How A Little Weakness Becomes A Big Problem

How a little weakness becomes a big problem

It usually takes a man 7-10 years to become an alcoholic. The "weaker" sex goes from the first glass to severe alcoholism in just five years. How female alcoholism differs from male alcoholism, is it possible to pass it on by inheritance, and why is it more difficult to cure female alcoholics, says Petr Ivanov, deputy chief physician of the Medlux Anti-Alcohol Center in Maryino.

The peculiarities of physiology and psychology sometimes allow a fragile woman to be much stronger and more stable than a man. But there are difficulties that women find it much more difficult to deal with. One of them is alcoholism. How female alcoholism differs from male alcoholism, is it possible to pass it on by inheritance, and why is it more difficult to cure female alcoholics - in a lecture by the deputy chief physician of the Medlux Anti-Alcohol Center in Maryino, Peter Ivanov.

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In a previous conversation, Dr. Ivanov told Mednovosti about when a glass of wine in the evening turns into a real addiction and how to help a loved one return to normal life and not fall into codependency from an alcoholic.

How women become alcoholics

Dangerous empathy

The development of female alcoholism requires a significant external impetus. And most often male alcoholism becomes such an impulse. The presence of a drinking husband makes a woman completely concentrate on his problems. She tries to save him from falling into the abyss, to protect him from the negative influence of an unhealthy environment and, of course, drinking companions. Due to such an active participation in the problems of her husband, a woman involuntarily plunges into the reality around him, and at some point the struggle turns into empathy, and empathy - into alcoholism.

The desire to help a drinking man, in the end unsuccessful, can force a woman to try to get closer to her husband - for example, through joint libations. And, since alcohol dependence in women develops more rapidly than in men, very soon the wife reaches the same stage of alcoholism, which was her husband at the time of the beginning of the struggle with his disease. As a result, very often women who were active fighters for sobriety in the past become patients of clinics for combating alcohol dependence.

It's easier for men to ask for help

There are significantly more male patients in anti-alcohol centers than women. And the point here is not only that there are not so many drinking women in general as there are male alcoholics. And the fact that it is much more difficult for women to admit that they have become addicted to alcohol.

Too late, the fact of the woman's alcoholism and her loved ones becomes apparent. Unlike men, who have no shame in sitting with friends in a bar or pouring a shot of vodka during Sunday lunch, women are shy about their desire to drink. That is why it is very easy to overlook the beginning of the disease: women, as a rule, drink secretly, often starting with "harmless" drinks - sweet liqueurs, cocktails or champagne. And, since neither the woman herself, nor her relatives notice anything threatening in such behavior, the development of alcohol dependence can occur rapidly.

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Heredity matters

It is better for everyone to abstain from alcohol, but those who have had cases of alcohol dependence in their family should be especially careful: the propensity for alcoholism is inherited. At the same time, if a man who is addicted to the "green snake" has every chance to overcome the disease and return to normal life, then for a woman with a genetic predisposition to alcoholism the risk increases many times over. The desire to hide their addiction to alcohol and some physiological and psychological characteristics of the body in combination with the "memory" of DNA can lead to disastrous consequences.

How female alcoholism differs from male alcoholism

Addiction to alcoholism

Here, the "weak" half of humanity has an obvious advantage: according to estimates, the number of women drinking is no more than 35% of the total number of alcoholics in Russia. This is not surprising: not only genetics, which is responsible for metabolic processes, play a role here, but also the psychological propensity of women for stability and self-preservation.

In addition, many hearth-keepers simply have no time to even think about the fact that it would be nice to drink a glass or two of wine in order to calm the anguish or relax. A modern woman who not only takes care of her home and family, but also provides her financially on an equal basis with a man, has no time for champagne - she would have time to sleep!

But that's where the benefits end. In all other respects, female alcoholism is much more dangerous than male alcoholism.

Course of the disease

According to statistics, it usually takes men 7-10 years to become alcoholics. The "weaker" sex goes from the first glass to severe alcoholism in just five years, and only in the last stages of the disease can the problem be taken really seriously by loved ones.

The rapid development of the disease is associated with the characteristics of the female metabolic system, or metabolism. If we compare a man and a woman with the same body weight, who drank the same amount of alcohol, then the following pattern can be traced: a woman will get drunk much faster. Scientists have long found an explanation for this phenomenon: the fact is that a woman's body has much fewer enzymes that can break down ethanol. Because of this, metabolic processes slow down, alcohol stays longer in the stomach and upper intestines, due to which the concentration of alcohol in the blood increases.

At the same time, the degree of the destructive effect of alcohol on the body also increases. In a relatively short period of time, a woman who abuses alcohol may develop cirrhosis of the liver, stomach ulcers, and serious disturbances in the functioning of the central nervous system.

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Is it possible to be cured

If we talk about methods of treatment, then for narcologists and psychologists who work with people suffering from alcohol dependence, in general, it does not matter what gender their patient is. The complex of emergency and outpatient measures will be adjusted in accordance with the individual characteristics of the human body, and not with the letters "M" or "F" in the corresponding column of the hospital questionnaire.

However, significant differences between male and female alcoholism make the process of treating the fair sex much more time-consuming and difficult, and no doctor can guarantee a positive outcome in this case. Hence the opinion that female alcoholism is incurable. However, in the first stage of the disease, alcohol addiction treatment specialists manage to relieve painful cravings for alcohol. And the sooner relatives of a drinking woman admit that there is a problem, the more chances are to save her.