2024-10-24 15:08:00
The profile of addictions in Spain reveals that the consumption of substances and the behaviors that favor them start earlier and that it is not the same in men as in women: while they seek help to cure their problems with alcohol and bingo, they do it for cocaine and slot machines.
A total of 39,451 people, of which only one in five were women, went last year to one of the 119 entities of the UNAD NGO network that participated in the report “Profile of addictions in 2023. Attention users of the UNAD network. “
The study, which represents the largest collection of data on access to treatment at a state level, shows the “enormous complexity” of addictions in our country, marked by a huge gender and territorial gap, summarized the secretary in a conference print of the entity, Encarnación Pámpanas.
The beginning of consumption, before the age of 18
While previous editions placed the age at which the use of the substance that would later become an addiction began between 18 and 25, the trend now is for it to start ever younger: 51% of men and 45% of women they started using it before they turned 18. .
Of the total beneficiaries, 37,845 had substance addiction problems; In both sexes the age varies between 34 and 41 years, with a majority presence of men, who represent 79%.
The male and female profile of addictions
This is a man with primary education, unemployed, with some type of physical or mental illness, without children and residing in a house owned by a relative.
In them, “hard drugs” prevail, mainly cocaine, heroin and alcohol.
In the meantime they have children and live in a house they own or that of their partner; They match their level of education and employment status and have mental health problems, but they mainly consume alcohol and cocaine.
Alcohol, at the height of addiction
Furthermore, women use more than twice as much anxiolytics and sleeping pills, with or without a medical prescription (7% versus 3% of men); Also significant is the increase in the incidence of cannabis in women, who represent 17% of cases treated compared to 14% of men.
These figures refer to the first substance for which they seek help, which does not mean that they consume only one, since “we are in a landscape where they combine several”, underlined Pámpanas.
Alcohol, in fact, remains the substance that causes the greatest number of addictions, with 28% of drug addiction cases in women and 19% in men.
These profiles are not homogeneous throughout the national territory, therefore in the Valencian Community the gender gap is reduced to a ratio of one woman for every two men.
In Andalusia and the Basque Country the age increases “palpably” up to 42; In Asturias the most problematic substance is cocaine and in Murcia the majority of women have no education when at a national level they are 17%.
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Alcohol is the substance most consumed by EFE/Lavandeira jr adolescents
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Addiction to gambling, shopping, or social media
The 1,189 people treated by 40 agencies for non-substance addictions were aged between 26 and 33, both men and women; Here the gender percentage balances out a little more until it reaches 30% female presence.
However, 20% of users are minors, so the most common thing is that they are still studying.
Bingo is women’s main live addiction, followed by slot machines and, in the online context, video games, but compulsive shopping and social networks also appear.
As for men, 18% of the cases treated are under 18 years old and, unlike women, the majority work. Their main live addiction is slot machines and sports betting, which are also the first addiction practice they practice online, in addition to social networks.
In both cases these behaviors are associated with the consumption of substances, such as alcohol and cannabis.
Stigma and guilt behind the gender gap
What explains this profile of addictions is, according to the vice-president of UNADElisabeth Ortega, the “double vulnerability” of women, that of being women and that of being exposed to situations of gender violence and trauma that make their access to care difficult.
In general, they consume more “silently” “socially accepted” substances for fear of being stigmatized and the target of criticism from their environment, of being “failed mothers” or “bad daughters”.
One variable that has an impact is age: younger women have more access to care than adults because they already “suffer social judgments linked to gender mandates and which have to do, for example, with maternity or sexuality”.
It is added that the resources are designed for a male profile and that a minority of those with addictions work, which shows that they face additional obstacles in their recovery and reintegration process.
#alcohol #bingo #cocaine #slot #machines
