Addiction in women often stems from past abuse - most often by a partner
THE GREATEST risk of physical and sexual abuse or harm for a woman comes from the person she is in a relationship with, typically a person who claims to love her, explains US clinician, author and lecturer, Dr Stephanie Covington.
Recognised for her pioneering work in the area of women's issues, Covington found that many of the women she works with who are addicted to alcohol and drugs have a history of abuse in their lives. She believes they will never maintain recovery unless they get help in dealing with the underlying trauma of their abuse.
She has written a number of programmes including Helping Women Recover: A Programme for Treating Addiction and Beyond Trauma: A Healing Journey for Womenwhich are used as treatment models for female substance abusers in the US.
Covington points out that, as children, boys and girls are both at risk of physical and sexual abuse from people they know, but as they become teenagers and adults, their risk of interpersonal violence changes.
She says: "In the teenage years, the greatest risk for a gay man or a young man of colour, for example, is from their peers or the police. For a teenage girl, the greatest risk of abuse is from the person she is in a relationship with.
"In adulthood, a man might be a victim of a crime committed by a stranger - or, if he is in the military and in combat, he can be harmed by the enemy. For a woman, the greatest risk of harm, again, comes from the person she's in a relationship with."
Some of the women Covington works with have been abused as children, adolescents and as adults by people they know and have turned to drugs or alcohol as a result of this trauma in their lives.
"Trauma is defined in the diagnostic manual as an event you experience, witness, or hear about happening to somebody you care about that overwhelms you physically and psychologically. It could be an automobile accident, a frightening medical procedure or emigration to a new country. The response to trauma for an adult is overwhelming fear, helplessness or horror," she explains.
Covington is based in La Jolla, California, where she is co-director of both the Institute for Relational Development and the Centre for Gender and Justice. Her work as a consultant to the Betty Ford Treatment Centre included the creation of a programme for women, and she also consulted with the Hanley Centre in West Palm Beach on the development of the Center for Women's Recovery.
She recently completed a contract with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to provide comprehensive, system-wide consulting services to address the issues of female offenders.
Covington has also served as a consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna and the Centre for Substance Abuse Treatment in Washington, DC.
She has conducted seminars on addiction, sexuality, families, and relationships for health professionals, business and community organisations, and recovery groups.
Recently, she presented the Beyond Trauma: A Healing Journey for Women Seminarat the Tabor Lodge Addiction Treatment Centre in Cork. This training seminar is based on a women-centred trauma treatment curriculum that teaches what trauma is, its process and its impact on thoughts, beliefs, feelings, values and behaviour, relationships and parenting.
She worked with a range of treatment providers over the two-day seminar, training them in techniques that they can use to help clients develop coping skills and emotional wellness.
"Ireland is just beginning to look at this issue," says Covington.
The Royal College Of Surgeons Sexual Abuse and Violence in Ireland (SAVI) study showed in the region of 78 per cent of those interviewed never told anybody they had been sexually abused.
"There's a lot of silence in this country about the issue and there have not been many studies done," she says.
Covington teaches women what abuse is: "Physical, sexual, emotional and domestic violence." Some of the common responses women have to such abuse, she explains, are "depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or other anxiety problems, addiction, eating disorders, denial and disassociation".
"Some women just think they are crazy. I try to help them develop coping mechanisms and learn to stay in the here and now, find ways to comfort and soothe themselves without using alcohol and drugs [which is a huge challenge to many] and make them feel empowered."
She explains that women who have suffered trauma often live very constricted and limited lives, sometimes unconsciously. A woman who has been harmed as a child, for example, can go to work everyday but may have no friends and be afraid to answer her phone, or may gain weight or wear multiple layers of clothing to hide her body.
Covington remarks: "I think people are becoming more aware of this whole issue in Ireland. There is a willingness and openness to learn more about abuse and trauma which is so strongly connected to the use of alcohol and drugs."
