MALE AND FEMALE ALCOHOLISM

by Lida Prypchan

When a woman gets drunk, she tends to hide herself away, to be ashamed of herself.  A man on the other hand, for social reasons, boasts about it.  The alcoholic female drinks alone, the male tends more to meet up with friends and only to become captive to the addiction when it reaches its more advanced stage.  Women more often recognize their sickness, while men deny it, even as they fall down drunk with a drink in their hand.  The disasters caused by alcoholism in the family acquire a much more serious aspect when it is the mother who drinks, because the maternal figure in the family unit is more important than the paternal figure, in fact indispensable.

Certainly much more is expected of a woman on both family and social planes.  More is expected because she can give more, due to her ability to mature and bear great responsibility.  Although it is claimed that the male sex is the stronger, the facts show that men are weaker in character and have more difficulty in maturing and bearing moral responsibilities (the ones which have nothing to do with generating income or following courses of study).  That is why everything is made easy for him and why he is forgiven for his philandering (sexual promiscuity), drunkenness and lack of attachment to the family (he is always at work, on a trip, playing dominoes or with his lover).  So little is demanded of a man on the family level; he is considered a successful father just because he brings money home, even though he never talks to his children – who are like aliens to him.

A woman is a woman, and for that simple reason her errors, either as mother, wife, daughter, or employee, are not forgiven.  With today’s lamentable change in women, who are imitating the errors they so criticized in men, more alcohol is being consumed by them daily, which translates into an increase in the figures for female alcoholism.  

I will now present the case histories of two alcoholics: a man and a woman.  Each was given a blank sheet of paper with the following questions: How long have you been drinking?  With whom do you drink?  Why do you drink?  What have been the consequences of your addiction?

Here are their replies:

Case No.1 – 59 year old woman, foreigner, widow, housewife, 4 children.

“I could not say precisely why I drink.  It was mainly to go along with my husband.  Over the past nine years, because of his death, drinking has become a habit.  For the past five years I have been drinking more than normal: from addiction, lack of sleep too – when I drink before going to bed it’s easy to get to sleep.  My marriage was better than most.  I have been particularly prone to depression since my husband died.  Inevitably, my past is always present – I survived the war and lost all my family in it.  Alcohol makes me forget all these thoughts.  I have mixed tranquilizers and other drugs with alcohol and they bring about an incredible sensation of peace, although the next day I am sure to say I will never drink again.  But it is inevitable…after a while I have to start drinking.  When my children became aware of my addiction, they removed every drop of alcohol from my home.  It was worse because I even drank “eau de cologne”.  I can see the consequences clearly now: to be precise, the inability to do without alcohol, mental collapse and the feeling of being a slave to it… when I have it, I can’t stop drinking it…what else can I say?”

Case No. 2 – 44 year old man, died a few months ago of a hemorrhage due to rupture of esophageal varices, Venezuelan, divorced after 8 months of marriage.  Occupation:  businessman (bar owner).

“I began to drink when I was young, in a group.  I come from a large family where they drink a lot.  Two of my brothers are alcoholics and so was my father.  I come from a part of the country where the only pastimes other than chasing women are drinking aguardiente and betting on the cocks.  Anyway, this problem I have now began when I bought a bar where I was working.  There are regular customers who invite you or almost force you to drink with them. I had a good marriage relationship.  It was because of the death of a brother I was close to that I began to drink more frequently: at least, I got dead drunk three or four times a week and my wife, instead of being sympathetic, treated me badly and wouldn’t cook for me and worse, she refused to have sex with me – which made me so mad that I would hit her.  Then we had money problems and she wanted a divorce, which I gave her right away, but when I got drunk, which was every day then, I went to her house and yelled at her because it annoyed me that while I had to work, she lived off what I earned and when I began to have problems, instead of being by my side she threw me out.  All women are the same: they use you as long as they can… then they make out that they are martyrs.  You can see the results of this:  I am forty-four years old and look like seventy,  I’ve lost a lot of weight  because when I was drinking I lost my appetite, and when I get up I vomit a lot and have meager, foul-smelling bowel movements.  My marriage didn’t fail because of alcohol, but because my wife was a mean, dull creature, incapable of understanding me.