Alcohol drinking among women

Alcohol drinking among women

            Alcohol abuse is a pattern of drinking that results in harm to one’s health, interpersonal relationships, or ability to work. According to Gelder, Mayou & Geddes (2005) alcohol abuse is linked withsuicide. They state the risk of suicide is high in older men who have a history of drinking, also if a person is suffering from depression. Certain manifestations of alcohol abuse include failure to fulfill responsibilities at work, school or home; drinking in dangerous situations, such as while driving; legal problems associated with alcohol use; and continued drinking despite problems that are caused or worsened by drinking. Alcohol abuse can lead to alcohol dependence.

           Alcohol abuse has both short-term and long-term risks. If a person has driven while drunk or regularly binge drinks (more than 5 or 6 standard drinks in one drinking session), they are considered to have been involved in alcohol abuse. Short-term abuses of alcohol include, but are not limited to, violence, injuries, unprotected sexual activities and additionally social and financial problems.

           Alcoholism and alcohol abuse are due to many interconnected factors, including genetics, how you were raised, your social environment, and your emotional health. Some racial groups, such as American Indians and Native Alaskans, are more at risk than others of developing alcohol addiction. People who have a family history of alcoholism or who associate closely with heavy drinkers are more likely to develop drinking problems. Finally, those who suffer from a mental health problem such as anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder are also particularly at risk, because alcohol may be used to self-medicate.

             Since drinking is so common in many cultures and the effects vary so widely from person to person, it’s not always easy to figure out where the line is between social drinking and problem drinking. The bottom line is how alcohol affects you. If your drinking is causing problems in your life, you have a drinking problem.

         What image do you get of when you think of a woman who suffers from alcoholism, or a woman who drinks heavily? Do you think of a “bag lady” sleeping on skid row? How about a promiscuous woman hanging out in bars? Perhaps a lonely and unhappy woman who does nothing but sit in front of the T.V. while slowly getting drunk, or maybe even of a woman who no longer takes care of her children, her husband, or herself?

          As is clear from the stereotyped images of women who have alcohol abuse issues, society is harsh in its treatment of women who drink in excess. Such women may be described as “lushes,” “easy” or “unfit” for parenting. Such women might be hesitant to seek alcohol treatment at an alcohol rehab center fearing the associated stigma of drug addiction.

          What do we know about women and alcohol? Is there a difference between women who have a drinking problem and men who drink too much? Is there a difference between the sexes in their use and abuse of alcohol? Or do the sexes only differ in the ways society treats the male drinker and the female drinker?

           Researches have only recently begun to investigate these and other questions regarding women and alcoholism. Until a few years ago most researchers believed that only about one out of seven alcoholics were female; today, most social scientists believe that of the approximately 14 million problem drinkers in the United States, half of them are women. Does this mean women drink more today than they have in the past? Or are their problems simple becoming more visible? Probably both. But the fact that we are now acknowledging that women make up half the population of problem drinkers has opened the doors to further research on the subject of women and alcohol. Because of the staggering number of women who require treatment, many alcohol and drug rehab facilities have been popping up around the nation. 

            There are also certain groups in our society that are hidden. Until recently, homosexuals, sexually abused women or children, victims of rape, to name a few, were all relatively invisible. If we were asked about them, we might admit they existed but, by ourselves, we usually didn’t think about them because it made us uncomfortable and so we chose to ignore their existence.

            Women who have problems with alcohol also fell into this category. In part they were invisible because they wished to remain invisible, they drank in secrecy and rarely sought outside help. But they were also invisible because they were “protected” by others. Family members, employers, and even doctors often refused to acknowledge that a woman had a drinking problem. They made excuses for her and conspired to keep the problem out of sight. In an effort to examine the problems some women have with alcohol, we much explore how social attitudes, cultural values, and female biology contribute to our feelings about female drinkers in our society.

             According to studies by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, women have continued to have higher risks than men for certain serious medical conditions resulting from alcohol abuse. Some of these medical conditions include liver damage, brain damage, and heart damage.  One of the reasons women have a higher risk is because they achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in their blood compared to men. An increased blood-alcohol concentration causes females to become more impaired than males even after consuming equivalent amounts of alcohol. This leaves them more susceptible to alcohol-related organ damage as well as potential trauma from car crashes or violence. Additionally, it is reported that moderate to heavy alcohol comsumption by women increases the risks for breast cancer.

             The alcohol research field has started recognizing how important it is to understand the gender differences in the development of alcohol dependence. It is no surprise that there are alcohol rehab centers that specialize specifically in the treatment of women. Alcohol treatment can potentially involve several phases, including emotional therapy. Because of this, it is important to speak with a doctor in order to assess the severity of the problem before seeking treatment. 

          The findings in this report indicate that overall rates of any alcohol use during pregnancy declined since 1995. However, rates of binge drinking and frequent drinking during pregnancy did not decline and remain higher than the 2010 Healthy People objectives. These findings are consistent with those from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (4). Among nonpregnant women in their peak childbearing years, the use of alcohol, including the riskier practices of frequent and binge drinking, has not declined . Prenatal drinking patterns are highly predictive of alcohol use during pregnancy .

           Pregnant women who are unmarried and older tend to have the highest rates of alcohol use . Women who drink alcohol are more likely than other women to be white, unmarried, younger, and working full time outside the home. Age is one characteristic that distinguishes heavier drinking patterns among pregnant and nonpregnant women. In this analysis, binge drinking and frequent drinking during pregnancy were more common in women aged 30--44 years, but among nonpregnant women, these drinking patterns were more likely to occur among women <30 aged="" alcohol="" are="" aware="" become="" but="" pregnant="" reduce="" tend="" they="" to="" use="" when="" women="" years.="" years="">30 years are less likely to reduce alcohol use after learning they are pregnant , indicating greater alcohol dependency and difficulty in     reducing or eliminating alcohol use during pregnancy .

               The findings in this report are subject to at least three limitations. First, BRFSS data are self-reported and might be subject to reporting biases, especially among pregnant women who are aware that alcohol use is not advised. Second, because BRFSS is a telephone survey of the noninstitutionalized U.S. population, homeless women, women in homes without telephones, and women who are institutionalized were not surveyed. Both of these limitations could have an impact on prevalence rate s. Finally, because the proportion of pregnant women in this sample who were drinkers was limited, these estimated prevalence rates are subject to variability.

              Heavy alcohol use before pregnancy is highly predictive of continued use, chiefly among older prenatal patients. Because levels of binge and frequent drinking among nonpregnant women have not declined, all women of childbearing age should be warned about the adverse effects of alcohol use, especially high-risk drinking patterns (i.e., binge drinking and frequent drinking), and health-care providers should learn effective techniques for screening for, and intervening with, binge and frequent drinkers.   

The other result that has been anticipate was that drug damage will generally vary more among groups using different drugs. Alcohol and opiates can be used as an example. Both drugs will exhibit the same sort of use distribution. Difference in harm between light and heavy alcohol users will be far greater than the average differences between alcohol and opiate using groups. Indeed, there probably will not be significant average differences between these two group. In other word, the damage a given drug causes depends more on the user than on the drug. 

Lichenoid drug eruptions (LDE) are so called because of their resemblance to idiopathic lichen planus. The first drugs reported to cause lichenoid skin reactions were arsenicals used in the treatment of syphilis. Several causative drugs are now known, although LDE are quite rare in comparison with other drug-induced skin reactions. The lesions can be described as small, shiny, purplish polygonal papules, sometimes with a network of white lines known as Wickham’s striae. They are usually itchy, but can be asymptomatic. The surrounding skin is completely normal. LDE can rarely affect the buccal mucosa; a characteristic white lace pattern may be present.  Idiopathic lichen planus has a predilection for the flexor aspects of the forearms and legs, whereas a lichenoid drug eruption typically has a more symmetric involvement of the trunk and extremities.  Many skin diseases are followed by changes in skin colour. In particular, after lichenoid eruptions and fixed drug eruptions there may be residual pigmentation. Drug-induced alteration in skin colour may result from increased (or more rarely decreased) melanin synthesis, increased lipofuscin synthesis, or cutaneous deposition of drug-related material. Sometimes the exact nature of the pigment is unknown. The pigmentation may be widespread or localized, and pigment deposits occasionally occur in internal organs.

Many drugs have been reported to cause hair loss .The human scalp has about 100 000 hairs, 100 of which are shed daily. Human hair follicles undergo three cyclical stages: the actively growing phase of anagen, which lasts about 3 years and features 80–90% of the scalp’s follicles; the brief involutionary phase of catagen; and the resting phase of telogen, which lasts about 3 months. The telogen phase culminates in the shedding of the hair shaft and at the same time new growth in the hair follicle begins.68–70 Hair follicles produce two types of hair according to the area of the body. Vellus hair is soft and colourless, covering the body surface apart from palms and soles. Terminal hair is the large, coarse, pigmented hair that occurs on the scalp, eyebrows, axillae etc. There are two patterns of unwanted increase in hair growth, both of which may be associated with drug administration. Hirsutism is an excessive growth of coarse hair with masculine characteristics in a female. This is a consequence of androgenic stimulation of hormonesensitive hair follicles. Drugs commonly responsible include testosterone, danazol, corticotropin, anabolic steroids and glucocorticoids. Patients with drug-induced hirsutism may also present with other dermatological signs of virilisation, such as acne.

A large number of drugs of different classes can be responsible for the development of nail changes.  Such changes usually involve several or all of the nails, and appear within a few weeks of drug administration. Nail problems can be asymptomatic or associated with pain and impaired digital function. They are usually reversible on drug discontinuation. Nail abnormalities include Beau’s lines (horizontal notches in the nail plate), brittle nails, onycholysis (separation of the nail plate from the nail bed), onychomadesis (separation of the nail plate from the matrix area, with progression to shedding) and paronychia (erythematous and tender nail folds). The nail can be considered to be homologous to hair and the same drugs frequently affect both tissues.  The pathogenesis of druginduced nail abnormalities is not well understood, but most cases are thought to involve a toxic effect of the drug on the nail epithelia. Other potential factors may be drug deposition in the nail plate, leading to nail discoloration and impaired digital perfusion, causing necrosis of the nail apparatus or damage to the nailbed blood vessels.

 As conclusion,  alcohol abuse is a pattern of drinking that is harmful to the drinker or others. The following situations, occurring repeatedly in a 12-month period, would be indicators of alcohol abuse:Missing work or skipping child care responsibilities because of drinking.Drinking in situations that are dangerous, such as before or while drivingBeing arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or for hurting someone while drunk .Continuing to drink even though there are ongoing alcohol-related tensions with friends and family.