One of the main profiles of women who abuse alcohol are those in transition from the reproductive to the non-reproductive period, the so-called climacteric. The data is part of research by the Women’s Mental Health Program (ProMulher), of the Institute of Psychiatry, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculty of Medicine, USP. This Saturday (18) is marked by the National Day to Combat Alcoholism.
“They tend to drink alone and frequently, as a way of coping with hormonal, psychological and behavioral changes”, explains gynecologist Carlos Moraes, specialist in infertility and ultrasound in gynecology and obstetrics by the Brazilian Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Associations (Febrasgo).
For women who have already fallen ill due to alcoholism, the president of the Brazilian Association for the Study of Alcohol and Other Drugs (Abead), Alessandra Diehl, highlighted the difficulty of accessing treatments. “Today, for example, if you need specific groups for women, we are going to have difficulties, whether in the outpatient clinic or in hospitals exclusively for women. There are very few services in Brazil”.
For that reason, two movements grew a lot during the covid-19 pandemic, and continue to grow. One is Colcha de Retalhos, an arm of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), which involves thematic groups exclusively for women.
“And this has worked out very well because a woman, along with other women, feels much more comfortable sharing things that are of her intimacy, of the female universe, and which, in a mixed group, would be more difficult to talk about” .
The other movement is Associação Alcoolismo Feminino (AAF), created by a recovering alcoholic and which started its activity in the pandemic by organizing online groups for women who could not access face-to-face groups. “This grew and, today, it has become an association that has welcomed women in their specificities: bariatric women, lesbian women, women with problems with alcohol and medication”.
Pandemic
According to the psychiatrist and president of the Health and Alcohol Information Center (CISA), Arthur Guerra, some people changed their alcohol intake habit during the covid-19 pandemic.
“People who only drank on the weekend, during the pandemic, started drinking every day at night. The pandemic also brought a feeling that many people were isolated, depressed, distressed, afraid of contracting the virus, of being intubated, of dying. For this reason, some people who had these fears started drinking more to try to lessen the fear, the anguish. That [aconteceu] in general, but it was more pronounced for women because they continued to have, during the pandemic, the functions they had before, such as taking care of the house, raising children. The woman was overwhelmed during the pandemic and had nothing to vent with,” Guerra said.
According to administrator Fábio Quintas, collaborator of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), the profile of the group’s members has changed due to the covid-19 pandemic.
“During the pandemic, when we started the process via videoconference, we saw that half of the requests for help came from women. This was dissonant, it was different from what we had before the pandemic. That is, the contacts that were made before the pandemic were much smaller, 5 to 13% of women asked for help. Already in the first year of the pandemic, contacts made by women reached 45%”.
The 43-year-old DCA saleswoman says she used alcohol to relieve a set of negative feelings, such as anxiety, fear and loneliness during the pandemic period.
“Social distancing has greatly limited socializing with friends and family. The fear of the future, the uncertainty about everything we were living, the death of many friends and relatives, led me to great sadness and I ended up drinking more and for more days. What used to be only on the weekends, became during the week as well. Alcohol was an outlet in this dark period we were going through, ”she described.
Complications
Psychiatrist Alessandra Diehl points out that alcoholism also involves chemical dependency. According to the doctor, women first have depression or an eating disorder, and then develop alcoholism.
The doctor reports that the association between bariatrics and alcoholism has been widely seen in clinical practice in the office. And that, in women, the use of substances in general is preceded by a psychiatric condition of depression or an eating disorder, or a bipolar disorder, an anxiety or mood disorder, or even a trauma.
Fertility
According to the multicenter study, released by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), in the ovulatory period, high alcohol consumption is associated with lower conception rates. Normally, the chance of spontaneously becoming pregnant in one cycle is 25%. If the woman consumes alcohol moderately, this chance drops to 20%, but if consumption is high, the reduction is almost in half, reaching 11%.
Gynecologist and obstetrician Carlos Moraes clarified that “alcohol can affect the concentration of endogenous hormones, impairing ovulation and the receptivity of the endometrium, which reduces the chances of embryo fixation and, therefore, pregnancy”.
Alcohol can also increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. This is what the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) points out. According to the agency, the risk of developing breast cancer increases from 7% to 10% with each dose of alcohol consumed daily, taking into account that a standard dose of alcohol is equivalent to 14 g of pure alcohol, which corresponds to a can of beer, a glass of wine or a small amount of concentrated drink (shot) of distillate.