Women and Alcoholism

Despair photo copyright Amber Rhea

Women and Alcoholism is a growing problem in the UK and has been for some time; since the end of the beginning of equality that women so ably and rightly fought for. The trouble is in fighting for equality to men in the workplace for example some women have had to work and live like men and do the housework as well. More importantly, and I am not being sexist, a lot of women have discovered that they don't like working like men and competing against men at work. It doesn't suit them; it is not for them but it is hard to admit that. This causes stress on several levels and this is one reason why Women and Alcoholism is on the rise.

Another is amongst young women behaving or trying to behave like young men. I don't know why they think it is clever to behave like badly behaved young men and binge drink at the weekends. Perhaps it is the filtering down of feminism and equality to the young. They might not appreciate it but they are being driven by the feminist movement to drink like men. There are some shocking cases of both young women and men with liver disease and we are talking about teenagers. Kids who started drinking heavily at aged 10 or 12 for example.

There is also the single parent syndrome in the UK. No control over their children. This will inevitably lead to bad behavior without boundaries including drinking too much. Women and Alcoholism being fed by lack of parenting.

My partner, Jane is not one of these new binge drinkers and anyway she is a real binge drinker. The press write about binge drinking when they refer to people drinking on their days off. These people are 99% not alcohlics. But some will become one.

My partner is a confirmed and certified alcoholic and when she binge drinks it is for at least 4 days and up to 10 days and it is all done in bed behind closed doors, drinking about one litre of neat Vodka per day. She never leaves the bed except to sometimes stagger to the local shops for more Vodka and to the kitchen for a bit of food (biscuits or anything).

An update: it is 12:15 on 11th June and Jane is in bed because she is "tired". She has been there since about 10 am. The bedroom window is shut and I can smell the processed alcohol in the air from her breath; it has a sweet smell a bit like marzipan. She must have bought it when she did the shopping this morning and drunk it in the car before coming back. It has just kicked in and put her to sleep about one hour or so later.

I've just gently (oh so gently) indicated that she is drinking and she denied it - surprising uh! And then within a minute she was snoring fast asleep.

When I first met her I couldn't understand why she was falling asleep in the mornings. Poor innocent me..........

In case your wondering, she works shifts so this is one of her days off. She 'll be OK tomorrow but if this continues she'll end up drinking through her days off into a work day and that will be the beginnings of a binge and the beginning of losing another job. Women and Alcoholism in back in this home when it had left it for 5 months -sad.