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We regarded papers from the Drinking Attitudes in Midlife study as closely linked to one another due to the common data pool, authorship, methods, and theoretical perspective. Two papers examining the geographies of alcohol featuring common authorship, data, topic, and lens of inquiry were moderately linked to one another. Another two papers we regarded as slightly linked to one another due to significant overlap in authorship. Group identities were also constructed through how individuals learnt to drink.

• In this chapter, we present an updated review of geriatric SUDs with a focus on alcohol use disorder and on prescription psychoactive drug use disorder, providing epidemiology, assessment and management, and disorder-specific information.
• Newman shared some hypotheses, including from a qualitative survey of middle-aged women.
• EM drafted the manuscript and ABM, DC, and JE were involved in critical revision for important intellectual content.
• “If the Australian women had some sort of distress in their lives they believed it was acceptable to drink. They were quite open about this saying ‘I just had a bad day, I needed to have a drink’,” Dr Dare said.
• Alcohol screening can be conducted because the incidence of alcohol problems is high enough to justify the cost, alcohol can adversely affect morbidity and mortality, and valid, cost–effective screening methods and effective treatments are available.
• If you have a loved one who you think might have a problem with alcohol, here are the signs of alcoholism in women.

The condition can occur with sudden changes in drinking, especially in people with other, underlying health problems, Kast said. The new report, from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, found that the rate of alcohol-related deaths rose from 10.4 per 100,000 people in 2019 to 13.1 per 100,000 in 2020. “If the Australian women had some sort of distress in their lives they believed it was acceptable to drink. They were quite open about this saying ‘I just had a bad day, I needed to have a drink’,” Dr Dare said. “However, the importance of ‘staying in control’ while drinking emerged as an important qualifier to the social acceptability of drinking,” Dr Dare said.

Questions About Treatment?

“Alcohol consumption in the past century peaked in the United States in the mid-1980s, a time when many people currently aged were adolescents,” he says. (It’s worth noting that the drinking age in nearly 30 states used to be 18, not 21—until the National Minimum Drinking Age law was passed in 1984.) Back then, 31 percent of 12th grade girls drank five or more drinks in a night at least once every two weeks. Those in the older demographic likely carried their drinking habits with them as they aged, while even more women joined them them later in life. Dual diagnosis programs – Women who are diagnosed with an alcohol use disorder as well as a mental health disorder, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, or mood disorders, should seek programs that specialize in treating both issues simultaneously.

This can help the alcohol recovery process by allowing women to feel more comfortable, as well as reducing distraction from the opposite sex. Baan R, Straif K, Grosse Y, Secretan B, et al. on behalf of the WHO International women and alcoholism Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Working Group. Ria Health offers several FDA-approved medications for alcohol use disorder. When combined with counseling, this approach is proven highly effective.

Women and Alcohol Abuse

Now 60, Kay has been sober for nearly 21 years, but she realizes things could have easily ended much differently. “Without my kids, I really don’t know that I would have hit bottom enough to change,” she says.

Physicians could play a bigger role by routinely checking in with patients about their consumption, White said. Jacqueline, a 40-year-old teacher, described herself as a social drinker before the pandemic.

Why Is Menopause and Alcohol a Serious Public Health Issue?

All women have complex reasons for drinking, which can make it hard to “break up” with alcohol. Telling women bluntly that alcohol is bad for them is unlikely to reduce drinking. For her part, Kay learned that life is indeed much richer without alcohol at the center of it. In the 20 years since she became sober she remarried, adopted a third child, and started her own business. https://ecosoberhouse.com/ “My life today looks very different on the outside, but the most profound difference is that I am so filled with unconditional love for myself and all of the people around me,” she says. “Is that a function of aging or sobriety? I don’t know, but it feels a lot better.” Mid-life women who opt to attend a 12-step program may also find that the process doesn’t resonate with them.

Stress and depression related to menopause may trigger the onset of alcohol abuse or worsen established alcohol misuse. Alcohol abuse decreases quality of life and any potential positive effects of moderate alcohol intake are minuscule in comparison to the adverse effects caused by alcohol abuse. Further, due to social stigmas, women tend to have more difficulty gaining access to treatment and recovering from alcohol dependence than do men.

Alcohol Deaths Among Middle-Aged Women Have Surged During the Pandemic

The current body of research into alcohol consumption focuses overwhelmingly on problematised drinkers such as young drinkers and binge drinkers. Low-level drinking is considered unproblematic in many alcohol studies and in society more broadly . However, low-level drinking can nonetheless be considered problematic since some alcohol studies demonstrate that it presents health risks (increased all-cause mortality in the long term) .