Women and Drugs

Female Substance Abusers and Addicts Heroin is a highly addictive substance which is characterized by a rush of biophysiological symptoms such as a rush or feeling of euphoria, heaviness in one's extremities and a certain element of dry mouth (rehab-international.org).

When it comes to heroin and gender, either gender can become addicted to it in a brief amount of time: "Addiction to heroin is characterized by the compulsion to use heroin despite an onset of negative consequences and despite the user's best attempts at stopping via willpower alone" (rehab-international.org). For women, one of the more common traits of heroin abuse is rather detrimental: the acquired tolerance means that greater doses of heroin have to be taken in order to get the original effects of the drug.

When women are under the influence of the drug, they may engage in unsafe sexual activity, actions which can lead to STDs, unintended pregnancies and a range of emotional issues. Furthermore, with women who shoot heroin intravenously, there's also a risk of hepatitis and AIDS from using needles. This paper looks at the proactive and startling trend of female heroin users, and why heroin use from this particular gender is on the rise. This paper attempted to determine the specific motivations for women in using heroin as compared to men.

In the article, "Women Heroin Users" by Susan Beckerleg focuses on the choices and lifestyles of female heroin users in a touristy, coastal town in Kenya and collected data on their daily lives through ethnographic techniques. Of the sample participants, 18 women engaged in questionnaires about their reproductive health and wellness. The data was gathered and analyzed with a focus on the victimization of these women in terms of social strata and lack of opportunity: these absent opportunities often make women susceptible to health issues, injuries and early mortality.

One element that Beckerleg was able to adequately conclude was that the issues that accosted these women heroin users were comparable to the ones faced by other female opiate users throughout the world (2004). "These Kenyan women live in a country where the majority of people are victims of 'structural violence', but as drug users and sex workers they face particular disadvantage" (Beckerleg, 2004). Essentially, what Beckerleg found was that these societal disadvantages were part of what led these women to heroin usage and were also what caused their further stigmatization.

Thus, for women in these parts of the world using heroin was a double-edged sword: they were led to it via their desire for escapism and their usage of it pushed them further onto the fringes of society. Another paper which takes a long look at the social cost of drug abuse is "Comparison of Female Opiate Addicts Admitted to Lexington Hospital in 1961 and 1967" by Cuskey and colleagues also agrees that the social costs of drug addiction, particularly for women, is exceedingly high.

Another facet of this article which is extremely revelatory is the fact that four out of every 10 women were readmitted for treatment, many women staying in the clinic for 14 to 15 days, being released, ultimately relapsing, and thus starting the cycle up again -- spending the bulk of their lives in and out of hospitals (Cuskey, et al., 1971). What the findings of this article highlight most strongly is just how difficult it is to find an effective form of treatment for female opiate users.

There is the suggestion made that when there are more adequate forms of support for Negro women and children, they generally fare much better, and have lower rates of substance abuse and the ill effects of substance abuse. Social connections and social support are no small aspect of heroin usage and initiation.

The study, "Heroin use among female adolescents: the role of partner influence in path of initiation and route of administration" by Eaves looks at how female heroin users in Baltimore start using to begin with, finding the melancholy truth that the gateway for them is generally via a male companion. "Participants were more than twice as likely to be introduced to heroin by a male friend or boyfriend (IHM) than introduced to heroin by other means (IHO).

The majority of IHM females were introduced by a male friend rather than a romantic partner" (Eaves, 2004). There was no connection discovered between the way in which users were introduced to heroin and the way that they began to administer it (ex: smoking vs. shooting). One of the elements that Eaves is able to discuss is the particular impact of the opposite gender influence on the female introduction to heroin usage.

Almost all of the participants (94%) asserted that they used heroin via inhalation, while a rate of 75% of participants asserted that they had injected heroin at some point during their use (Eaves, 2004). While some experts thought that introduction was more likely to occur via a boyfriend, the researchers actually found that there was essentially an equal likelihood of a boyfriend or a male friend (Eaves, 2004).

Another finding that the bulk of users eventually went from snorting to injecting is discussed in conjunction with the potency of the drug and the impact the drug has on the human body and the human addictive system, making it more desirable and making the desire for a stronger high and a willingness to take the risks presented when it comes to injecting (Eaves, 2004). There's a strong implication for treatment and recovery which is underscored in the other studies.

Effectively treating heroin addiction is far more challenging than addictions to other substances, these studies have confirmed without a doubt. Similarly, the study "Women and Heroin" by Friedman and colleagues looks at this addiction as it manifests within the upper-class strata of females. This is a truly intriguing premise as so much of the studies with this addiction look at how it manifests in the lower classes and those who are on the fringes of society.

30 participants are gathered who are heroin users and the users take note of how their heroin use reflects certain "rejection of restrictive gender and class expectation" (Friedman et al.,1995). Thus, this group of participants demonstrates how heroin use and addiction for females of the upper class is almost a rejection of the values and the lifestyle that they were raised in. It's a rejection of these upper strata of society and often a rejection of their families as well.

The researchers harness a "dynamic view of resistance, we begin to understand how these women attempt to resist the dominant discourse through their heroin use and to reinterpret their experiences with heroin" (Friedman et al.,1995). This is one of the most provocative takes on heroin usage as the users have a much different motivation for using and maintaining their addiction. This should no doubt impact treatment of the process. A more recent study looks at the migration of heroin from the inner city out to the suburbs.

In the study, "The Changing Face of Heroin Use in the United States" by Cicero and colleagues gathered a participant group of 9,000 opioid-using participants in over 100 treatment centers around the U.S. Of these 9,000, approximately one-third of them were dependent on heroin. Cicero looked at how this trend started, finding that people would start with prescription drugs and then move on to heroin, with cost and accessibility being the main reasons why people would experiment with it initially (2014).

"The additive properties of heroin are manifold greater than prescription drugs… It gets into the brain much more quickly than other opiates and causes 'a rush' that is far stronger than that of prescription pills" (Cicero, 2014). A large chunk of the study looked at the changing face of heroin addiction, finding that it was no longer a person of color, but that 90% of users were white, and many of them were in their late 20s with increased in the number of women using heroin as well.

Ultimately, this study found that heroin had migrated from urban areas to suburban and rural ones. Another paper, "Drug Use and Gender" by Anderson, looks more closely at the motivating factors which lead women to the act of using drugs in the first place. Women enter drug-using careers largely because of their relationships with men (Anderson, 2000). Women often exit such chapters of their lives because of their relationships with family (Anderson, 2000).

Anderson also found that there was a very real and very pertinent aspect of sexual abuse within the entire process that made a substantial impact on female users. Largely, Anderson found that women chose to exit this arena of their lives, it was more of a result of personal and emotional reasons (2000). This study showed more drastically than other studies that drug use manifested in such different ways among genders as a result of the fact that the gender-centric social organization of our world today.

One intriguing study which takes a long look at the way that drug use is influenced by gender is in the article, "Opium Use and Romantic Woman's Poetry" by Freeman. In this research, Freeman focuses on how the romantic women poets discussed and described opium its daily usage or regular usage (Freeman, 2012). A close examination of this poetry demonstrates a demystification of its usage and the impact that it has on the human body.

One of the remarkable aspects of this text is when Freeman juxtaposes the treatment of heroin in poetry written by women to the poetry written by men: male poets (like Cooleridge or Wilde) would generally exoticize heroin usage and put an emphasis on its foreign origins.

On the other hand, Freeman would look to the work of Logan, O'Neill, Seward, and Sara Coleridge and other female poets to view their more practical treatment of the drug: "incorporate opium use into the domestic hearth, its medicinal effects aiding in their wifely and motherly duties. The odes to opium demonstrate the presence of opium in the middle-class British home, the medicinal dependence on its use, and the longed-for mental escape it provided from the domestic realm" (Freeman, 2012).

Aside from this practical emphasis, there was also a strongly communicated desire for release and relief in the conflict regarding accountability to one's family and children and the need or strong desire to exist in an altered state where pain and pressures are removed. Articles like these are so important because they help to not only demonstrate a more feminine perspective of drug use, but they help to shed light on the feminine elements of the human experience in terms of drug use.

Part of exposing the feminine experience or drug use is the task of debunking and annihilating the stereotypes that exist with female drug use. One of the most damaging and most negative is that of the mother addicted to crack-cocaine. Aline Gubrium, in the article, "Writing Against the Image of the Monstrous Crack Mother" identifies the mother addicted to crack cocaine in terms of its most common stereotypes: this woman lives in the inner city, is African-American, is overly-fertile, lives off welfare, and is addicted to crack (Gubrium, 2008).

In this article, Gubrium describes the "writing against" culture coined by Lughod as a means for deconstructing some of the world's most damaging stereotypes. "Aiming to 'unsettle' the cultural stereotypes, this article presents the narrative of an African-American woman who has used crack, illustrating how elements of Twelve-Step recovery discourse and Afrocentric spirituality differentially frame her story" (Gubrium, 2008).Gubrium explores the elements within recovery and spirituality that have both narrative resources and imperatives and ultimately demonstrates how narrative can transcend stereotypical elements (Gubrium, 2008).

Gubrium ultimately demonstrates how it's the responsibility of leaders, researchers and other experts in this arena to dictate the unacceptable quality of so many of the stereotypes that abound regarding female drug use. In a similar fashion, Herzberg discovered precisely that in the article, "The Pill You Love Can Turn On You" by taking a close examination of the cultural politics which were central to the valium-addiction epidemic that occurred in the 1970s and comparable moments of American drug hysteria (2006).

One of the more telling elements that this essay explores is how certain anti-drug campaigns in the U.S. would consistently link drug usage with marginalized populations -- such as the poor, immigrants and non-whites (Herzberg, 2006). What is so remarkable about what this article demonstrates is that the Valium epidemic in certain respects underscores how heroin is being used today -- by whites in suburban areas and the middle class.

Just as the "Valium panic was a different matter, involving a quintessentially middle-class drug prescribed legally by reputable physicians for their respectable patients, and popularly recognized as an entrenched part of life in the comfortable classes, especially for women" (Herzberg, 2006). As Herzberg explores, the Valium panic really was an entirely different matter all together as it signaled certain massive changes in American drug politics, raising the prospect of a new kind means for fighting the usage and addiction to drugs.

At the same time, what Herzberg finds and what is often underscored in some of the other articles explored in this paper, was the certain element of sensationalism that occurred with this particular drug. Valium was presented as a "symbol of sexism, and held up liberation from the 'mother's little helper' as an archetypal story of self-emancipation through feminism" (Herzberg, 2006).

In this manner, one could argue that no drug had ever received such a status and that this made a truly massive change from the way that other drugs were viewed at the time, removing and challenging the skewed logic of "the war on drugs." This was a drug that was not presented as something for the "othered classes." Herzberg is able to demonstrate in a meaningful way how this drug was used in certain respect to challenge cultural stereotypes (2006).

On a somewhat different note, the article "Her Standby for Keeping Going: APC Use during the Boom Decades" by Hennesey looks at the addiction of women in the 1950s and 1960s to certain powders that contained aspirin, phenacetin, and caffeine (1993). These powders were not at all innocuous and many women became addicted, suffering the repercussions of addiction which were often fatal, such as kidney damage. Essentially, this article looks at how these time period meant increasing burdens for women -- increasing responsibilities and increased stress.

Women were often working both in and outside the home, adding additional income for the family and managing an entire household. Fundamentally, Hennessey views drug use as a way for women to find some escape or relief from the burden of the everyday -- particularly when they were getting very little help from their husbands.

This article is highly evocative of the fact that much press has been given to wine sales in the United States and how women are more and more becoming the main consumers of wine and wine products. Women are under more stress than they have ever been in America and the sales of wine are reflecting that, "Among adult drinkers, 52% of women prefer wine, compared to 20% of men, roughly the inverse of beer, preferred by 55% of men and 23% of women, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Women accounted for 58.1% of wine buyers in 2011, according to The Beverage Information Group, which tracks the alcohol market" (Newman, 2012). Wine is now even marketed in that manner as a respite from women's many roles and duties. Some scholars are now arguing that wine is a drug for many women as is the reason that rates of alcoholism with females are now increased.

On an altogether different note, the research article, "Wretched Hatless and Miserably Clad: Women and the Inebriate Reformatories from 1900-1913" by Mellor and Turner looks at the state's attempt to control female drunken-ness in the turn of the century. While female drunkards were definitely an anomaly to a certain extent, they were also a source of social crippling. These extreme reformatories were akin to a bludgeoning solution, one which simply humiliated these women, causing them nothing but struggle and a harrowing journey.

This paper demonstrates how the institution solution was no solution at all. Such an article helps to remind one how individuals in this day and age are remarkably luckier in that there are more vehicles for social support when it comes to addiction. This article does provoke the notion that when it comes to addiction in general, that it's largely viewed as a masculine affliction: thus, when women exert signs of addiction it can be a struggle for leaders in society to determine how to deal with such a situation.

In a comparable fashion, the book, "Love on the Rocks: Men, Women, and Alcohol in Post-World War II America" by Lori Rotskoff illuminates how alcoholism became largely gendered as a male affliction. Prohibition and the elimination of prohibition led to a more normalization of social drinking and the necessity of "retrained" drinking (2002). This was something that became even more immediate in popular culture, as "cocktail scenes were often the 'rule rather than the exception for many dramas and comedies produced during the 1930s' (p.

45), and 'alcohol melded into the dominant culture' (p. 40)" (2002). However, one of the most provocative and notable aspects of the book is what Rotskoff refers to the engendering of alcoholism as a man's disease. However, there were anxieties about alcoholism as a form of latent homosexualism, and could be viewed as a sign of the anxiety and rootlessness that Americans had gone through in the post war period (2002).

There was very little understanding of the alcoholic, given the fact that America was in many respects so married to the notion of the hard-drinking, rugged male, who was the poster-boy in many ways of the saloon era. "Social drinking, which was identified as a normal and healthy sign of masculinity, allowed men to further their careers and fulfill their expected roles as breadwinners" (McBee, 2004).

However, as times have demonstrated, women are embracing alcohol (and with it, alcoholism) in record numbers even higher than before (Glaser, 2013) which is problematic as alcohol affects women different and can be more toxic for them (Pearson,.