Some of the problems discussed in this book include women and alcohol, women and minor tranquillisers, women and heroin, women and smoking, and women and food dependence.

Work on female drinking and female drug and alcohol abuse is proliferating because interest and productivity in alcohol research has expanded. In this work, the editors' primary focus is on the abuse of alcohol, its biological effects, behavioral effects, abuses, and problems. This book updates where this field is at the moment. The first five chapters deal with basic issues of biology, epidemology, and anthropology. The next five chapters deal with substance abuse including antecedents, consequences, comorbidity, fetal effects, special populations, and illicit drug use. Two chapters which follow are concerned with related disorders, that is, smoking and eating disorders. The final chapters cover treatment and prevention.

Journalist Jenny Valentish takes a gendered look at drugs and alcohol, using her own story to light the way. Mining the expertise of 35 leading researchers, clinicians and psychiatrists, she explores the early predictors of addictive behaviour, such as trauma, temperament and impulsivity. Drawing on neuroscience, she explains why other self-destructive behaviours – such as eating disorders, compulsive buying and high-risk sex – are interchangeable with problematic substance use. From her childhood in suburban Slough to her chaotic formative years in the London music scene, we follow her journey to Australia, where she experiences firsthand treatment facilities and AA groups, and reflects whether or not they are meeting the needs of women. Woman of Substances is an insightful, rigorous and brutally honest read. In Australia it was nominated for a prestigious Walkley Book Award. 'Employing expert interviews and research, each rich personal episode is contextualised within the under-examined issue of women's substance abuse. Detailed, insightful and told with a feature writer's narrative flair' Bookseller and Publisher. 'Engages readers with storytelling while presenting scientific findings and theories in a way that is accessible to a broad audience' Broadsheet. 'Part monograph, part memoir, part Ginsbergian howl of outrage at a culture in which gender bias is a tenet. It is a work of compellingly articulate anger' The Australian. 'In straightforward, lively prose she relates even her darkest moments without self-pity or aggrandisement, and often with a streak of gallows humour, leading to more laugh-out-loud lines than you might expect' The Saturday Paper. 'We need books like this, and writers like Valentish, to give voice to our frustrations and concerns, to help legitimise and mobilise' Kill Your Darlings. 'Valentish's passion lies in exploring the underlying causes and their effects and, in the most female of ways, offering companionship and reassurance for her readers' The Monthly. 'Doesn't mince her words' Sydney Morning Herald.

For many years, addiction research focused almost exclusively on men. Yet scientific awareness of sex and gender differences in substance use disorders has grown tremendously in recent decades. This volume brings together leading authorities to review the state of the science and identify key directions for research and clinical practice. Concise, focused chapters illuminate how biological and psychosocial factors influence the etiology and epidemiology of substance use disorders in women; their clinical presentation, course, and psychiatric comorbidities; treatment access; and treatment effectiveness. Prevalent substances of abuse are examined, as are issues facing special populations.

Filling a crucial need, this manual presents the Women's Recovery Group (WRG), an empirically supported treatment approach that emphasizes self-care and developing skills for relapse prevention and recovery. Grounded in cognitive-behavioral therapy, the WRG is designed for a broad population of women with alcohol and drug use disorders, regardless of their specific substance of abuse, age, or co-occurring disorders. Step-by-step intervention guidelines are accompanied by 80 reproducible clinical tools, including participant handouts, session outlines, bulletin board materials, and more. The large-size format facilitates photocopying; purchasers also get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials.

Recognizing that men and women have different patterns and different needs, the book emphasizes the relational model of female psychological development formulated by such theorists as Miller, Chodorow, and Gilligan, which illuminates women's functional focus on connection and relationship as opposed to men's on separation and individuation.

“Sex, Gender and Substance Use” describes how both biological and social factors affect people's use of substances. There is a lot of research carried out on substance use, prevention and treatment in which sex and gender are missing. This book describes the concepts of sex and gender, what they mean and why including them in substance use research, practice and policy is vital. Substances such as alcohol, drugs, nicotine, and tobacco all have differential effects on females and males. Social and cultural gendered factors affect how women and men react to prevention, treatment and policies. The book includes numerous examples of how sex- and gender-sensitive research can increase our understanding and improve prevention and treatment, and why striving for gender-transformative substance use practice and research remains a gold standard.