The former editoratlarge at canadas mclain magazine talks about the gender gap between women and the risk of drinking. This program is about an hour. Host hi ann. How are you . Guest its so nice to be here. Host i am excited to talk to about this new book called drink very intriguing and very provocative and like i said it are minded me up when i was working in treatment, about the relationship with alcohol and women and i guess one of the questions i wanted to ask you right off is why is the subject seen as a crisis thats important for you to get the message out . Guest we are seeing a global problem, a closing of the gender gap between men and women. Traditionally we have always known that men drink more than women do but whats been happening recently is men have been declining a been declining a little bit in risky drinking and women are not at all. This is global. The more developed the country the richer the country the smaller the gap between men and womens consumption. Places like written friends and where we are seeing a parity where young girls in their 20s are are dying of endstage Liver Disease which is classically seen as an old man disease. So this is a Health Epidemic and crisis something that we need to Pay Attention to and open up a dialogue about our favorite drug because it is our favorite drug. Its legal and host exactly. Can you talk a bit about the driving force for you in writing drink . Guest of the driving force for me is decades old. I grew up with an alcoholic mother who was cross addicted to valium much like a lot of women were in the 60s and the 70s depending on mothers little helper. She was a stayathome mom and was a poster girl for that era. I have always been interested in why she drank the way she drank and the one thing i said to myself is i never will. In fact in my 50s i fell into really bad behavior with alcohol i had it bad patch in my own life and i would say i was a poster girl for this era. I am welleducated, highly professional woman and found myself drinking not two glasses of wine or three glasses of wine before, five and six. I slipped into some bad behavior caught myself quickly and went into rehab. Host so in that, what was that like for you that realization if you can maybe talk about that . Guest it was probably the worst thing ive ever gone through in the sense that i was in shame. I was deeply humiliated by my behavior. I didnt miss work. I didnt close up or do any of the above but they did blackout. Each night before he went to sleep and it was something that i said i will get a handle on it. I have a favorite cousin killed by a drunk driver and i thought i have lost so much to alcohol in my childhood and now my cousin. I will just quit, and i couldnt and they knew i was addicted. I found myself looking for help. It was confounding. It was confounding and also my behavior didnt look like my mother so i thought i can possibly be alcoholic. Host there is an edge they learned as a kid that is like mirror mirror on the wall i am my mother after all. Guest you are right. Host do you think that what you have experienced is pretty common with other women . Guest i know that the behavior to the extreme behavior that i was involved in is that the far end of the spectrum and i became addicted. I think a lot of women the larger group of women are not addicted. Its only 2. 5 depending on the country how many are actually out the holick that there a lot of women involved in risky behavior, tinged drinking. The centers for Disease Control came out in january and warned about the fact that this was in epidemic portions and that is the thing we dont focus on in our culture. We focus on the alcoholic or the drunk driver but we dont look at the behavior. For women is only nine drinks a week in terms of drinking guidelines. Thats not a lot to. That means taking nights off from drinking and a lot of people would find that something they couldnt manage. Host what about four young girls . Do they fall into the same range as that . When you look at the age differences between young women and say women our age, finding the difficulty and are there differences amongst the age groups for women in general . Guest the young generation of women has been dashed by the alcohol industry and by that i mean in the mid1990s there was the invention of those sweet prepackaged drinks that are basically started drinks, tales with training wheels to get people interested in drinking and move them away from beer because young women you usually dont like the taste of beer. What happens is they mature into into so one campuses you have got young men and young women playing drinking games but the young guys play it with beer. The woman twothirds his body sizes playing it with shots. Alcohol is the number one date rape drugs so we are seeing a different behavior on the part of this generation doesnt drink and drive. Before they go out to a bar because its expensive they have alcohol in their dorms. They have alcohol and they drink ahead of the event which means once they get to the event they are often already inebriated. Its very risky behavior. Host that also puts them at risk for other types of behaviors. Guest many other types of behaviors. You see highprofile accidents, falls certainly sexual behavior. Absolutely a Broad Spectrum and not sons and so on and so forth. But whats fascinating right now is that young women used to slow down. After University College they would slow down. The men didnt always put the young women did. They are not doing that now. Host why do you think that is . Guest i think women are getting a very complex message. We are in the middle of a sociological revolution. Young women are told that they have to have an great career and they have to be great mothers. They have to be thin and goodlooking. They have to manage a house well and there is a sense of entitlement. I can do everything that a young man does and that includes having a glass of wine or two after work conflict drinking to wind down and women tend to medicate depression and anxiety and loneliness. I think there is a lot of anxiety in this generation in terms of how do i manage it all . When we look at who is drinking the most, we are seeing the professional educated women and i dont think this is what Gloria Steinem had in mind when she talked about being equal. Host the sense is that the expectations that not only society puts on women but what we take on ourselves is what plays a role. Guest were a eighth. I beg the question whether its the modern woman steroid. I drank to stay awake and i drank to sleep and stay awake at a party. I used alcohol. I think if you are relaxing and rewarding yourself you are numbing yourself. Host okay. As i was reading through drink one of the things that came to mind for me, were there times when you found yourself kind of hesitating to move forward in writing and putting words on paper about your experience . Guest yes. This was a huge decision. This book was in some ways from the huge series that i did in canadas largest newspaper. It was a serious, 14 part series on women and alcohol. At the time my editor said to me calm cut how do you feel about telling your own story . She knew i had a history without the hall abuse and i said im beginning to think maybe i should tell it. She said do you have to work again . She said the stigma is too great i really positive for two years before i decided to write this book. It was a huge decision. Once i made the decision, once i put pen to paper it came out very quickly. But i was worried about how i would be seen. You know there is this saying that we have been a public lives and we have private lives and we have secret lives and it was a relief to tell the secret. Host okay because as they say secrets keep you safe. Guest i found this incredibly cathartic and a terrific relief to get this out. Host very good. How do you see womens drinking patterns different from men . Guest there is a lot of research. When a man gets into trouble with alcohol he tends to go to the bar or the pub and hangs out with his friends, maybe not great friends and thats the pattern. A woman tends to drink alone, to isolate tingnom comps at complicated feelings around depression and anxiety. Thats the female model so when a woman goes to treatment its important as we know now for her to have a hard look at things. It can be hard when you get sober as i did and find the things that you are numbing or trying to numb like depression are medicated so its really important when you go to treatment or you were dealing with sobriety that you recognize that you are going to have a whole host of emotions that you have to address. I medicated or medicated in a different way and this is progress because they used to believe that when he went to treatment you had to be sober for two years before you dealt with the underlying causes. Now for women in treatment its very difficult because getting to treatment is the issue. Getting to treatment especially if you have young children, babies. We have seen some fabulous entities across north america that appreciate what Young Mothers have to deal with when they are trying to get sober but they are few and far between and too often it depends on who you know, whether you have enough money, where where you live where there you will get the right kind of treatment. Host why do you think that is . Guest oh my think its obvious. I think our values as a society round out the hall but very fuzzy. I dont think we have decided what we want. We all think if im sophisticated i know my winds and if im an adult i should know how to handle my liquor. If im drinking a little too much maybe im just trying to act like the french or the spanish or the italian. It isnt me that has a problem. Its that rare drinking drivers. We dont look at ourselves because we dont want to. This is something we used to relax. We love alcohol. Its very cheap in our culture. Sometimes in a corner store or gas station its cheaper than milk and cheaper than orange juice. We have fuzzy values and i think we havent really done well in mental health. We have done well in understanding depression. We havent done well at all in understanding addiction. Host okay. Another question compact as i was reading the book is that your thoughts of support groups such as aa versus women of sobriety and whether or not you think there are some differences between support groups that are geared mainly towards men as opposed to those geared towards women. Guest a great question. Women for sobriety is a group that was developed some time ago and i really admired it. It was a reaction in part against the word powerlessness, which is an aa term and women were having trouble with some of the language of the big book of aa. The problem with women for sobriety is that it is very hard if you live in a small town arent even were i live in the big city to find women for sobriety groups. You can start your own but its difficult. I think its interesting the face of aa has really changed. The face of aa has become much more female and much younger and the Younger Generation there is pride in being sober. Theres a lot of shame in my generation, custody come up with Younger Generation is pretty proud of rocking sobriety. Host thats interesting that you say that. Do you think that the overall public sees that same concept as young individuals and aa . Guest no. I think its totally hidden. I think the anonymity piece peace has been made sure its kept hidden and im a big fan of something called voices of recovery based in washington, very very Strong Organization and im part of a movement in canada just established faces and voices of canada. We tell our stories. I tell people that i am five years without wine, five years without a drink. I dont need to break my anonymity and tell you how i keep sober but i need to tell you that im sober and this is what it looks like. I am in recovery. Host thats great. Are you familiar with the concept of systems of care . Guest i am not. Host its a philosophy coined by william white. Guest oh yes. Host taking a look at how to build a community of recovery you know and i was wondering in your book reading about aa and thinking about the differences for women. I remembered while working in a Treatment Facility that a lot of times they would go initially but then they would fall out because the relationship piece that women generally have to deal with or not generally but have to deal with as they are moving to recovery and i was wondering whether not if you are familiar with the brick obery and assistance of care concept as well . Guest you know thats so funny. That just came across my radar this week. I dont know if you have seen anonymous people. Fabulous and that was the trigger for me to understand who it was. Host yes, a good. Thats good. I wonder if you could maybe talk a little bit about what you see as it relates who are there differences in the isolation for women . We know there differences in isolation for women when they are actively drinking. What about when they get into recovery . Are there similarities with the whole issue as they move into recovery . Guest i think in recovery you have to be really careful of isolation. You have to be really careful about yourself care. I think for women and thats why i am such a fan of women for sobriety. There is a focus on the selfcare peace. There is a focus on respecting yourself and looking after yourself. I think i cant speak for being a man in recovery but i know when im involved with my friends who are also sober this is something we focus on. Making sure you dont get too lonely or too tired is very important. What i found in sobriety was everything was new. It wasnt just the fact that it was christmas or new years or birthday spot absolutely everything in terms of my human relationships. I live much more consciously and i live much more happily now. Host i know that one of the things that you referred to in drinking by women is a cultural thing. I wondered if maybe you could speak a little bit about it. What do you mean by that . Guest the phenomenon of women drinking is i think very much a piece of entitlement. Our sense of entitlement. We are allowed to. Host i have heard that before. Guest we should be able to because men can so be canned. Certainly the Younger Generation has that feeling. Going toetotoe with men is a dangerous thing. 15 of rest cancer cases are related to alcohol. Demographically we are equal but metabolically and hormonally we are not and when it comes to alcohol. What i find is alcohol the alcohol industry behaving like it used to . Yes. Focused on women. We are feminized drinking culture with girls night out. This is focused a totally feminized drinking culture. Did it all start with Terry Bradshaw when she was drinking cosmopolitans and sex in the city . Know but did she add add to its . Yes she did. We have a female drinking culture now and i think its incumbent upon us to make sure that young women are market savvy. They understand they are being targeted and understand the alcohol product has become a person. Its tweeting come its tweeting, is on facebook. Its trying to get u. S. Part of the community smirnov or whatever the alcohol is sent you are the target. That is like the tobacco industry. Host i thought when i read that in your book i thought to shave because there is a strong analogy between the two. Along with that having been i attended a tobacco conference and in one of the sessions i remember we had to to do with the Marketing Strategy and how they were really focused on certain groups of people. Based off of what you are saying i see the same thing for women with the alcohol industry really targeting in on women. Not only targeting in on women but do you see them targeting in on more of a specific Racial Ethnic Group as well to max . Guest you do see a huge vulnerability if you look at the data coming out of colleges that certain ethnic groups are actually drinking at a higher rate than others. So when you look at the upswing in young women, you see that women from different races are having more trouble. Its a complex story. Its the number one predictor of whether you will have trouble with alcohol is childhood sexual abuse. Thats the number one are. Its very much related to trauma and therefore, related rehab and treatment is really important. We have seen a wonderful upswing in the understanding that trauma does relate to alcohol abuse. This is the easiest and most accessible drug and people do medicaid with it and we do it all the time. Host out one point in time it used to be the mindset for providers to not even address that but now that has shifted which im glad to see to address that. But what is the risk of women to become retraumatized you know if they are in treatment and talking about the trauma that they have experienced . Guest thats really an important question because you have to be very very savvy as a treatment provider to make sure you dont retraumatized a person. I for instance went to rehab and was diagnosed with ptsd. Posttraumatic stress syndrome and i had to really take my time with the trauma that i was dealing with. I had to take my time and note that this was a multiyear issue that i had to address, that i couldnt do it overnight. You dont want to reach traumatized person. But speaking of free trauma to his asian, one of the problems is young women will have a trauma in her lifetime could drink too much, find themselves in a compromising position sexually and be retraumatized that way. Women have to keep themselves safe. There is a real connection with as i said date rape with abuse, with violence, being the victim of partner violence. It puts one in a really vulnerable place to have too much to drink. There many reasons to be cognizant of what you are putting down your goal it. Host it exactly. Can you speak to and you alluded to it a little bit day for starting their faces and voices of recovery in canada about the role of stigma and addressing it and why thats so important and if you think there are gender differences in how the role of stigma is addressed . Guest yes. I think you can have too much to drink and be seen as a good old guy. You are just a terrific guy. A woman, you dont lose your masculinity. A woman drinks too much and see us cnas lobby. She is not seen as feminine. We are much harder and women who drink too much and so i think faces and places of recovery canada and it named aside United States following the Parent Organization in the United States. That notion is we have known for more than 20 years that addiction is a disease. Its a complex disease like diabetes. We have known that but we dont as a culture see it. We see it as a moral failing and defin