The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that “males are more likely than women to use almost all types of illicit drugs, and illicit drug use is more likely to result in emergency department visits or overdose deaths for males than for women.” There are clear disparities in substance and alcohol use when considering sex and gender differences.
Why Does Substance Abuse Look Different?
Guys face challenges when recovering from addiction due to behaviors learned during early childhood and adolescence through to young adulthood. From an article published by Lumen Learning about gender and socialization, “cross-cultural studies reveal that children are aware of gender roles by age two or three, [and] at four or five, most children are firmly entrenched in culturally appropriate gender roles.”
Stereotypes influence expectations that boys and girls, whether consciously or unconsciously, believe they must live up to. Ultimately, these early expectations dictate behaviors that lead to differences in patterns of initial drug and alcohol abuse and relapse in early recovery.
Let’s explore a few of the challenges that stand in the way of men in particular achieving long-term sobriety.
How Widespread Is Drug and Alcohol Addiction?
Before we touch on the five challenges face when in addiction recovery, let’s get a better idea of how many of us are in this fight together. Tracking who is affected by addiction is difficult due to the many factors that influence it. Just to name a few, some of the most influential factors include one’s living environment, mental health status, trauma history, age of substance use onset, genetic factors, and gender identity.
For alcohol, in 2016, approximately 7.7% of deaths accounting for were attributable to alcohol consumption, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). According to the 2019 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 29.7% of men aged 18 or older, reported that they “engaged in binge drinking in the past month” from when the survey was taken. Furthermore, 8.3% of men in this age group reported they “engaged in heavy alcohol use in the past month” as well.
What constitutes binge drinking and heavy alcohol use? The NIAAA classifies binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings blood alcohol content (BAC) levels to 0.08g/dL or higher.” For , this is typically after consuming five or more drinks in about a two-hour time span. Heavy alcohol use (or heavy drinking) for men is defined as consuming more than four drinks on any day or more than 14 drinks per week by the NIAAA.
For drugs, a summary compilation of studies spanning the 1980s and 1990s, published by researchers at the University of Illinois, identified some correlation between drug use and gender. Their findings include that “reported a higher rate of illicit substance use (any illicit drug) than women, 8.5% to 4.5%, nearly double.”
The University of Illinois publication goes on to further explain the potential reasons for gender variation with respect to drug use. The study states, “explanations of etiological differences between males and females have focused on such cultural constructs as gender socialization (i.e., the learning of and conformity to appropriate masculine and feminine traits) and stratification (e.g., unequal economic, educational, and social opportunities).”
Why Are They More Affected by Drugs and Alcohol, Leading to Addiction?
According to Lumen Learning, “gender socialization occurs through four major agents of socialization: family education, peer groups, and mass media, [and, additionally], secondary agents such as religion and the workplace,” which create and maintain “normative expectations for gender-specific behavior.”
This helps us understand that the lives we lead are full of learned behaviors influenced by a number of factors that we largely have no control over as we’re growing up. For example, if you grew up in a household where emotional outbursts weren’t tolerated, this means that you would need to keep many of your feelings, especially negatively associated ones, such as grief, depression, or anger, to yourself.
Expanding on this example, you might have learned coping mechanisms that shut away these feelings and emotions, which eventually prove ineffective as you get older. If, in adulthood, you are faced with battling an emotionally-charged event like a financial crisis, ‘bottling up’ your feelings might be the only strategy you know. Without the means to process your emotions, you might instead cope with drugs or alcohol to provide relief from these painful feelings.
Additionally, both sexes view addiction and recovery differently. Traditional male stereotypes, such as stoicism or physical aptitude, actually heighten withdrawal symptoms and act as a deterrent when seeking treatment.
Challenge #1: Have Trouble Healthily Processing Emotions
The first challenge face when in recovery from addiction is having trouble processing emotions. Although this does not apply to everyone, men who are unable to do so make up a larger population of those who suffer from addiction. Also, those who learn to process their emotions better have a greater chance of maintaining long-term sobriety.
At the end of the last section, we touched on a hypothetical situation where a man could not cope with financial stress due to behaviors he learned when young. He instead turned to drugs or alcohol. Understanding, processing, and expressing how you are feeling in similar times of stress allows you to move forward in life healthily. Alcohol and drugs act as crutches otherwise when you are unable to do so.
While having trouble healthily processing and expressing emotions during times of stress, are also more reluctant to get help, which, in turn, makes their chances of recovery even slimmer. As we know, the larger your support system is during and after addiction recovery, the more likely you are to succeed at staying sober.
Challenge #2: Undiagnosed Mental Health Disorders Get in the Way
Both sexes are affected by undiagnosed mental health disorders. This means that while both genders go out of their way to find help, the type of assistance they receive greatly influences treatment options.
While women may receive treatment due to psychological issues, men typically receive a narrower scope of treatment issued by specialists. For example, “men are more likely than women to disclose problems with alcohol use to their health care provider.” Without a prior diagnosis, alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment will not be done in conjunction with a co-occurring mental health disorder. This makes recovery for men an uphill battle if they are only seeing their disease from a limited perspective.
Challenge #3: Stereotypical Stressors Assigned to Men
The idea of “separate spheres” helps describe gender norms of western culture prior to the 1960s. The roles of men and women were absolute. Males were perceived as the head of the household and the sole financial provider. Women were expected to avoid the public sphere, to care for children and the household. Although this narrow view of gender norms has shifted since then, gender norms still sometimes perpetuate remnants of past constructs.
Whether male or female, these norms can become stressors, especially if they are enforced by society, if not by yourself.
For those in recovery, stereotypical gender stressors get in the way of them getting better. If in recovery were to meet the expectation of being financially independent, the protector of the household, and a pillar of stoicism, they would be jumping the gun. While suffering from a progressive disease like substance use disorder (SUD), goals, whether related to old gender norms or not, are unachievable unless you first tackle sobriety.
Challenge #4: Believing You Can Limit How Much You Drink or Use
When you have not yet fully come to terms with addiction, a common mistake in the early stages of recovery is believing it is possible to limit how much you drink or how often you use. Drug and alcohol addiction shows no restraint when taking that approach. Those who try this only see themselves progressively worsen over the period that they try. Being affected by the disease of addiction means that you have no control over it. It means that you are unable to manage your own life, subsequently, because of it.
Although this is not only a challenge that men face, we attribute it to them because of a study published by NIDA titled Men and Women in Drug Abuse Treatment Relapse at Different Rates and for Different Reasons. In this study, ” were more likely to report positive experiences prior to relapsing and were more likely to engage in self-justification and rationalizing [after relapsing].” An example that follows is that ” felt entitled to use cocaine or that they believed they could control their cocaine use.”
Challenge #5: The Relapse Rate for Males is Higher Than for Women
Following the same study by NIDA, researchers found that “[women] were less likely than men to relapse: only 22% of women compared to 32% of men relapsed” due to drug use in six months post-quitting. Although relapse rate is not a determining factor in and of itself toward the success of men’s sobriety, it creates a secondary mental stigma that men are more likely to fail. In fact, the reason males hold a higher relapse rate is in part due to a few of our previously listed challenges, among many others.
Considering guy’s higher rate of relapse, it is integral to their success that they receive aftercare and ongoing support past early recovery periods, such as joining an outpatient program or regularly attending 12-Step meetings.
What can some guys expect if they don’t receive ongoing support after early recovery? Discontinued support means the man’s world reverts to what it was before. He loses contact with those he can confide in, and the threat of addiction lingers overhead with greater malice.
Addiction and recovery prove to be especially tough on everyone. Maintaining long-term sobriety can come with a complete change in your perspective on life. Substance abuse and dependence have hampered your ability to take care of yourself. Letting go of societal judgments, along with a willingness to express your emotions, plays a key role in halting substance abuse for men.
Please take the next step with us, Real Recovery Sober Living, and triumph over addiction in a stable, active community of like-minded guys in Florida’s Greater Tampa Bay area. Gain a unique perspective from those who struggled through similar challenges while subsequently learning how to live a happier life. As difficult as it sometimes feels to move forward, drugs and alcohol are not in control of your life.
You are. Our coordination with the 12-Step process has successfully helped hundreds of men achieve long-term sobriety in the past five years. Call us at (727) 290-9156 for more information.
