Training Title:
Retired ~ Women and Addiction: Consumption Patterns

Clock Hours: 0.5

Objectives:
At the completion of this course, participants will be able to: • Identify sex differences in consumption patterns of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs • Specify additional questions to ask in assessing women (and men) to get a more thorough picture of consumption patterns and context.

Description:
The purpose of this course is to summarize some of the information available on the different rates of substance use in women and men, with a special focus on the consumption rates of those less than 18 years of age in the U.S. Our data source will be the results of the last annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), conducted by the federal government. We will also review international comparisons of alcohol use patterns among women and men in different countries. Interestingly, initial researchers suggested that the rates of use are underestimated for women because of the oversimplified questions used in the surveys. A new instrument was developed and used to find some expected and unexpected results. We do provide a brief description of the revised survey instrument – all or portions of it which may be of value in treatment assessments. Importantly, this survey instrument looks much more fully at contexts, both drinking and life contexts, than most standard diagnostic and psychosocial assessments used in treatment organizations today. Keywords: Gender, gender competence, gender competency, sex, discrimination, stereotyping, women, men, oppression, feminist, women’s studies, women’s issues, feminism, inequality, power relations, sexual, group processes, group dynamics, substance abuse, addictions, consumption patterns, alcohol, drug, tobacco, adolescents, cultural, race, lesbian, bisexual

Approval Bodies