Friendships between women are invaluable treasures, providing support, love, and laughter throughout a lifetime.  When addiction is involved, there is an inevitable point when help and tough choices come into play.  These deep ties can be the very thing that saves a women drowning in drug and alcohol addiction.

Two Addicted Friends One Gets Sober

The great thing about friendship is that you can spend time with someone who shares a lot in common with you.  What happens when one friend’s entire lifestyle changes?  When too much changes between two friends, it’s hard to keep the relationship going. 

When two addicted women become friends, the drug lifestyle is the key bond between them.  They may have families, be of similar age, or come from the same town, but the day-to-day activities and struggles of being addicted are something both women can deeply understand about each other. 

The Choice of Sober Living or Staying Can Help Another Addicted Friend

When one friend takes major steps toward a sober lifestyle, she has to also step away from the activities that bond them.  This test may prove to be too much for a relationship that wasn’t based on much more than hanging out while getting high.  But for a friendship that develops deep trust and caring, it can be a struggle for both women. 

The friend who wants and needs to be sober can be tempted to spend a lot of time with her friend and risk her progress.  However, the change in the sober friend could motivate the other friend to also chose sober living.  This kind of caring female fellowship is so important in drug addiction recovery.

Intervention For a Woman With Drug Addiction

Sometimes the best act of friendship can be the most heartwrenching and conflictual.  When you see a friend suffering at their own hands from addiction, it can be so hard to just sit by and watch.  Even close friends may be so uncomfortable and bewildered by the change caused by drug addiction that they may not be sure if they could even make a difference.

When a person’s life is in trouble, a true friend puts it all on the line for the sake of their friend.  It’s about more than just being liked, it’s about saving the person’s life.  And they may hate you for trying.  This isn’t easy by any means, nor is it always successful.  If you have a friend or family member that you think needs an intervention, get the help of an addiction counselor or addiction intervention specialist.  Their recommendations and involvement can really help you focus your efforts.

Women Friendships Are Important For Drug Addiction Recovery

At The Orchid Recovery Center for Women, relationships between women is seen as a vital force for progressing addiction recovery.  These healing connections are promoted and sustained through a woman’s time in drug and alcohol rehab.  If you have a friend who needs drug rehab, take loving action and help her get in touch with The Orchid.  You could be saving her life today.

Addiction affects both men and women, and there are predictable elements to addiction that go across both genders.  However, men are simply not the same as women.  Yes, both are human beings.  But some differences are undeniable and and have endured over the ages.  How can the addiction be separated from the experience of being a woman?  The answer is - it can’t.

Feminine Elements of Addiction

Women often come about their drug addiction in ways that differ from men.  Women who have survived sexual abuse, domestic abuse, or mental illness (such as depression or anxiety) sometimes turn to drugs to soothe their emotional pain.  In fact, drug or alcohol use is high among sexual abuse survivors.  Anywhere from 50%-70% of women who have endured sexual abuse also use drugs.

The personal invasion and shame of sexual trauma is numbed by drugs and alcohol.  A woman who’s had both sexual and drug abuse devastate her life needs nurturing and the restoration of her feminine strength and identity.  Social roles, ethnicity, and culture play big parts in a woman’s life.  A woman’s role in her family might differ greatly from that of a man in the same culture or society.  A woman’s function in a spiritual community many have different meaning than a man in the same group.  All of these elements must be carefully considered when treating a woman with addiction.

Women’s Health and Addiction

Women’s health and addiction are closely related.  Unfortunately, women take a heavier hit on their health than men do in several ways.  One of the clearest signs of serious health problems for a woman is when her menstruation stops.  Heavy drug and alcohol abuse will certainly do this.  When it’s that bad, a woman’s entire reproductive system and functioning will become impaired.

Women with addictions also get a “grab bag” of health problems; long-term side effects from processing large amounts of toxic substances.  Breast cancer risk goes up in a direction relationship to how much a woman drinks.  Breast cancer is the most common cancer for women.  Alcoholic women put themselves at the top of the risk chart, probably without realizing it. (more…)