[julie23]

One alarming news for women: women drug addicts are on the rise. Read on:

Addiction amongst women is on the rise...

Drug addiction among women is rising steady primarily because women do
not seek treatment as they are afraid. The main reason of their fear is being a mother and that they may be perceived as unable to take care of their children. Drug abusing women run the risk of having their children taken away from them either temporarily or for good, and in South Carolina, of being sentenced to prison for up to 10 years. Women abusing drugs report that their drug addiction was initiated by their drug abusing male sex partners. In addition, research indicates that drug-dependent women have great difficulty abstaining from drugs, when the lifestyle of their male partner is one that supports drug use.

Drug abusing women have no choice but to hide their addiction from their families and authorities. To declare it openly is to sign a social death warrant, and sometimes actually leads to physical death: many women questioned at treatment centers admitted that they had made suicide attempts. Unlike drug abusing men, women drug abusers are unable to hide their guilt of abusing drugs and maintain a false high self esteem as men do because women are unable to blame their drug abuse on external causes.

Drug addiction among women has to be treated differently from their male counterparts. Only 41% of women who need drug treatment actually receive it, and when they do, most programs are based on male-oriented models that are not geared to the needs of women. Women are most likely to benefit from drug treatment programs that provide are geared towards providing comprehensive services for meeting basic needs of women. Addressing the social and family needs of women is the key to successful treatment of women drug abusers. Traditional drug treatment programs may not be appropriate for women because those programs may not provide these services. Research also indicates that, for women in particular, a continuing relationship with a treatment provider is an important factor throughout treatment. Any individual may experience lapses and relapses as expected steps of the treatment and recovery process; during these periods, women particularly need the support of the community and encouragement of those closest to them. After completing a drug treatment program, women also need services to assist them in sustaining their recovery and in rejoining their social file. (Source: http://www.drugrehabhelp.org).

It seems like harder for society to accept women drug addicts than men drug addicts, or perhaps the latter are more prone to doing it than the former? I think regardless of sex or gender orientation, rehab centers should develop programs that can easily adapt to the changes in demographics; else, the alarming rate of women drug addicts will continue to go up, until solutions will be far-fetched.

[ENDOrphine]

It's always so nice to see someone taking initiative to promote women's health issues. Thank you for your concern and desire to spread useful information. It is greatly appreciated.

[Miles]

Sorry to disagree, but this is but another contemptible example of the feminization of American culture. If there are indeed behavioral differences in drug abuse between the genders, then my point that drug abuse is not a “disease,” but rather a choice is emphatically reinforced. Cancer is cancer; diabetes is diabetes; drug abuse is a choice one makes, not a disease. Stop blaming external factors such as the drug, the husband, the responsibilities of parenting, etc.! Drugs are nothing more than inanimate, inert objects that, in and of themselves, do absolutely no harm. It’s when folks make choices to abuse them that problems arise. As I often say, absent free will, we really are pinballs bouncing around in a huge pinball machine. Many here seem to support this inane construct of the essence of the human spirit.

As far as the need to develop gender-specific programs, go right ahead and waste the funds – just don’t use my taxes! No treatment “program” is any more effective than another and none is more effective than no treatment at all.

[PaulRemski777]

Miles,

This is my first post where i actually disagreed with the spirit of what has been written. No personal attack. ..but re treatment programs ..have you ever been in one????

The last detox program I went to they stripped me of all my clonodine (blood pressure/withdrawal symptom med) patches, while I was in a carefully monitored step down protocol. It had taken me 3 weeks to get to a therapeutic level to manage w/d symptoms. The hospital gave me 8.33 % of the med, and i sat next to a nurse sleeping on the job at 3 AM. Forgot to take a picture of that
behavior with my cell phone.

Don't tell me all programs are better than none. I went directly to a motel AMA, after the stereotypical abuse I rec'd, and spared my wife of 33 yrs any w/d symptom nonsense( I am a functional opiate dependent professional, dependency=functionality, addiction=dysfunction, an important word nuance).

Drug and alcohol addiction are both a choice, an act of the will, and a brain chemistry disease. If it were merely a choice/matter of the will, why would there be so many pschological, biochemical and neurotransmitter issues going on in the brains of those dependent or addicted.

Btw, "cancer is cancer, diabetes is diabetes, HMM I am a diabetic of 38 years, got diagnosed on my 15th birthday, and I assure you, I did not choose it...with now over 35,000 insulin (NPH, Lantus, Humalog) injections in my lifetime.

I hope there is constructive dialogue here.

Kind regards, Miles,
Paul Remski


Paul Remski; 16 yrs Chronic back pain patient; 4 wks post detox and returning to work as TBI rehab specialist. Email: PaulRemski@twcny.rr.com

[ENDOrphine]

It's funny you say that gender-specific tax programs are a waste of YOUR tax money. Before 1990, medicine could be prescribed to women even if it had not been tested on them in clinical trials. In 1990, the Women's Health Equity Act was passed, requiring medicines to have clinical trials performed on women before being released into the market. Since women were paying taxes before 1990, and assuming you were born and took some form of medication before 1990, maybe YOUR tax money can be used to make up for some of the tax money paid by women for medicinal research on men.