One of the greatest factors in a woman choosing drugs and alcohol is past abuse. The CAMH reports that “One in five women has been sexually abused in childhood. One in two has been sexually assaulted or has experienced attempted sexual assault as an adult.”

And that abuse continues on the street where female addicts continue to be brutalized and abused. In the article below, the author states that, “Women become addicted to substances more quickly than men, and they more often die from substance abuse problems than do men.” That’s sobering, isn’t it!

Read the article for more information. To hear the story of one graduate of the Teen Challenge GTA program, click here.

A Short History of Female Addiction in America

February 17, 2009

When it comes to addiction and recovery, women face a unique set of challenges. Research has shown that women become addicted to substances more quickly than men, and they more often die from substance abuse problems than do men. In addition, women have been traditionally underrepresented in substance abuse research studies and treatment groups. Because of this, the effects of drug abuse for women are far less understood.

What research there is concerning addiction and women indicates that women encounter different health problems, and that they progress through treatment differently than men. Women need treatment approaches and strategies that are tailored to their physical and psychological needs. Dr. Stephen R. Kandall, M.D., author of Substance and Shadow: A History of Women and Addiction in the United States—1850 to the Present, addresses in his book the face of female addiction in the United States over the past 150 years. Some of his key points are discussed here.

In American history, drug abuse among women is not a new phenomenon. As early as 1782, it was recorded that women on Nantucket Island would commonly take “a dose of opium every morning” (De Crevecoeur 1981), Unfortunately, most women who took opium and laudanum (an opium-based painkiller) came by it through their physicians. Laudanum was widely prescribed during this era as a catch-all painkiller, used to treat everything from headaches to tuberculosis.

Throughout the early 20th century, as more substances became controlled or outlawed, female addicts suffered increasing stigmatization. With scarce formal help available to them, women generally had two choices: resort to the black market to sustain their habit, or kick their addiction on their own. A small percentage of women had the good fortune to have addiction treatment programs available to them, some of which were successful. However, the majority of addicted women became dependent upon a “criminal underworld, facing lives of social marginalization, degradation, and shame.”

From the 1920s through the 1960s, contemporary studies estimated that women represented around 25 percent of all addicts in the country. Women developed addictions most commonly through self-medication, association with other addicts, and through receiving inappropriate doses of opiates from their physicians. In addition, nurses represented a large segment of female addicts.

In the 1950s, prescription psychotropic (mood-altering) drugs underwent a drastic growth in popularity and women were overrepresented among users. These drugs were recommended by physicians as “happiness pills” or “peace of mind drugs.” In attempting to deal with the particular psychosocial issues of women in the 1950s, doctors echoed earlier use of laudanum with prescriptions of these potent psychoactive substances.

By the 1960s, addicted women were stereotyped and socially marginalized as “hard-to-treat ne’er-do-wells.” Although a few treatment clinics existed at this time, formal help for women remained scarce. As in earlier times, most women engaged in doctor shopping or connected themselves with a criminal element to support their habit. Narcotics addiction was viewed as a man’s disease, in large part because law enforcement authorities paid greater attention to the violent crimes typically committed by male addicts than crimes such as theft and prostitution committed by female addicts.

In the 1960s and 1970s, arrest rates for women rose greatly, and the types of crimes they engaged in also changed. In addition to theft and prostitution, women were being arrested for drug sales, burglary, auto theft, fraud, and embezzlement (Silverman 1982). Narcotics arrests among female juveniles rose from seven per 100,000 population to 150 per 100,000. Prior to the 1960s, most drug arrests were heroin-related. However, the Haight-Ashbury hippie counterculture introduced a generation of young people to an astonishing array of drugs, including narcotics, psychedelics, barbiturates, and amphetamines. Experimentation with drugs was rampant.

In the 1980s, women rose from one-quarter to one-third of all addicts in the United States. The advent of crack seemed to pull an even greater proportion of women in to the cycle of addiction and committing sex acts for money or drugs. In addition, this behavior exposed women to the AIDS epidemic. In the early 1990s, the number of women in the criminal justice system tripled, largely due to increased rates of drug use. Women were also receiving increasing blame for drug use during pregnancy, with the media focusing its attention on “crack babies.”

Over the past 150 years, female addiction in the United States has followed certain themes. According to Dr. Kandall, these themes are crucial for understanding the current circumstances of female substance abuse. These themes include the following:

• Women have always made up a substantial proportion of addicts
• Female addicts come from various racial, social, economic, and geographic backgrounds
• A significant component of female addiction is the “inappropriate and excessive medication of women by physicians and pharmacists and through self medication”
• The unique role of women as the primary caregivers of children is linked with the marginalization of women who are addicted
• Addiction for women is strongly linked with sexuality, including dominance and exploitation by men
• Drug use by women was not formally addressed until the 1970s, even though it was known about for more than a century prior
• Drug use and addiction by women is linked to unique stresses such as disproportionate incidence of physical and sexual abuse and reduced economic, social, and political expectations in comparison to men.

Find the article here.