Alcohol Rehabilitation for Women

Alcohol rehabilitation is essential for anyone who develops a dependency on alcohol. Without it, your likelihood of successfully recovering from your alcoholism is dramatically reduced, leaving you more susceptible to a host of other illnesses that come as a result of abusing this dangerous substance. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in the United States alone, an estimated 4 million women drink alcohol in a fashion that threatens their health, safety, and general well being. Most medical experts will refer to this type of behavior as problem drinking, which will greatly increase an individual’s likelihood for developing a physical and psychological dependency and subsequently needing alcohol rehabilitation.

Alcohol Consumption: Men vs Women

The parameters of what’s considered to be moderate drinking and therefore relatively “low risk” consumption are different for men and women. Moderate drinking for women is defined as consuming up to one drink a day while moderate drinking for men is up to two drinks a day. It is important to note that since alcohol affects every single person differently, there is no such thing as a “safe” amount of alcohol to consume. Even so-called moderate levels of consumption can still land you in alcohol rehabilitation with an addiction or get you into other dangerous, high-risk situations in life.

Why are men able to consume twice as much alcohol as women and not have their behavior be described as problem drinking? For starters, on average, women weigh less than men. Also, women have less water in their bodies than men do and being that alcohol is broken up in the water in our bodies, the less water there is, the higher the concentration of alcohol will be. The fact that women are more significantly affected by lesser amounts of alcohol than men puts them at a higher risk for developing a number of health problems aside from addiction and needing alcohol rehabilitation. These increased health risks include but are not limited to:

Liver Damage – Women who drink are more likely to develop liver inflammation than men who drink the same amount of alcohol. This alcohol-induced inflammation of the liver (alcoholic hepatitis) can lead to cirrhosis and eventual organ failure.

Heart Disease – Women who drink heavily are more susceptible to developing alcohol-related heart disease than men who drink heavily, in spite of the fact that women typically drink less over the course of a lifetime than men. Being that chronic heavy drinking is one of the leading causes of heart disease, there is no greater endorsement for admitting yourself to alcohol rehabilitation to help you get a handle on things before it’s too late.

Breast Cancer – Research has shown that women who drink approximately one alcoholic beverage per day have a 10 percent higher risk of developing breast cancer that women who abstain from alcohol entirely.