Health News Blog. Lots of resources and information

The alcohol problems of women was a topic not much discussed until very recently. Alcoholism, heavy drinking, and problem drinking were long thought to be the province principally of men. Accordingly, a review of the scientific literature found that between 1928 and 1970 only 28 studies of women alcoholics had been published in the English language! For many years the estimates were that only 1 in every 7 alcoholics was a female; then the ratio cited became 1 in 4. More recently some authorities have claimed almost as many female alcoholics as males. Alcoholism and alcohol problems among women have been areas of fast-growing inquiry. Much has and is being written both in the scientific and popular literature about women and alcohol.
Thus, here we wish to touch in very brief and admittedly cursory fashion on only some of the highpoints.
Apparently more women then men can point to a specific trigger for the onset of heavy drinking. This might be a divorce, an illness, death of a spouse, children leaving home, or some other stressful event. If a woman seeks help at such a point, both a careful alcohol use history and education about the potential risks of alcohol use are warranted. The danger of relying upon alcohol or other drugs is that the crisis can take on a long-term life of its own. The challenge to those dealing with a woman in the face of any of the above difficulties is in providing empathy rather than sympathy. Either overtly or covertly, the danger is often to imply that if that had happened to us, we would probably have responded in the same fashion. The current dangerous misuse of alcohol and drugs can become lost in the forest of other problems.
It has been suggested that women’s alcoholism is often “telescoped”; the disease appears later and progresses more rapidly. There is also evidence suggesting that women may be more susceptible to liver disease than men.
Women are prescribed mood-altering drugs much more frequently then men. This suggests the need for a very careful drug use history, with a wary eye for multiple drug use patterns and possible cross-addiction.
In a marriage in which one spouse is alcoholic, if the alcoholic is the woman there is a significantly greater likelihood of divorce. (A ninefold increase in divorce has been reported if the female is alcoholic as opposed to the male being alcoholic.) Therefore, the family and emotional support systems that are an asset in recovery are less likely to be present.
Nonetheless, whatever the woman’s marital situation, it has been found that women entering treatment do not receive the solid support for that decision that men generally receive from family and friends.
If the woman alcoholic is unmarried or a divorced single parent, there are not only additional emotional demands but also economic burdens. Remember that in the aftermath of divorce, almost three quarters of women and their children are economically less well off, if not downright poverty stricken. Entry into treatment may stretch an already difficult financial situation.
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There are many causes of insomnia. The following are some of the more common causes:

1. Pseudo-insomnia. This is probably the most common cause in the normal population. These people believe they cannot sleep because of one or more of the above mentioned reasons. Their confidence to sleep is gone, and they become worried as the evening approaches since they predict they will not sleep. Because they experience insomnia in bed, some develop a phobia about their beds, as they can sleep anywhere and at any time except in bed. They may be quite happy sleeping on a sofa or in front of the television, but when they are in their beds at night they are wide awake and feel distressed.

2. Biological clock related insomnia. We all have a biological clock within us. Sometimes we have to reset out biological clock abruptly; for instance, because of jet lag or a change in shift duties, and the clock is thrown out of phase. The biological clock governs a number of biological functions in the body; the most important is the sleep pattern. The other functions are body temperature, hormonal balance, metabolic rate, urine output, stomach and bowel activity, and so on. Each biological function follows the biological clock differently, and any sudden changes to the clock throw them out of phase with each other. Besides not being able to sleep, we feel below par and are unable to function normally.

3. Situational insomnia. This is normally transient and is precipitated by some situation that a person is experiencing. Anxiety, stress, and worry of what is going to happen are typical causes of insomnia. Stress is a common cause of insomnia.

4. Physical illness. It is a fairly common practice for the sister in charge of a hospital ward to ask the resident doctor to prescribe sleeping pills for the patients just in case they cannot sleep. This is a much more common practice in nursing homes. There are two reasons why sleeping pills are prescribed in hospital. The first is that it is reasonable not to be able to sleep in hospital. You are sick and in a totally new bed in a new environment with a new routine. On top of all this there is the additional stress of your own physical illness and not knowing its outcome. The second reason is that if some patients are not sleeping they may interfere with the other patients and, in the end, no one gets any sleep.

5. Pain. We all experience pain at some stage in our lives, whether it is toothache, headache, stomach-ache, or whatever. The pain we feel drags us down, we feel awful, our whole routine is ruined. Chronic pain is even worse, as there is no escape; the pain is with the sufferer all the time. People who suffer from chronic pain may find sleep the only escape, but if they have insomnia there is no escape at all.

6. Drug-withdrawal insomnia. It is now recognized that the modern sleeping pill is effective for

about two weeks only. These pills supress REM sleep. When the pills are stopped, the sleeper experiences a rebound of excessive REM sleep. This means the sleeper will have an excessive number of dreams and sometimes nightmares. This will be experienced as disruptive sleep and insomnia. The person who experiences drug-withdrawal insomnia believes that his innate ability to sleep is lost, for once he stops taking the pills he cannot sleep anymore. In fact, of course, he has not lost his ability to sleep. It is just that the symptom of drug withdrawal is insomnia. It is a common experience for a patient to see his doctor and say, ‘I ran out of sleeping pills two nights ago and I cannot sleep at all. I guess I do not know how to sleep anymore. Please prescribe me another 50 tablets’. This should of course be rephrased as, ‘I ran out of sleeping pills, and I cannot sleep because I am addicted to them, but once the withdrawal effect passes I will be sleeping again’. Ideally sleeping pills should not be stopped suddenly, but rather the dosage reduced gradually and finally stopped.

7. Excessive daytime sleepiness or EDS. This includes narcolepsy and sleep apnoea. Narcolepsy is abnormal sleep attacks and sleep apnoea is frequent waking at night because of an inability to breathe. Sufferers fall asleep easily in the daytime and most of them do not have the distress of not sleeping at night; hence their chief complaint is normally not insomnia.

8. Mental illness. Insomnia is a common symptom of mental illness, but frequently there are many other symptoms at the same time. This book is not written for sufferers of mental illnesses, as they always need the care of professionals. People with these conditions should not stop their medications, as very often the medications provide the only effective treatment.

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This principle is a basic part of the relaxing mental exercises. When tension predominates we can use a train of thought like this:

Relaxed.

Whole body relaxed.

Relaxation in my arm.

Feel it in my mind.

Feel my mind relaxed.

There are both physical and mental aspects to the feeling of tension. With physical relaxation the tension of our body subsides and we experience the relaxation of our muscles. Then we feel in our mind the feeling of the relaxed muscles.

Start with your arm. Feel the relaxation in it; then feel this relaxation of your arm in your mind. Be sure that you are doing it properly. Feel in your mind the relaxation that is in your arm.

Relaxation of the Face Brings Relaxation of the Mind. We use to our advantage the very close relationship between the state of the muscles of our face and the state of our mind:

Relaxed.

Legs, arms, whole body relaxed.

It is in my face.

Jaw muscles loose.

Muscles around the eyes are relaxed.

Whole face smoothes out.

Forehead relaxed—deeply.

I feel it in my mind.

In all our exercises we make sure that we maintain relaxation of the face muscles because of their effect on our mental relaxation.

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