Happy Hours: Alcohol in a Woman's Life

"[A] noteworthy examination of women and alcohol delivers compelling personal stories that illuminate previously neglected aspects of this devastating social problem." — Publishers Weekly

Mixing cutting-edge research with affecting stories of women who struggle with alcohol problems, Happy Hours challenges our assumptions and expands our awareness of the role alcohol plays in women's lives.

In this important book, Devon Jersild explores the common cultural forces that influence a woman's drinking—trauma, sexual abuse, and marital status. Jersild has spoken to treatment specialists, doctors, therapists, and counselors, and interviewed women who share their often dramatic stories. Her research findings are a wake-up call to many women who are in the dark about the effect of drinking on their mental and physical health. For example:

• Women metabolize alcohol differently from men, more quickly developing such physical complications as liver disease, high blood pressure, and hepatitis.
• Female alcoholics are twice as likely to die as male alcoholics in the same age group
• A female alcoholic is more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, which may not go away even if she stops drinking.
• An astonishing four million women in the U.S. meet the diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence.

Happy Hours is not just about alcoholics. It is aimed at any woman who has ever wondered whether she drinks too heavily or too often, and at anyone who has a sister, mother, grandmother, child, or friend whose drinking has caused them concern.

Alcohol is the drug of choice among American women. An astonishing 4 million women meet the diagnostic criteria for abuse or dependence. Yet until recently, alcoholism-like heart disease-was considered a man's problem. Research, prevention, and treatment efforts were aimed at men. The few studies on women that existed focused on the effects of alcohol on children and families.

Mixing cutting-edge research with moving stories of women who struggled with alcohol problems, Happy Hours challenges our assumptions and expands our awareness of the role alcohol plays in women's lives.

Women metabolize alcohol differently from men, more quickly developing such physical complications as liver disease, high blood pressure, and hepatitis. A female alcoholic is likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders, which may not go away even if she stops drinking. Commonly, her alcohol abuse is comb combined with the abuse of other drugs. She is at high risk for suicide.

She must also bear the rage leveled at women who don't live up to certain standards of femininity. She is seen as a bad mother, a disgraceful daughter, a shameful wife. Unfairly regarded as sexually "loose' " she is actually more vulnerable to assault. Indeed, when a woman drinks, she is five times more likely to be raped.

One stunning fact says it all: Female alcoholics are twice as likely to die as male alcoholics in the same age group--even as male alcoholics die at three times the rate of men in the general population.

Devon Jersild tells the stories of women who fell into a dizzying maze yet moved forward into recovery. Her book began as a journey of understanding when her alcoholic sister edged closer to death. Jersild consulted climclans, doctors, psychologists, and researchers 'in the field of alcohol studies. What she found is sometimes shocking but always inspiring. Elegantly written and compelling, Happy Hours is an important look at the lifelong effects of alcoholism on a woman's health and well-being.