That’s the question asked in a recent article in MIND—a
publication of Scientific American.
The article titled, “Staying Sober Under Pressure” addresses
gender differences in relapse and relapse-prevention. It says that one third of
Alcoholics Anonymous members are women and while AA helps members of both sexes
to recover from addiction it does it in different ways because—typically --male
and female alcoholics drink for different reasons.
The article’s author, Melinda Wenner Moyer reports of the
work of John Kelly and Bettina Hoeppner at Mass General who analyzed data
collected over 15 months from AA members. They found that male alcoholics
typically relapse when they are in social-drinking situations and that AA is
very helpful by teaching members how to change people, places and things and to
learn to socialize without alcohol.
On the other hand they found that it is more likely that
women will relapse when they are feeling down or in an emotional crisis yet
according to this article, “AA does little to help them handle emotion-driven
drinking.”
Well, if you have been around a while you know what they
mean but you also know that women in recovery find other women to support them
when they are in an emotional crisis. Maybe not by raising a hand in a meeting
but by having sober women friends and more often by connecting with them in the
meeting outside the meeting.
But Moyer asks a great question, which is: If AA addressed
these gender differences more actively could it become even more effective?
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