If you or a woman in your life is struggling with stress or mental health, they might also be self-medicating with drugs like prescription benzos or opioids. The most common drug abused by women is a prescription for mental health disorders, but with Casa Serena, you can get treatment for your addiction and co-occurring mental health issues.
Contact Casa Serena today for dual diagnosis treatment for women.
How Does Substance Abuse Impact Women?
Women’s substance abuse takes place at a much higher rate than men’s. While men are more likely to struggle with alcoholism, women are more likely to work with issues like mental health disorders, domestic violence, family stress, and discrimination.
Mental Health Disorders
Women are more likely to struggle with mental health disorders, especially eating disorders, depression, or anxiety. Roughly 50% of women with depression or anxiety will turn to drugs to self-medicate and develop an addiction throughout their lives.
Domestic Violence
One in three women struggles with domestic violence at some point in their lives, increasing the risk of mental health disorders and, subsequently, drug abuse.
Discrimination
It is common for women to experience discrimination in many places, like at home, at work, within their community, or elsewhere. The additional stress of this discrimination can lead to self-medicating with drugs.
Family Stress
Women are also more likely to experience higher levels of family stress because of divorce, child custody, or the death of a loved one. This family stress can contribute to mental health disorders and drug abuse.
What is the Most Common Drug Abused by Women?
Nearly 9% of women between 18 and 25 have an alcohol use disorder. But alcoholism isn’t the most common drug abused by women of all ages.
Benzodiazepines
The most common drug abused by women is benzodiazepine or similar anti-anxiety medications. Depression is the leading mental health disorder among women. Women are twice as likely as men to develop an anxiety disorder. As such, prescription rates are much higher.
Women are more likely to receive a prescription for anxiety, depression, or sleeping disorders compared to men. Women are susceptible to continuing use of self-medication too.
Opioids
Other drugs commonly abused by women are prescription opioids. Women are more sensitive to pain and more likely than their male counterparts to suffer from some form of chronic pain. That is why one of the drugs commonly abused by women is prescription opioids.
Methamphetamine/Cocaine
Finally, a women substance abuse disorder might happen because of methamphetamine and cocaine. Women are more likely to use methamphetamine or cocaine to increase energy levels at home and lose weight.
Are There Women’s Only Drug Rehabs?
You can find women-only programs and rehab centers.
Programs vs. Centers
In general, they both treat the most common drug abused by women, but the most significant difference is that programs might be gender-specific, so they include female participants and maybe female staff, but the facility treats a wide range of genders.
Women’s only drug rehab centers like Casa Serena focus on drugs commonly abused by women, offer services for women exclusively, are typically founded by women, and provide female staff.
If you are uncomfortable with the prospect of running into other genders at your Rehab Center when you come and go for meetings, or if you don’t like the idea of male doctors or psychiatrists, it is better to work with women’s only drug rehab centers for substance abuse.
Casa Serena is a Comprehensive Women’s Treatment Center in Santa Barbara
Casa Serena is a women’s substance abuse treatment center. We do more than offer one program for women: we offer nothing but programs for women. We appreciate that women struggling with addiction are worried about losing connections to their families, an unsafe recovery center, gender stereotypes, social stereotypes, or interpersonal problems. That is why our women’s only treatment center in Santa Barbara lets you exclusively participate in sessions with other women.
You can find safety and comfort at our treatment center in our nurturing, supportive therapeutic environment. You get to cultivate relationships with other people in therapists based on empathy and mutual respect. We don’t use traditional practices of trying to break down your morale so that you can rebuild yourself. Instead, we work with you without imposing any gender stereotypes, blaming you, judging you, or engaging in threatening behavior.
We also specialize in social support. Research indicates that having support from your partner or your family during your recovery increases your likelihood of staying at our facility and remaining sober long-term. That’s why we integrate things like family counseling and couples counseling into your program.
Reach out to Casa Serena for women’s drug abuse treatment today.