Leading alcohol treatment organisation, The Linwood Group, believes the number of women accessing rehab will soon equal men.
The Group provides the only centres in the UK that focus exclusively on treating alcoholism and are seeing a marked rise in women patients of all ages and socio-economic groups.
Commenting on the trend. Director of the Linwood Group, Sue Allchurch, said:
"More women are coming into treatment, year on year - by 2010 we predict the patient balance will be equal. One reason is that women now feel more comfortable asking for help with this disease but it's likely, as women increasingly compete with men for equality, they increase their drinking too.
What is worrying is that, once alcoholic, women are more likely than men to experience problems relating to their drinking. They are 50 to 100 per cent* more likely to suffer an alcohol-related death including suicide, an alcohol-related accident, heart disease, a stroke and cirrhosis of the liver".
The government is about to launch a £10 million drink alert campaign aimed at women in their thirties and forties but the Linwood Group thinks this money would be better spent on providing NHS-funded residential treatment. Sue Allchurch continues:
"Once someone is drinking alcoholically, no campaign - no matter how convincing - is going to have an effect on a person's addictive behaviour. The most effective way of dealing with alcoholism is treatment, either through centres like our own or through self-help groups such as AA. And only if the alcoholic is prepared to work to become well.
The vast majority of residential treatment available to alcoholics via the NHS is provided on mental health or geriatric wards. In the UK, there is around 1000 beds - both private and NHS - available for alcohol treatment in the UK and with one in 13 adults in the UK alcoholic, this is where the government needs to invest money rather than on marketing".
For advice or further information on recovering from alcoholism, either visit http://www.lynwodemanor.co.uk.
Notes
*HILL, S.Y. Biological consequences of alcoholism and alcohol-related problems among women. In: Special Populations Issues. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol and Health Monograph No. 4. DHHS Pub. No. (ADM)82-1193. Washington, DC: Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1982. pp. 43-73.
