Lois: What could I do you had my arm at such an angle I had to say yes

Jill: Lois has been with us for the better part of the year

Lois: 6 months

Jill: She wears so many hats at Breakthrough and I have asked her to tell us about herself so I don’t get anything wrong, so tell us Lois

Lois: Well, I am a native Floridian and a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill and I have nursing degree, public health degree, education degree, and we could go on forever and paper a wall

Jill: Are you a weight lifter too?

Lois: Yeah, Brian and I work out together, in Jo’s new office. I have been in the addiction field for 35 plus years and have watched it change over time and my passion has been working with addicted women and as a woman I know the some of the difficulties trials and tribulations and joys of being a woman in our society um working with women has been very rewarding for me most I think the most recent experience I had was working with the women in Grady Health System which was a different experience altogether and that is who I am and now I am at Breakthrough and we have a joy ful day every day that we show up (laughter)

Jill: Well I will say this, Dr. Dutton or Lois as I refer to you, she is actually a wonderful mentor to us at Breakthrough Addiction recovery, those of us that are new, she has done some amazing things, and that number again is 770-226-0920 cause I know you want to call and ask Dr. Dutton a question.

Lois: You are just buttering me up for next time

Jill: We also have another guest today, Jo Abney a licensed professional counselor and Jo thank you for coming

Jo: Glad to be here

Jill: I am glad you said ok, I will do this. This is her first time on radio so if you say two sentences this will be good, we may have to shut her up Lois, (laugh) today is women’s issues and addiction and we will focus on alcohol and at Breakthrough we see many women come through our doors that have uh, dependency issues, addiction issues, and it is very difficult because no two women are alike when they come through the door and you have to meet them where they are and decide what is the best situation for this person and I thought what we would do is start off with general statistics when we talk about women and alcohol as apposed to men.

Lois: in our general population Jill we know that fewer women than men actually drink but of those that do and get into serious alcohol problems and other drugs then the numbers change appreciably and we see almost one third of individuals who actually develop alcohol addiction and drug addiction problems are women. On the whole women generally drink less than men until we cross over that threshold and we get into heavy and abusive drinking and then the pendulum swings and we see them develop more serious problems than men who with the same amount of drinking so contrary to popular opinion this is not a unisex world (laugh) there are two sexes and lets thank God for that.

Jill: Does age matter when we talk of this. Are we looking at different age groups for this problem.

Lois: We know that younger women report higher rates of drinking and the older women and I don’t want to insult but 35 is the bottom of that number let’s say 35 to 49 or 50 we see the majority getting into serious difficulty as a result of their drinking. Women over 50 we have another plethora of difficulty that we look at from a gender point o few and addiction

Jill: That makes me think about the younger women maybe looking at a binging style of drinking when they are young high school college age and going into the 20’s a lot of the clients come in are under the age of 30 are reporting that along with other substance addiction, and so that is an interesting thought that is something that is down the road if they continue the binging and can turn into the dependency and into the rest of the problem

Lois: And the parameters of the drinking change and if you are young a partying it is a social type of thing the other people in their lives they drink because it is part of the social experience that they have and as we get older our parameters change

Jill: I have seen this dynamic where the younger women come in and they have the boyfriend that uses and they are using the drugs that the boyfriend uses and the woman might be using alcohol and he might be using opiates or cocaine or something like that but it is interesting Lois and I don’t know if you and Jo have noticed this but some of our 35 and over women have spouses or significant others that don’t use at all and I think that is an interesting scenario

Lois: Yes, again the parameters of drinking and the whole reason for drinking the whole response to drinking changes as we get older.

Jill: So that could be more of finding a mate or partner that is codependent who can enable the behavior rather than you know when they are young they want to party together and they feel less conspicuous if everyone is using

Lois: Absolutely

Jill: That number is 770-226-0920, we are going to talk a little about why men are more likely to crave alcohol under stress than women are. And what do women do when they are under stress. Many think that is why they drink but men beat us on that they get the bottle first, we will talk more after this break. 770-226-0920, stay with us call in and we will be right back.

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Jill: 770-226-0920, the first line of that song, “I’d like to hate myself in the morning,” that is an old Judy Garland song, you remember her don’t you she was a friend of yours?

Lois: yeah we grew up together (laughter)

Jill: Like the song says I want to party and do things and then hate myself in the morning and have a great time, but unfortunately, as we know from working in the substance addiction field, it doesn’t stand still it doesn’t mean one time it develops into a lifetime of difficulty and pain and that is why we are talking about women’s issues. This is the Breakthrough Addiction recovery Hour, my name is Jill Mattingly joined by Dr. Lois Dutton and therapist Jo Abney. WE are an estrogen crew today talking about…if you have a question, please call in at 770-226-0920 and before the break I had mentioned that there was a something off the internet from the Science Daily and it states that men are more likely to crave than women to crave alcohol when they feel negative emotion. For example it says after a stressful experience women will say more than men that they feel hopeless however our male counterparts are more likely to drink alcohol and then progress into dependence if they have to endure stressful situations. I think that is interesting in the difference in why they might grab a bottle before talking about their stress like a woman would. What do you think?

Lois: Jo mentioned earlier about learned behavior from men

Jill: It is accepted isn’t it

Jo: It is we see it often in the media and tv shows, movies, we certainly see men going out to the bar to drown the sorrow and not deal with it in a healthy coping way, just

Jill: Just about every sitcom has the male going to the corner bar to talk about their issues, so that’s interesting that they grab that

Lois: On the other hand what we see is the women that internalize those feelings, then manifest themselves in depression and anxiety and somatic complaints that get medicated as opposed to going to the bar to drink so the women they apply their own brand of medication at home

Jill: In the story it says that women tend to ruminate or think over and over again about the negative emotional state and men in contrast want to distract themselves from negative emotions. That is just no fair (laugh) You know that is one thing I can say, ok guys, let’s learn that from you, ok, that suppressing the emotions as we know in the medical field can be very difficult on your health and you know that brings us to one of the main sugjects in the media right now extremely in this last year even there have been new studies to show how women get sicker physically quicker than men when it comes to long term alcohol use.

Lois, Yes, part of the reason that we are seeing that these studies come to light Jill is that most of what we know about drug and alcohol addiction has been based on studies of men because men were the number one candidates they were the one in addiction treatment and most of our addiction treatment facilities were geared toward men and addiction treatment and a few years ago we had facilities that had no accomodation for women it was just assumed that women didn’t have those problems and now we know differently and we see the numbers rise and more women in addiction treatment but we see far less than men, but now we have turned our attention toward doing research studies that include women and looking at the physiological differences that women ring to the picture of alcohol and drug addiction that changes the parameter for what we do. For example, we know physiologically women have less fluid in our bodies,

Jill: Now women call in and say no way! Laugh

Lois: We end up with more fat than men do and because of less water, when we drink there is less available to dilute the concentration of alcohol going into the body therefore, it goes much more, you know you get a harder hit in the bloodstream than in men so women of equal weight and size are not getting an equal bang out of the same amount of alcohol. It is like pouring a quart of vodka into a one bucket pail of water as opposed to a three bucket pail you get higher concentration and we know that concentration going directly into the bloodstream is much more damaging as it hits the liver and other organs. The other thing we know now is that women have less of a gastric enzyme in their stomachs that is essential for the metabolism of alcohol dehydrogenates, hard to say, and because women have less, then what we call in our medical jargon is first pass metabolism, that means it is in the stomach and the stomach can take care of some of it before it gets into the bloodstream and that is done by the enzyme and with women having less of it then they miss out on some of the benefit of the first metabolism before it hits the bloodstream and it goes directly into the liver and we see more liver damage in women than in men

Jill: And I think that I have seen what you are talking about because it has only been in the last few years that they have linked even moderate use of alcohol to breast cancer and you know of course heavy use is connected but now even moderate use

Lois: What they have found the studies with this statistic most of those have been done in women that were older and they know for example post menopausal women with a natural decrease in estrogen that if you drink even moderately one or two drinks, that alcohol has the capacity to stimulate and increase the pre flowing estrogen in the body and estrogen is related to the incidence of breast cancer, so how that translates in younger women who already have their fair share of estrogen, if alcohol can increase that level then we have an increased risk of breast cancer.

Jill: Then if men had been getting breast cancer, they would have done a study earlier? You think? Yeah, that has come out in the last few years and moderate alcohol link and of course the liver is absolutely necessary for you to stay alive and we know that alcohol effects the liver and we do see liver damage and disease occurring more quickly and less time of use and it actually worsens quicker and I think most of the men I don’t see until the 50s or 60s but these are women in their 30s and 40s having liver disease where they are on their way to a transplantation, scary stuff and the number again is 770-226-0920 I would love to hear from you today if you have a question or comment or just want to ask us what moderate drinking to heavy drinking and what is dependency vs. addiction. We would love to give you answers so please call, 770-226-0920. Stay with us we will be back right after this break.

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Jill: 770-226-0920 that is the number, if you would like to call in and maybe you are a female you don’t have to be but if you are and you are driving along and thinking that this might be an issue for you and this might be something that I need to talk about because I have never thought that my 2 to 4 glasses of wine every night might be turning into a problem and you know I have never discussed it with anyone and no one really knows I drink up to a bottle a night. You may want to call and ask questions about that issue itself and see if there are some things that you need to understand about it. When we talk about the differences in the sexes and dependency there are some unique reasons women fall into alcohol dependency and can you go over some of those with us, Jo and Lois.

Lois: Women tend to have a lot more difficulty with guilt with shame with um, feelings of disconnect in a lot of ways because of their drinking and this withdrawal kind of thing and I think it has to do with how important relationships are to us as women and we know that in alcohol and drug addiction historically women’s patterns we see histories of childhood victimization either sexual addiction as children or spouse addiction as they get older. Some kind of feeling of not being attacked in some way and basically that translates to most of us as women when the folks that we have the most faith in and the most belief in and then they turn around and do something to us that destroys our inner feeling of worth to ourselves then it becomes this whole sense of betrayal and for most of us as women betrayal automatically leads to silence then leads to isolation and secrecy in women and then we know as Brian says so often in addiction treatment and you have heard this Jo, our secrets keep us sick. That is not only true for abusing women it is true for all of us as women. Those secret places within ourselves that we hide basically from everyone else and somehow we have to find a way of dealing with them

Jo: I think so and I think that through the very course of women’s lives we become isolated because of social situation, for instance a stay home mom, her kids go to school and that is a big chunk of the day is isolated and then empty nested women then you will find that you know women are like well I have done my job and my children have succeeded and gone on to their own lives so what do I do now? That is a big time and then of course we see older women widowed because they live longer and then another type of isolation

Lois: One of the fastest growing group are older women which is a new phenomenon

Jill: A call on line one. This is Ruth in Atlanta, I

Ruth: I was so shocked that I by chance flipped to your station I usually listen to 9.70 but I just wondered how long you have been on is it weekly

Jill: We are on every Saturday and we are a business in Norcross and we do substance addiction and addiction and we decided to take the message out to Atlanta and beyond, there is so much

Ruth: Is this a good time for people to listen? Because there are a lot of people that need to hear you every week.

Jill: We are on weekly Ruth.

Ruth: That is thrilling cause it is definitely needed.

Jill: We have seen that Ruth and many come through our doors saying that they had no idea until the radio show that they had issues with addiction. This is it is just at a service to people to facilitate the discussion about addiction and dependency as we were talking about they are the silent disease and people not talking about it means they won’t get help.

Ruth: I think they don’t recognize it, they don’t see themselves that way.

Jill: Ruth, thank you and continue to listen. We will say hey to you

Ruth: I am going to get your information to someone, is it Breakthrough.com?

Jill: www.breakthroughaddictionaddiction recovery.com

Jill: Thanks and you were just bringing up

Lois: Wonderful caller,

Jill: I can retire now that I have had that call

Lois: We were talking about prescriptive roles for women in our society and many of those roles, we have no choice because we are the care givers and the mothers, partners, wives, and we are all of the female roles and for the most part that fits nicely with us but it is when society begins to impose on women that they give this extra burden and women can’t step up to the plate and fulfill those roles and they feel the shame and the guilt and the withdrawal.

Jill: What about anxiety and depression? We read earlier women tend to go into those psychiatric problems quicker than men when faced with stress and need addiction treatment more often. People that may be self medicating silently every day at 4PM we are coming to the end of the segment so our number is 770-226-0920 and let us just say this we are so appreciative of our audience that listens and gets this information and passes it along. Please give the website to those you know that need help. Stay with us we will be right back.

Commercial Break

Jill: 770-226-0920 we are coming to our last segment and this has been an interesting show about addiction and women. There is so much to go over even when you separate the genders there is even well it opens more doors of things to walk through and talk about. We talked about depression and anxiety, shame and guilt and I can’t help but say that someone is heading home from the liquor store with a bottle on the passenger seat and they are going to go home for their ritual until late at night or passing out earlier if that is their intent. If that is a daily occurrence for you or your loved one then most likely you have a dependency issue and you need to talk to someone that understands the disease. Dr. Dutton, Jo, what is the most important thing for people to hear as we come to the end,

Lois: My plea to the women who may be listening or to the men who know these women, please don’t let fear, shame, guilt, stigma associated with having stepped outside the social boundaries that are allotted to us as women, don’t let any of those issues stop you from doing for yourself what you need to do. Come in and talk to us and share with us and let us see and build for you some kind of a plan for how you are going to walk yourself back out of an addictive lifestyle.

Jo: Stop and consider the underlying issues that have been there for you and we do know that many people who end up developing addictions on any substance may have an underlying disorder that needs to be treated in more effective ways than picking up a bottle.

Jill: It really does come down to passing the threshold from suffering in silence and talking about this. There are other facilities and support programs, AA and many other ways to start the conversation and most of the time once the conversation gets started or you start to divulge these things you will make your way into a very effective addiction treatment situation. It really does start with looking down and seeing what is going on and what is the truth right now and you know I just feel like you know when we talked last segment about depression and anxiety many of our clients coming through do talk much about depression or grieving process that hasn’t been gone through or free floating anxiety or things associated with menopause, these are things that many times can be treatable and with a good psychiatric or psychological evaluation through your doctor or psychiatrist you can have addiction treatment that will start to lessen the amount of alcohol you would want to take in and you won’t need the self medication anymore.

Lois: It is critical too Jill that you have a clear picture of what is happening within you that is triggering so that is part of what we do, we teach, we support and we do all of those kinds of things at Breakthrough.

Jill: I want you to hear today that we are available 24/7, you can call our office for information any time and I really do appreciate our listeners calling in and supporting the show and we are probably going to go into a bit more information about the addiction issue next week. Brian is preparing the show. Jo, who is the guest?

Jo: Leslie Dinkins is a social worker in Forsyth County with the Domestic Violence Task Force and she is excellent and well worth listening to.

Jill: She will join Brian next week to talk about domestic violence, this once again goes down the road of problems for women in many many households, so if you enjoyed today’s show please tune in next week Saturday at 3pm. The website is breakthroughaddictionaddiction recovery.com, go there and get the information call us or email us. We hope you enjoyed today’s show, thank you once again, Dr. Lois Dutton, Jo Abney (laughter) the estrogen task force. Take care.