Times of India
04 April 2011
By Jayashree Nandi
Bangalore, India

Women–Only Ward To Be Set Up In Nimhans
If you think men are more vulnerable to addiction, you might just be creating a stereotype. Addiction and substance abuse in the past two decades has caught on with women, and unfortunately, their treatment is much more complex and specialized than for men.

This increase has now prompted the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (Nimhans) to open a women–only ward, and will be the first such ward in the country.

According to professor of psychiatry at Nimhans Dr Pratima Murthy, the ratio, which used to be one woman per 25 male addicts (25:1) has increased to 7:1 as per the survey done by United Nation’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in 2008 in India. Nimhans, too, is seeing the trend at their deaddiction centre and bearing the brunt of not having specialized infrastructure to take good care of women addicts.
"We have requested the government for a special facility just for women, because the care they need is very different from what men do. At Nimhans, we have been seeing at least 10–15 fold increase in woman addicts in the past two decades," Dr Pratima told TOI.

Shockingly, women are falling prey more to pharmaceutical drugs than any other form, like alcohol or tobacco. "Benzodiazepine–dependence (benzodiazepines are a large class of commonly prescribed tranquillizers, otherwise referred to as central nervous system (CNS) depressants, anxiolytics and sedative–hypnotics) is very high. We also see alcohol, tobacco and opiate dependence. The other trend we are noticing is that younger women are getting into addiction in the late 20s–early 30s age bracket.

They are either from very poor backgrounds or have enough economic freedom. They often mirror male addiction," she added.

Though treatment for women was so far the same as for male addicts, now psychiatrists are trying to be more gender–sensitive. "By being gender–sensitive, we mean that women need more intensive individual care, counselling, empowerment. They are much more prone to depression, emotional difficulties and inter–personal stress. Women partners of male substance users are also prone to these symptoms. HIV risk also increases," explained Dr Pratima.
There could be many reasons why this trend has increased drastically over the years. According to director, Nimhans, Dr Satishchandra, "The trend has risen because of globalization. Some women have very high disposable incomes while some have nothing," he said.

Being an Addict
Meghna (name changed), 35, was an addict for over five years. After spending some time in rehab and following the Narcotics Anonymous programme, she came out of it. Currently, she works for a BPO in Bangalore at a senior level. Though successful, with a good social life, Meghna recollects that getting into addiction and coming out of it was very difficult.

"When I was in the rehabilitation centre in Kolkata, there were hardly any women, two to three among 20–25 men. No one really understood that women had a few more associated symptoms along with addiction.

My story was, of course, different because I decided to go public about my problem of substance abuse. But I know women, many in conservative family structures, like homemakers, who get into pharmaceutical drug abuse. Alzolam, a sleep–inducing drug, is easily available and many homemakers start taking those on a daily basis," she said. But few have the courage to talk about the addiction problem because of social stigma. "They keep it to themselves, get deeper and deeper and finally commit suicide," Meghna added.

Deaddiction a Stigma?
Nimhans has also decided to rechristen the word deaddiction to ‘addiction medicine’. "There is a lot of stigma attached to the word deaddiction. As in western countries, we have now decided to call it addiction medicine. Nimhans will soon start a course in this," Nimhans director and vice–chancellor Dr P D Satishchandra said.