Edith Lynn Hornik-Beer - The Drinking Woman: Revisited

The Drinking Woman

Revisited

Edith Lynn Hornik-Beer

Contents

Foreword

Edith Lynn Hornik has done it again! As a sequel to her popular book, You and Your Alcoholic Parent, she has taken up the theme of The Drinking Woman, and, with painstaking research (documented by bibliographies at the end of the chapters), much travel to facilities where women are receiving treatment for alcoholism, interviews with a large number of the women themselves, the people who are caring for such women, and those performing research studies, she has come up with a volume that strongly retains her own individuality which will engage many, instruct many, and give hope to many.

Historical references which go back to the Greeks and Persians, a tart evaluation of Carrie Nation, and wide-ranging attention to Eskimos, the Irish, and Indians are informed by many simple illustrative case histories.

We need attention to the problem of women and alcoholism. The National Council on alcoholism has developed a task force to address this problem. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is giving special emphasis to it. The Womens Liberation Movement has encouraged bringing female alcoholism out of the closet.

Women have been neglected also in alcoholism research, and new studies are finding physiological differences in their reactions to alcohol, which are of importance. The rhythms of their lives, their goals, and their interaction with society, spouse, and child are all perforce different from those of men-and not less important. They can no longer be sloughed off.

This book will be welcomed by many who need the help it offers, the encouragement to seek treatment, and the knowledge of where that help may be obtained. Besides, she has made it interesting. Interest in and knowledge of alcoholism are advancing. So far, the massive number of people suffering is still far more than the means to stem the disease. But we see glimpses in the individuals who recover, and in the increasing numbers who have recovered, that the hope sprinkled liberally through this book for individuals will some day be summated into the turning of the tide for the disease. So, while the search continues for a short cut-a technological shortcut to social change-the application of the silent case finding of a woman reading a book alone and the ability to find the treatment proposed by this book will do much good.

FRANK A. SEIXAS, M.D., 1977

Medical Director

National Council on Alcoholism

Introduction by Thomas P. Beresford, MD

Alcoholism is a complex phenomenon that may best be thought of as due to an interaction of environmental and genetic factors. The lions share of them occur in the heritage of cultural and social mores rather than in the realm of DNA. Vaillant, in The Natural History Of Alcoholism, Revisited, for example, presents no less than eight different factors that appear to be etiologically related to alcohol addiction. Only one of theman innate insensitivity to the effects of alcoholcan be said to reflect the biological variations directly attributable to gene effects. And that appears to be a complex effect involving many genes. A Mendelian genetic model does not apply:there is no Dominant Homozygous condition that turns people into alcoholics.

It is true, however, that in order to become an alcoholic, one must drink beverages that contain alcohol. It is this to which Edith Lynn Hornik turned her, and our, attention over 30 years ago in her first edition of The Drinking Woman. When that book first came out, the Womens Movementthat vast cultural change in US society and in most developed nations in the worldwas hardly more than a few years old. With the passage of time, Edith revisits what was then the new ground of sociological change in respect to women and alcohol use. At that time, for example, few in this nation had ever heard of the fetal alcohol syndrome, a condition first described during the Gin Epidemic of 18th-century England. Now, some states in the US have warning labels on alcoholic beverages advising against alcohol use during pregnancy.

Conversely, the fact that women who drink heavily have a higher relative frequency than men of the most serious forms of alcoholic liver disease, namely alcoholic cirrhosis, was known far longer than 40 years ago. Molecular science has yet to tell us why this is. Socially, however, the traditional protection thought to be conferred by female gender in respect to developing alcoholisma four-to-one male-dominated illnessappears to be waning as more women drink alcohol and find they lose the ability to control their alcohol use, leading to heavy, and dangerous, drinking. The essence of alcoholismthe loss of control of alcohol use such that one cannot predict with consistent reliability how much alcohol one will consume from one episode to the nextdoes not appear to respect to gender differences. At least, it does not do so in and of the single absence or presence of the Y chromosome.

Some argue that women may be more vulnerable to developing alcoholism because of a dose effect of alcohol in the smaller average physical volumes of women as compared to men. Many question this assertion, however, and find it more likely that other variablessuch as the availability of alcohol, its cost, and the social mores that make it more attractive to womenare more to the point. It is these on which Edith Hornik focuses in The Drinking Woman, not only in understanding the differential causes of alcoholism for women. She looks further to understanding its effects, preventing its occurrence, treating it when it occurs, and, most importantly, the necessary ingredients for preventing relapses in this chronic condition.

Thirty plus years after its first publication, The Drinking Woman continues to ask salient questions where sufficient answers have not been found. As Ms. Hornik intended in the first edition, however, it remains a very hopeful and optimistic examination of female alcoholism. Whether in women, or in men, alcoholism is a treatable illness from the point of view of the scientific model. And it is this hope for improvement and recovery that her volume provides. Where in some instances alcoholism can be especially devastating in women, it remains an illness of hope in working through the unresolved ambivalence toward uncontrolled drinking and on toward physical health and a return to personal growth.

A Few Words from the Author

Its about time someone wrote a book about where its at for the alcoholic woman. Thats what a woman murmured as she was being discharged from a drying-out facility. She was talking about what the drinking experience does to a womans life and to a womans body, how it differs from a mans physical experience. A womans general reaction to alcohol is affected by her menstrual cycles, menopause and the extra fatty tissues nature gives women. If pregnant, be it married or as a single mom, the alcohol she ingests, even if it is just a few drinks to relax, may impair the child she is carrying.

Sexually a drinking woman is as well vulnerable. The drinking man may perform poorly. He might not even remember the next day with whom he tried to have intercourse and laugh it off as a fun night. The drinking woman might perform poorly sexually, not remember with whom she tried to have intercourse, and find herself with an unwanted pregnancy. Try and laugh that one off.

Even though we hope that societys tolerance of a drinking woman is today no different than our understanding of an alcoholic man there exists still a fine distinction. A woman is considered the mother of us all. Mother may be sophisticated, go to bars and drink, but she cant get drunk, or drink like a man. Many women are still afraid to come forth and say, I have a drinking problem. They are afraid, because I might lose my job, What will the neighbors say? Will they take my children away? and if she is elderly, Will my children take away my power of attorney? Those who are married are afraid of what their husbands will say. Statistics have shown that a husband will divorce his alcoholic wife more readily than a wife her alcoholic husband. If she is a single mother she is afraid that if she goes into treatment she wont be able to support her children. If she is a teenager she will try to keep it from her parents who might take her driving privileges away. However, these women suffer as much as any man. The alcoholism patterns, the camouflaging of hangovers, the denials of drinking, the hiding of bottles from the family, and rationalizing the drinking are common to most alcoholics, whether man or woman. Later on, as the disease progresses, a woman dependent on alcohol is as susceptible to D.T.s (Delirium Tremens) as a man. She suffers tremors, untold discomfort, and the unpleasant withdrawal symptoms that drive all too many back to drink.