Alcoholism in Women
Alcoholism can be just as much a problem for women as for men, and in fact there are certain factors women face that men do not.
A key way that alcoholism can be so life destroying for women is related to pregnancy and raising children. Drinking a high amount of alcohol while pregnant can cause birth defects even if you don’t yet realise that you are pregnant. In regards to raising children, if you are a mum trying to raise a family the insidious effects of alcohol may seep into the house leading you to forget to do important things, give your children less and less attention and even perhaps cause accidents in the house, or put your children at risk by being unaware or even unconscious.
There is another category of risk, separate from the above. That is the horrible situation of sexual abuse or rape. While judgement is impaired or completely gone, if you are out in pubs, bars or clubs the unfortunate reality is that it can happen.
While alcohol can be drunk responsibly and within reason, even so-called social drinking can move beyond this level and become a serious problem.
Many women that drink heavily may compare their drinking to men and so think that their quantity of consumption is not that bad. Unfortunately, it does not work that way, because in fact alcohol affects women in different ways to men. Some examples of these are liver inflammation, brain disease, breast cancer and heart disease. See full report here. http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochurewomen/women.htm. Even if the quantity of alcohol drunk is less than a man’s you are still more at risk, as a woman, to those health problems.
