Women and Alcohol

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http://alcoholism.about.com/od/women/

Alcohol and Women
On the whole, women who drink consume less alcohol and have fewer alcohol-related problems and dependence symptoms than men, yet among the heaviest drinkers, women equal or surpass men in the number of problems that result from their drinking.
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How Does Alcohol Affect Women Differently?
Because alcohol mixes with body water, a given amount of alcohol becomes more highly concentrated in a woman's body than in a man's. That is why the recommended drinking limit for women is lower than for men.
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Are Women More Vulnerable?
Women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men. In general, women have less body water than men of similar body weight, so that women achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood after drinking equivalent amounts of alcohol.
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Greater Risks for Women

Women Get Worse Hangovers Than Men
Researchers have found that women not only get drunk on less alcohol than men but they also suffer worse hangovers. Even accounting for the difference in the amount of alcohol consumed, hangover still affected women more.
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Health Problems Are Not the Only Risks
How did this happen? Everybody else was drinking and apparently having a good time. She was not drinking any more or less than her companion, and he seemed to be in control. How did she get so out of it?
To read more click here - http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/women/a/aa981104.htm

Wives of Alcoholics More Likely to Drink
Women who are married to alcoholics are three times more likely to abuse alcohol themselves and three times more likely to work outside the home, compared to wives of non-alcoholics.
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Health Risks for Women Drinkers

Heart Risk Greater for Women Drinkers
Some females experience more severe cardiovascular effects from heavy alcohol drinking than those observed in male alcoholics and these effects are noted at an earlier stage of drinking and at a lower consumption level than those noted in men.
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Women and the Effects of Alcohol
Women have higher risk than men for certain serious medical consequences of alcohol use, including liver, brain and heart damage, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
To read more click here - http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/women/a/aa000421a.htm

Female Drinking and Brain Damage
Recent studies indicate that women tend to develop brain "shrinkage" and damage to their memory capabilities much faster than their male counterparts who drink.
To read more click here - http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/women/a/aa010219a.htm

Health Risks for Women
Alcohol increases a woman's risk of developing serious illnesses and an increased risk of heart disease, liver disease, ulcers, reproductive problems, osteoporosis, pancreatitis, memory loss, and other illnesses caused by substance and alcohol abuse.
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Fact Sheet: Women and Alcohol


- 77.6% of women age 12 and older reported ever using alcohol, while 60% reported past year use and 45.1% reported using alcohol in the past month.

- 82.5% of white women reported ever using alcohol, while 65% reported past year use and 49.7% reported using alcohol in the past month.

- 67.9% of black women reported ever using alcohol, while 45.1% reported past year use and 32.3% reported using alcohol in the past month.

- 60.8% of Hispanic women reported ever using alcohol, while 48.4% reported past year use and 33.6% reported using alcohol in the past month.

- Among current female drinkers in the USA, 7.16% of whites, 10.22% of blacks, 22.16% of American Indians/Alaska Native, and 9.03% of Hispanics reported alcohol dependence.

- Men and women reported different levels of alcohol involvement. 58.7% of men age 12 and older reported past month alcohol use compared to 45.1% of women, while 23.2% of men age 12 and older reported binge drinking in the past month compared to 8.6% of women.
Health

- Women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men.

- Alcohol consumption is associated with a linear increase in breast cancer incidence in women over the range of consumption reported by most women. A pooled analysis of several studies found breast cancer risk was significantly elevated by 9% for each 10-grams per day increase in alcohol intake for intakes up to 60 grams per day.

- Although the mean lifetime dose of alcohol in female alcoholics is only 60% of that in male alcoholics, one study noted that cardiomyopathy (a degenerative disease of the heart muscle) and myopathy (a degenerative disease of skeletal muscle) was as common in female alcoholics as in males. The study concluded that women are more susceptible than men to the toxic effects of alcohol on the heart muscle.

- Brain shrinkage in men and women was found to be similar despite significantly shorter periods of alcohol exposure or drinking histories in women.

- Women with chronic pancreatitis have shorter drinking histories than that of men. Women with alcoholic hepatitis and cirrhosis were found to have consumed less alcohol per body weight per day than men. These findings indicate that women are more vulnerable to alcoholic liver disease than men.

- Although alcohol problems are more common in male trauma patients, women with alcohol problems are just as severely impaired, have at least as many adverse consequences of alcohol use, and have more evidence of alcohol-related physical and psychological harm.
Suicide


- One study showed that 40% of alcoholic women attempted to commit suicide, compared to 8.8% of non-alcoholic women.

- Younger women who are alcoholics are nearly twice as likely to attempt to commit suicide (50.5%) than older women who are alcoholics (25.5%).

- A study of suicides among females in New Mexico found that 65.5% of the decedents had alcohol or drugs present in their blood at the time of autopsy.
Use During Pregnancy


-Since 1990 the Dietary Guidelines for Americans have stated that women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant should not drink alcohol.

- A national survey found that 58.8% of women age 15-44 drank while pregnant.

- 65.8% of pregnant women in their first trimester reported using alcohol, while 56.6% of women in their second trimester and 53.9% of women in their third trimester reported alcohol use.
Victimization


- 57% of female victims of intimate violence (i.e., current or former spouses, boyfriends, etc.) reported that the offender had been drinking at the time of the offense.

- 62% of female victims of alcohol-related violence reported experiencing some form of injury.
Criminal Behavior


- An estimated 4 in 10 women committing violence were perceived by the victim as being under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs at the time of the crime.

- An estimated 25% of women on probation, 29% of women in local jails, 29% of women in state prisons, and 15% of women in federal prisons had been consuming alcohol at the time of the offense.
Drinking and Driving


- Women are less likely than men to be involved in fatal alcohol-related crashes. However, from 1977 to 1997 the number of male drivers involved in alcohol-related fatal traffic crashes decreased 31%, while the number of females drivers involved in alcohol-related fatal crashes has increased 12%.
Moderate Drinking


-Moderation is defined as no more than one drink per day for women. One drink is 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine, and 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.
"All material contained in this Alcohol Alert is in the public domain
and may be used or reproduced without the permission of NIAAA."
Compiled with information obtained from the
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA),
at http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa46.htm