Serious dependence on alcohol and drugs in girls and adolescents

The problem of drug addiction in mexico it is so great that only in the sector that responds to women there are serious and complex situations that need to be resolved, such as the increase in consumption that has been observed in recent years among girls, adolescents and adults; as well as the lack of a rehabilitation scheme with gender mainstreaming and on victimization of dependent womenon behalf of the androcentric society, assessed MA Elvira Sandoval, director of home of hopeaddiction and psychology specialist and secretary of the National College of Counselors.

“The National Autonomous University of Mexico has conducted an investigation that tells us that female consumption has increased by about 205%, Dr. Villatoro of the National Institute of Psychiatry “Ramon de la Fuente” has also conducted some investigations and where he revealed that in in the last 23 years female consumption has grown in such a way that right now we have a female consumer problem,” he warned.

The seriousness of the situation regarding women has reached minors, so now there are girls and teenagers taking drugs.

“Now we also have to ask ourselves: what motivates our girls, our teenagers, to feel the need to take drugs?” emphasized the director of “home of hope‘, a therapeutic community specialized in the care of women in critical situations, whose added value is that it is a gender perspective community focused on women.

In this regard, the specialist in psychology also pointed out that there is no scheme for rehabilitation with gender mainstreamingas the treatment schemes that are carried out are masculinized in nature.

“Women are very well adapted to our culture because we live in an androcentric culture, and when I refer to women in this adolescent population, 12 to 17 years old, where our girls decide to take drugs, in addition to starting with alcohol and tobacco, there is a serious problem of alcohol addiction among our girls and boys,” he assured.

He specified that women live with more pain, twice as much, the withdrawal syndrome, talking about alcohol.

“Without considering that women also start on a drug called crystal methamphetamine, and we also develop some kind of emotional, mental disorder much faster, even considering that the same substance, the same dose, and the same frequency of consumption in a man is different.’

He reiterated that it is necessary to look at women, because women and men who consume are not another statistic, their rehabilitation is a return to a mother with her family, a return to a daughter where the parents have made every effort so that get rid of the addiction.

“Our androcentric culture has marked us that when we women consume, society does not have the same perception, we are triple victimized, not only by society, but unfortunately also by public institutions, by state districts,” she claims.

She regretted that it is in these institutions that women receive the worst treatment.

“If a woman has a problem with alcohol, has developed an addiction and is a victim of physical or sexual violence, the first thing they ask her, precisely these institutions, is whether she is aware of what she is declaring, whether she really knows that she goes out drinking with her friends first and then accuses them of physical or sexual abuse,” he said.

Situations that he described as very serious because what they do is women decide to keep quiet.

“We women don’t want to go to a rehabilitation center, we don’t want to get professional support because we’ve been abused or raped, even in these places,” she said.

She explained that a woman does not decide to use drugs for the same reasons as a man, which she said requires professionalization and the inclusion of a gender perspective in Rehabilitation centers.

“Women also have the right to be treated with dignity, when we have an addiction problem, we need adequate public policies for women,” she concluded.

/lmr