Survey says... DUH! ”
"In a study of 2,750 men and women, researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that the sexes showed some key differences in symptoms of problem drinking. For example, men more often reported problems like bingeing or getting into fights, but women were more likely to report feeling depressed or guilty about their drinking. ~ CNN.com Health”
Click "Read more" to continue the story...
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis of 2,750 men and women found that there are key differences in the manner the sexes display abusive drinking and alcoholic symptoms.
Psychologist Penny E. Nichol and her colleagues published their less than surprising findings on this subject matter in a journal called, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. I know I am being snarky, but does it really take a team of researchers to discover that there are major physiological and psychological differences between men and women, ergo addiction which manifests in both will greatly vary in its symptoms between the sexes?
Perhaps it is just the CNN summary that short changes the gist of this journal that I have not yet had the opportunity to access. What I would hope is that Dr. Nichol and her colleagues were moving toward is that maybe some of the depression, anxiety, and social disorders that occur more prominently in women may in some cases be caused by an addiction that would otherwise be diagnosed in the often bellicose and more easily read men.(ouch)
Regardless of the sex of the patient, I wish that doctors paid more attention to addiction possibly being a root cause of depression and other mental and physical problems before they arbitrarily prescribe treatment and often drugs. I am a big advocate of drug screening prior to the issuance of most prescription medications.
I have linked to the article above in the lead-in, tell me what you think.
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I've always wondered whether the addiction causes the depression or the depression causes the addiction. In my own life, I used drugs when I was younger and going through a bout of depression as a means of dealing with the depression. In other people, it seems like the addiction leads to the emotional problems, or at least that the two go hand in hand...
While in addiction I would argue with my family continuously that my abuse was simply self medication. I even had a respected doctor use that exact diagnosis on me. I was self medicating my depression by (ab)using alcohol. The good doctor even wrote me a prescription for a wonderful anti-depressant called Valium. Boy - that really helped my depression. Especially if I drank a few beers with them. And especially if I saved them up for a day or so and took a bunch of them with several beers - amazingly I would no longer be depressed. I truly believed in my heart and in my head that I was suffering from depression and would swear to the Almighty that I needed the drugs and the booze just to feel "normal". This went on for several years. But now that I have been sober I see in retrospect that I was not depressed - but addicted. Severely addicted. One indication of my addiction was that of the several antidepressant drugs prescribed to me over the years - the only one I knew helped me feel better was the one I got high on. And there is no doubt my addiction manifested into real emotional and physical problems.
with Zanex. I desperately wanted to be more than "just an alcoholic". I was sure that I was special, had a chemical imbalance and was bipolar, and even got the doctors to say as much.
No doubt I was depressed, but I had a good reason to be and I just didn't want to admit that.
I've always been of the opinion that sufferers of addictions have no more or less of the mental and moral divergences of "normal" folks, its just that because we are under or running from the influence we always take matters to the extreme. So I can't really tell you the answer of the chicken or the egg question, but I can tell you that when I am drinking the chicken is as big as an ostrich and all the eggs are hard boiled!
I know I still fight depression, but the strength I have discovered in my recovery allows me to break through its hold instead of being suffocated by its weight.
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