By the time Victoria Cooper enrolled in an alcohol treatment program in 2018, she was drinking for survival, not pleasure, she says multiple vodka shots in the morning, at lunchtime and beyond. In the treatment program, she saw other women in their 20s struggling with alcohol and other drugs. It was the first time in a very long time that I had not felt alone, she says. Ferguson Menz/Kaiser Health News
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By the time Victoria Cooper enrolled in an alcohol treatment program in 2018, she was drinking for survival, not pleasure, she says multiple vodka shots in the morning, at lunchtime and beyond. In the treatment program, she saw other women in their 20s struggling with alcohol and other drugs. It was the first time in a very long time that I had not felt alone, she says.
6.09.21 11:16am
Victoria Cooper thought her drinking habits in college were just like everyone else s. Shots at parties. Beers while bowling. Sure, she got more refills than some and missed classes while nursing hangovers, but she couldn t have a problem, she thought. Because of what my picture of alcoholism was old men who brown-bagged it in a parking lot I thought I was fine, says Cooper, now sober and living in Chapel Hill, N.C.
That common image of who is affected by alcohol disorders, echoed throughout pop culture, was misleading over a decade ago when Cooper was in college. And it s even less representative today.
Women aren t just upping their drinking, researchers say. Increasingly they are "drinking to cope," instead of for pleasure which accelerates the risk of alcohol use disorder and its health damage.