Addicted woman

A few glasses of wine with dinner, a few beers after a stressful day at work, a drink after an argument with my husband, maybe even two. When your thoughts are restless in bed in the evening, it is best to take the appropriate pill – white for sleep, blue for a better mood, pink, so that the heart does not pound. The line between the norm and addiction is thin. It is worth asking yourself whether you have already exceeded it.

Into the swamp on high heels

Alcoholism is a disease that can affect anyone. Although Poles drink less and less strong drinks, women are struggling with the addiction more and more often.

Who is an alcoholic? He is an elderly, dirty man in tattered clothes, well known to the district attendant. There is no work. He still lacks money, so he lives in a communal cubicle without electricity and water. He invites his friends for a glass and arranges libations. He takes care of his physiological needs under a fence, he sleeps in ditches. Sometimes he gets into a melancholy mood, then he feels sorry for himself and shows pictures of children he has not seen for years, and he has not remembered their names for a long time.

More and more modern alcoholics do not fit this stereotype. They get drunk alone, with the curtains drawn. At work, no one suspects that they drink, because they can hide the disease even from their loved ones for many months. The case comes to light only during checkups or an unexpected visit to the hospital, because suddenly liver problems begin. They do not buy alcohol in the nearest store, so that no one becomes suspicious, only in different places on the way from work. Very often they only drink one type of drink, such as Malibu or French Orange Vodka. Nobody would say that they look like the types that gather every day at six in the morning in front of the neighborhood grocery store. First of all, because the modern alcoholic is more and more often a woman.

Educated, lonely

Alcoholism statistics can be astonishing. According to research by Dr. Janusz Sierosławski, a sociologist from the Department of Alcoholism and Toxicomania Research at the Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology in Warsaw, in the group of men most at risk of developing alcoholism are men aged 40 to 49 with primary education, the unemployed and rural residents. Divorced people drink more than married people, widowers and bachelors. In the group of women, the data are exactly the opposite. Most often drunk by women with higher education, living in big cities and working professionally. According to statistics, female students and women aged 40-49 are most exposed to alcoholism.

Statistically, only one out of 10 men suffering from alcoholism will be abandoned by their partner during treatment. In the case of women, 10 out of 8 will be left alone! A woman who publicly admits her addiction is a shame. Alcoholics trying to sober up rarely also find support from their parents or siblings. Most of the women seeking anti-alcohol therapy do not have to fear rejection, because they have been … lonely for a long time.

There are 3 times more abstinent women among women than men, but on the other hand, the number of women drinking is increasing. According to the data from the Central Statistical Office on the demographic development of Poland for 2007, Poles live healthier and healthier. As a result of information campaigns, within 15 years, about 15% changed their diet, thousands quit smoking, tens of thousands gave up drinking strong alcohol in favor of wine and beer. Unfortunately, changing drinking habits has proved dangerous for women. Although everyone knows that wine is safer for health than vodka, not everyone remembers that you can get drunk with it and become addicted to it.

No taboos

More and more is being said about women alcoholics. Are they a byproduct of our time, of living in a successful and competitive society, where they too have to find a place anew, since they won the right to be more than a wife and mother? Or maybe it’s easier to drink today because fewer and fewer people care what we do in our homes? According to the psychologist Michał Szot, women’s alcoholism comes out of the shadows, among other things, because we are more and more exposed to loneliness.

– Family relationships are looser today than they were 100 years ago – says the psychologist. – If a girl moves to a larger city, starts studies, rents a studio, starts work, often there is no one to take her hand and ask how many drinks she drinks before going to bed. Alcohol most often accompanies sexual contacts in today’s urban edition – quickly, anonymously, with anesthesia. In city singles groups, heavy drinking is the standard rather than the exception.

Women more and more often work in professions previously considered typically male. In order not to be ignored or not accepted in the environment, they begin to adopt the rules of the group. “Equal grandmother” can curse violently, abuse subordinates and put a bottle down when a friend has a baby. Policewomen, city guards, female soldiers, but also high-ranking ladies drink more often than teachers or nurses.

A contemporary alcoholic is less and less often a marginalized woman accompanying local derailed people in their libations. He can mask the effects of drinking well with careful make-up, reduce unpleasant hangover symptoms with modern pharmaceuticals. He knows how to make art of hiding his addiction, because although he drinks like a man, he is ashamed of alcoholism like a woman.

Thirsty genes?

Until a few decades ago, alcoholism was not considered a disease, but a “weakness of the spirit”, “excessive playfulness” or even as prompts of impure forces. It was first recognized as a disease in the mid-twentieth century by the American physiologist Elvin M. Jellinek. However, he believed that the tendency to alcoholism was solely a male domain. It soon turned out that he was wrong.

Research conducted at the end of the XNUMXth century showed that alcoholism is a disease with a complex genetic background, which means that many genes are predisposed to it, not one or two, as in the case of hemophilia. If a boy receives a mutated clotting factor deficiency gene from his mother, he will develop haemophilia, and environmental factors are irrelevant. This is not the case with alcoholism – environmental and psychological considerations are just as important as genetic baggage. Hence, the reasons for addiction should not be found only in family history.

American research conducted in 2004 shows that the drinking model of a woman is largely identical to the drinking model of her immediate environment. The wife drinks like a husband (beer, but 4 a day), friends (weekend libations) or siblings. The result may be that if you drink the same amount, your wife and husband will suffer different consequences – she will become an alcoholic and he will not, or vice versa. Addiction may occur more quickly in women who are tolerant to alcohol. A “strong head” is, in fact, a very biologically dangerous gift. Vomiting, loss of emotional control, headache, and the unpleasant hangover experience are natural processes that signal most of us that alcohol is harmful. Those who are deprived of this early warning system will become addicted easier and faster.

The neurological and biochemical aspects of alcohol dependence are very complex and are still being researched. In short, it comes from the imbalance between the mechanisms that stimulate and slow down brain processes. The organism, namely the central nervous system, has to adapt to the presence of the poison. Alcohol slows down brain reactions, so the nervous system turns off the mechanism that normally causes it. The GABAergic system slows down the work, and the activity is additionally increased by “called for help” – receptors whose task is to activate the brain. As the effects of alcohol wear off, the stimulated receptors continue to do their job. To stop hyperactivity and undefined anxiety, the easiest way is to “take the medicine” or drink.

Follow the thread to hell

There is no one way to addiction. The one who drinks a few glasses of wine with dinner every day and the one who gets drunk every weekend can become an alcoholic. It is certainly dangerous to believe that “I am not in danger of alcoholism”.

– Since I heard as a teenager that smoking cigarettes disqualified candidates for military pilots, because it proves their mental weakness, I have become the enemy of all addictions – says 3-year-old Izabella, fitness instructor, alcoholic who has not been drinking for XNUMX years. – I never smoked, I did not drink alcohol until my second year of studies at the University of Physical Education. Then I drank a beer or two for company, because everyone around me was drinking and at first glance they were not overwhelmed by their strength of character. I was absolutely sure I was the last person who could get addicted. I changed my mind only when I drank half a liter of vodka for the first time, I didn’t feel any effect and in the middle of the night I went to the gas station to buy a second bottle.

A statistical woman becomes addicted to alcohol in almost two times less time than a man. This is due to many factors. Let’s start with the fact that alcohol is absorbed and metabolized differently by the female body. If a man and a woman drink 100 grams of vodka, after some time the concentration of alcohol will be higher in the woman’s body, according to some studies the difference can be as high as 40%. This is because a woman’s body contains less water, so the alcohol “dissolves” in less fluid. In addition, the woman has a less active gastric enzyme, which is responsible for the first stage of alcohol metabolism. It has been observed that in women who are already addicted to alcohol, the mentioned gastric enzyme does not work almost at all, so the first phase of metabolism, which takes place in a man, does not take place. For this reason, women with alcoholism can get drunk almost immediately, contrary to the belief that the more one drinks, the more tolerance to alcohol increases. The rate at which alcohol is absorbed and neutralized in a woman depends on the phase of the menstrual cycle. Although scientists have not yet been able to fully investigate and explain this process, it is now known that the effects of estrogens cause a woman to get drunk faster in the premenstrual cycle than before ovulation.

Addiction may progress faster in women, e.g. because they hide their addiction better and much more often than men. Since the common opinion of a drinking woman is still more negative than that of a man, ladies control their behavior more carefully – they avoid showing themselves in public under the influence of alcohol, they are less likely than men to go to work drunk or get drunk on name day. This means that, without seeing the consequences for a long time, they later confront the problem.

Faster for help

Although the ladies hide their addiction more meticulously, according to statistics, they seek professional help faster and more often. Nobody knows that they are drinking, and then suddenly they announce that they are going to a therapy lasting several months. Women in general seek therapeutic help more often than men, probably because they are “more appropriate”. Even though a sensitive, affectionate man is no longer considered a freak, there is still the perception that a man should deal with his problems alone.

Since the effects of alcohol abuse affect women relatively quickly, it is not surprising that the statistics say that women die more often than men from alcoholism. They suffer from liver damage earlier, and the nervous system lets them know that something is wrong. An addicted person experiences anxiety faster, has trouble sleeping, and eating disorders.

Ewa Woydyłło, a psychotherapist working with alcoholics, in an interview on the specificity of the treatment of female addicts, says that although it is not easy for women to recover from addiction, it is worth sober up: “It is easy for women in one case. It’s so easy to become beautiful again. Women recover spiritually faster than men, they find the way to faith, to new experiences. It takes years for a man to change, to come out of the role of a lame, a brute. After all, alcohol degenerates terribly. And women are not so much. Women become good people faster when they start sober. They have less resistance to change for the better. They start to look after others and help. They are catching up.

Sober up

Alcoholism is incurable in the sense that the patient will never gain full control over the amount of alcohol they drink. Even a few years after the end of therapy, he will not be able to drink a little wine with dinner, believing that he can stop the bottle at any moment. So there is only one way to recovery – stop drinking completely.

The first step to sobering up is always confronting the problem. It is worthwhile to summarize the gains and losses and answer the question of how much drinking alcohol takes away from life and how it affects the immediate environment. Do you give up some pleasures for alcohol, limit contacts with someone, neglect someone? If so, you need to play math for a while. Writer Stephen King started treatment after a segregation order was introduced in Maine. He noticed that he collects several dozen empty beer cans a week. You also count how much you drink a month. The next step is to confront your loved ones. You have to get to talk to them, talk about the problem and ask how your behavior affects their well-being.

– My eight-year-old daughter wrote in a letter to Santa Claus that she would be happy to give her bicycle to poorer children, if mum was healthy – Marianna recalls on the forum for sober alcoholics.

– Up to this point, I thought I could cheat her, tell her that I had a headache and lock myself in the room with the bottle. I started drinking seriously after my divorce and felt that I was only hurting myself. It was only when Ola showed me how afraid she was that I decided to undergo treatment. The very next day I went to the clinic.

The support of loved ones is a valuable gift in the sobering-up process. Whether it’s a husband, friend or mother, it’s worth having someone who understands that therapy is a hard and long process in which tides of hope are intertwined with days of complete self-doubt. If there is no such person, the alcoholic has to fend for himself. Because he’s sober primarily for himself.

The main method of treating alcoholism is psychotherapy, which lasts from 18 to 24 months. At the beginning, it is carried out in stationary institutions and day wards, unless the patient needs a dozen or so days earlier stay at the Department of Alcohol Abstinence Treatment. After the end of inpatient therapy, patients are encouraged to continue psychotherapy in outpatient clinics, Alcoholics Anonymous groups and Abstinent Clubs. According to various studies, between 25% and 60% of people treated permanently stop drinking.

Cure – privately, publicly?

According to the Act on Upbringing in Sobriety and Counteracting Alcoholism, an alcoholic is entitled to free drug addiction treatment, even if he or she is not insured. The main method of treating addiction in drug addiction treatment facilities is psychotherapy, while the medical procedure has a supportive dimension and is focused on the treatment of alcohol abstinence syndromes, pharmacological support of psychotherapy, diagnosis of harms resulting from alcohol use and referring people who require somatic treatment to specialist treatment.

You can ask your family doctor about choosing a facility or find a clinic yourself. Treatment is carried out in a stationary, day or outpatient system. The decision should be consulted with a specialist.

The wealthier often choose therapies in private centers, preferably located somewhere in the forest, by a lake, far from home and … a liquor store. A monthly stay with meals, full psychotherapeutic care and entertainment program costs from 3 to 8 thousand. zlotys. Before leaving, however, it is worth making sure that we will be in the hands of real specialists.

Show me your liver

Liver trouble is one of the most common causes of premature death in alcoholics. Damage to the liver by consuming excessive amounts of alcohol not only impairs the functioning of the organ itself by disturbing its metabolism, but also negatively affects the work of other organs. The liver is primarily damaged by alcohol metabolism products, incl. acetaldehyde. Inflammation develops at the site of the lesion, and it is difficult to heal if the patient continues to drink alcohol. Over time, scarring forms where cells die, and scarring is one of the hallmarks of cirrhosis. Women are more likely to develop alcoholic hepatitis, and cirrhosis develops when they drink less alcohol.

Liver damage caused by drug abuse is somewhat different, although it is just as dangerous. Each drug goes to the liver to neutralize toxic substances. Although this largest chemical laboratory regenerates quickly, it is not indestructible. Studies show that women are more likely to damage their liver from medication than men.

For sleep, for a better mood, and for …

You can already find a cure for almost anything in pharmacies. Maybe with the exception of a drug that helps to easily recover from drug addiction.

Drug addiction appears to be less dangerous than alcoholism. A person taking sleeping pills or tranquilizers does not have a row, does not spend the entire wages on drugs, and is less likely to behave funny in company, the more so because he appears only sporadically. The changes taking place in her body, however, are the same, and because of their violence, they are sometimes even more dangerous than the effects of alcohol abuse. Since drugs became more available and widely advertised, millions of people around the world have become addicted to drug addiction. Addiction to painkillers, sleeping pills or mood-boosting drugs is not only used by movie stars anymore. Tens of thousands of Polish women live with the conviction that they will not survive a day without a laxative, aspirin or a sedative.

The risk increases with age

As with any addiction, different pathways lead to drug addiction. According to WHO statistics, the risk of drug abuse increases with age. The older we get, the more ailments and fear for our own health are. People over 60 years of age consume up to 10 times more medications not prescribed by doctors than people in the 15-25 age group. Unfortunately, women are in the lead in infamous statistics. If the number of drug addicts increases at the same pace as before, soon in highly developed societies their group will be equal to that of alcoholics. In recent years, there are mainly young drug addicts. Taking substances to improve mood has become fashionable. “Happy as if he had eaten Prozac” is a new term for a euphoric person who is euphoric.

Joanna, twenty-eight, had always taken more drugs than the others, but she hadn’t realized it. She thought that every child on a rainy day gets an aspirin before going to school, a tablet with a cross for the slightest pain, and for the onset of a cold, nasal drops, polopyrin and three vitamin C. Because their parents took a lot of medicine and it became obvious to her that the correct way to deal with the first symptoms of any disease. During her studies, she did not want to leave the house without taking prophylactic “strengthening” pills. When she saw a dermatologist with a skin ulcer, the doctor shocked her with a reaction. Instead of giving ointments or pills, he sent her to… an addiction treatment center! In therapy, she met very different people. An elderly woman who became addicted to painkillers after an accident and months of hospital stay due to complicated fractures of the bones of her legs. A young girl with a disturbed sleep rhythm, who was able to take a packet of sleeping pills before the therapy and still stay awake for two days. He keeps in touch with some and knows that they have failed to overcome their addiction. Joanna declares that she has won. Currently, he treats all ailments with homeopathic preparations. She says she may be taking more than the others, but at least no one can say that they are harming her.

The line between taking medications wisely and addiction is very thin. We believe too much in the benefits of modern pharmacology, and we rarely ask doctors about all the effects of taking medications. It must be remembered that some of them, such as opiates and barbiturates, are extremely addictive. Everyone who takes drugs regularly, even if only “innocent” vitamins without consulting a doctor, should think about their attitude to drugs. Addiction has many dimensions. Even those preparations that do not cause physical dependence by disrupting the metabolic cycle produce psychological dependence fairly quickly. The first symptoms of addiction can easily be confused with excessive fatigue. It can be absent-mindedness, trouble concentrating, excessive irritability, a feeling that reality is moving away from us, lower body temperature, inactivity, apathy. Then it only gets worse.

Three worse than one

Drug addiction takes place and manifests itself differently depending on the substance the patient has become addicted to. Barbiturates are considered to be the most exposed to the risk of causing addiction – agents with a hypnotic effect, which include, among others, Cyclobarbitan and Luminal. They act by suppressing the activity of the central nervous system, side effects include mood deterioration, impaired judgment, and drowsiness. Acute poisoning is extremely dangerous, because barbiturates disturb the respiratory system, and their metabolism and excretion from the body is very slow, so severe kidney and liver damage may occur. Sudden withdrawal may lead to death, because the previously artificially suppressed neuronal activity does not return to normal, but becomes very high, which negatively affects the operation of all systems. According to some statistics, women overuse barbiturates twice as often as men.

Benzodiazepines are considered less addictive, but also very dangerous when used alone by patients. In the 90s, the World Health Organization warned that the number of people addicted to benzodiazepines, ie substances with sedative, hypnotic, anxiolytic and anticonvulsant properties, was growing. She recommended doctors to prescribe the treatment very carefully, preferably no longer than 4 weeks. Many doctors have underestimated and are still underestimating the problem. The patient most often demands a quick solution to a health problem, and the easiest way is, of course, a pill, one of the dozen available on the market. In addition, the treatment cannot always be shortened, and many patients arbitrarily take higher doses of drugs without consulting a doctor. They mistakenly assume that since one tablet brings some relief from suffering, three tablets will do even better. Unfortunately, it is exactly the opposite – an increased dose of a sedative can cause anxiety and irritation, and in addition impair the functioning of the liver, kidneys, and the immune system. Since discontinuation of the drug produces unpleasant results, instead of reducing the doses, patients seek prescriptions from other doctors. Although currently there are fewer benzodiazepine drugs, their counterparts are also addictive. There are many drugs from this group available on the Polish market, incl. Relanium, Validol, Signopan, Oxazepan, Nitrazepan, Xanax, Elenium.

Not an easy way out

Physical dependence on the drug causes the body’s work to change enough to cause symptoms of withdrawal syndrome when the supply of the substance is stopped. When a patient tries to stop taking a drug from the benzodiazepine or barbiturate group on her own, she may experience many symptoms: digestive system disorders, blood pressure changes, headaches, hand tremors, and many psychological symptoms: unjustified anxiety, irritability, emotional lability. The withdrawal syndrome may progress even with the onset of delirium and seizures. The decision to overcome the addiction must therefore be associated with seeking professional help.

Drug addiction therapy is different from alcohol therapy. First of all, it is longer because it is more difficult to eliminate physical dependence. Detox from alcohol takes several days, and the process of recovery from addiction to certain psychotropic drugs takes up to several months. Doses of the drug should be reduced slowly and gradually under the supervision of a psychiatrist, because abrupt discontinuation of drugs used, for example, in the treatment of depression, carries a great risk, and many patients attempt suicide. As with the treatment of alcoholism, psychotherapy is preceded by detoxification, most often performed in a hospital. The next stage is psychotherapy. One of its goals is to convince the patient to replace taking medications with alternative, safe methods of treatment. For headaches, you can use compresses, massages, aromatherapy treatments, and even exercises in the swimming pool to get rid of constipation – spend more time on physical activity, change your diet to one containing more fruit and fluids.

One can become physically addicted to drugs within a month – often a dozen or so are needed to recover from the addiction. When taking any tablet without consulting a doctor, increasing the self-prescribed dose, or even taking a prescription from a doctor, we should always ask the question: do I really need it?

We help you survive the magic circle

Elżbieta Kalinowska, clinical psychologist from the Private Center for Addiction Therapy and Psychological Assistance Polana (ul. Oleandrów 5 m. 8, 00-629 Warsaw, tel. 0 22 825 00 45):

– After discontinuation of drugs or during it, if it is done on an outpatient basis in constant contact with a doctor, psychotherapy of the addicted person can be started. The goal of therapy is to help the patient learn to better cope with emotions without the need to use mood-altering chemicals. The main problem of addicts is their inability to experience different situations emotionally. When emotions arise, such a person focuses primarily on how to quickly stop feeling what they are feeling – which makes chemicals that act directly on the brain (alcohol, drugs, drugs) an attractive solution for them. Such a person is focused on escaping from experiencing, and thus from himself and his reality, and not on solving problems. This creates a situation where problems pile up and the person feels worse and worse. A vicious circle of problems, running away and deteriorating well-being is closed. Moreover, as a result of increasing tolerance, drugs lose “their miraculous power” and do not actually bring the expected relief over time, the doses are gradually increased, which causes more and more havoc both in the psyche and in the body of the person. Psychotherapy allows you to break this magic circle and start life without having to run away, but you have to remember that it is a long-term process.

People addicted to drugs – taking psychotropic drugs without medical supervision or in doses exceeding the recommended ones – should first of all contact an addiction treatment center, because dealing with this problem, especially at the beginning, requires the cooperation of a psychiatrist and a psychotherapist. The initiative to start treatment and seek help should rest with the person experiencing this problem. It would be a mistake to wait for such a suggestion from the GP. Addiction is not an in-office phenomenon. You need to know a person’s exact situation and how they are taking their medication, and this can only be known from what the person or someone in their family says. Thus, the GP may be unaware of the patient’s existence of this problem and may even suggest the use of sedative medications if he considers that the overall temporary situation warrants such an intervention.

Text: Sylwia Skorstad

Source: Let’s live longer