Reflections: Women and Substance Misuse

Very recently my aunt died of cirrhosis of the liver due to a medical view would state, the continual use of alcohol over many years.

Five years ago my partners mother died of lung cancer, no doubt, attributed to the quantity of cigarettes and the frequency of years these were used.

Ten years ago, a close friend died at the young age of forty-seven of a heart attack caused, according to the medical profession, by obesity over a period of thirty-eight years.

All three of these women were, if you like, ordinary women leading ordinary lives who died ordinary deaths. According to the statistics and death certificates they died because they ‘misused’ everyday substances such as food, tobacco and alcohol. The way their bodies died is reflected in advertising campaigns to prevent further human carnage for the cost conscious NHS. The problem, according to these politically mediated messages, is the way we misuse substances and thus the cure is in simply abstaining. The real problem however appears to be how much remains left unsaid about such deaths.

The point is that the death certificates of the women above say one thing and one thing only – the cause of death to the body as an organ while hiding the truth of their social body – their lives, their location in history to those they knew, the way families were held together by these women, the problems they contained within their lives. In many ways having a fag, a couple of drinks, a good meal were simply what they did in their moments by them self. When you can't afford a massage, go to counselling, or talk to your friends then you pick up a cigarette and pour yourself a drink. It's that easy and it's that simple. And I would probably say a great many women, including myself, have or will do the same. These were the women who led a life expected of many in their generations and which is still flaunted even today. It is a life where a woman is expected to marry, bear children and re-form society. This paper is a tribute to the women mentioned above and to thousands who will follow, who, in their own way either misused or will misuse substances as enjoyment, or, in the face of persistently difficult times, will risk the consequences.

In my own life, and perhaps because I was a generation or two behind those women outlined above, I have been made more ‘aware’ of the harm substances can bring to the body and have received the never ending adverts of information from Goverment-backed media broadcasts and parental figures warning me of dreadful illnesses and an eventual death if I continued to smoke, drink and/or take drugs. Of course little was mentioned about how to deal with emotional events (such as bullying, unemployment, failing exams) which brought sadness and anger into our lives and which were more than likely to cause hardship and upset. Casual reminders, all during my more formative years, were pushed into the background during my late teens and 20s as I tried to be the woman expected of me, failed miserably and came out as a lesbian. Without any understanding about what was happening and why my family suddenly could not cope, I found myself hanging around in lesbian bars which at that time and still now, seemed the only places to really meet up with others. Drugs were happiness and drink was fun.

Any serious attempts to clean up were made as I moved towards my 30s. I have also found this to be the case for large numbers of women who come into counselling to sort out their life and move into their late 30s and onwards. A decade of counselling (both training in it as well as being a client of it) and an exploration of ‘issues’ has left me more willing and able to counteract social and family pressures which may have contributed towards my excessive substance misuse. Likewise, a few years spent studying sociological perspectives leaves me questioning the point of a government which bases the economy on the very substances others misuse while their own strategies to combat this misuse are subtly removed or made inoperable by their own policies which are quietly manipulated into place through financial considerations for pharmaceutical companies, distilleries and brewery interests.

In my own work as an alcohol counsellor and drugs worker, I see large numbers of women from all classes and ages, from primarily white and black British cultures who are struggling with alcohol, drugs and eating disorders. I have worked with women destroying their body by depriving themselves of food to the point where they want to destroy their own life; I have witnessed women shaking and slurring their speech because alcohol is gradually soaking into their body and brain; I have seen the track marks caused by needles piercing the skin to find missing veins and I have seen young women going out at the weekend and enjoying themselves injecting safely and with a knowledge about what they are doing until they decide it needs to cool down for a while and they need to control their intake of drugs and/or alcohol. So, I sort of see myself as a link from a past generation where an understanding of the damage alcohol and drugs can do was omitted from public interest completely, to a generation where we began to understand the damage substances impose onto the body and into a future where we begin to recognize the money made from exploitation of the body through substances and people beginning to realize they have some say in the part these substances play in their lives.

The facts we are faced with seem to suggest we need to consider our options regarding the misuse of substances. It seems to be time to move away from a Government lacking in integrity when it comes to ideologies surrounding substance use and misuse. Keen on rhetoric they appear to play with two contradictory discourses which leave people confused and anxious about their future. The Government should stop their own ‘dealing’ in rhetoric and start ‘pushing’ some reality. It is not so much the ‘problems’ women face which lead to substance misuse, but the quality of their social life and the way their emotional lives are shaped through the social structures surrounding them. When this is recognized then perhaps Government policies will begin to reflect the reality these women face and begin to value the way women are expected to manage the emotions of a troubled society