New Haven, Conn., works on the premise that 
continued drug use actually "hijacks" the maternal drive pathway that 
emanates from the brain. Over the past two years, it's shown promise 
in resetting the pleasure-reward effect from drugs like cocaine and 
heroin by intensifying the relationship between mothers and their 
young children.

By including children in treatment, "you're tapping into the woman's 
last thing to go - her desire to be a good mother," says Norma Radol 
Raiff, executive director of Sojourner House in Pittsburgh, one of 
only two residential treatment programs for women in western 
Pennsylvania. Like most women's programs, it offers child care, 
therapy and classes on child development, healthy parenting, domestic 
violence, educational tutoring and remediation. Residents get 
guidance on planning menus, with trips to the grocery store to help 
them make healthy decisions.

Today, treatment also may include medication for depression or other 
mental illness, a direct outcome of new acknowledgement of alcoholism 
as a disease that creates a host of other issues for both sexes.

The fact that women get an early start with drinking and drugs also 
shapes treatment strategy. This year, three federal surveys found 
that binge drinking among girls is growing at a faster rate than 
boys. A February report from the White House Office of National Drug 
Control Policy revealed that in 2004, 1.5 million girls started using 
alcohol, 173,000 more than the number of boys who started drinking. 
Girls also outpaced boys in using marijuana at younger ages. The 
report cited stress, such as peer pressure and the trials of being an 
adolescent in a fast-paced society, as causes, as well as eating 
disorders, other illegal drug use, prescription drug misuse and low 
self-esteem.

Girls also find warped messages in advertising and popular culture. 
Three-quarters of the college coeds surveyed in an American Medical 
Association report released in early 2006 said they "use alcohol as 
an excuse to engage in outrageous behavior" on spring break. An 
overwhelming majority - 84 percent - thought images of partying 
college girls contributed to that behavior; even more agreed these 
images contributed to men's dangerous behaviors toward women.

"These survey results are extremely disturbing," said AMA president 
J. Edward Hill, "because it brings up an entirely new set of issues, 
including increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases, blackouts 
and violence."

This younger clientele also translates into a different level of care.

"A lot of them are kids who never grew up and now, frequently, they 
have babies themselves," Penrose says. "They haven't gone through 
their adolescent years and come through the other side. They need 
more support. They're much more emotionally fragile. And it takes 
longer to get through the treatment process."

- ---------------- For a list of women's residential programs updated 
annually by the federal government, go to the Center For Substance 
Abuse Treatment's Treatment Locator Service at 
http://dasis3.samhsa.gov/ or call (800) 662-HELP (4357).
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman