A rehab of one's own
Gender-specific recovery programs for women are gaining ground, despite criticism of their "warm and fuzzy" approach.
By Annie Murphy Paul
Aug. 22, 2001 | The chairs are the first thing you notice. They are curvy, plush, luxuriously padded -- as far from metal folding chairs as furniture can get. There are fresh flowers on the table near the neat little kitchen. The "12 Steps" hang on the wall, but in a handsome wooden frame, next to misty prints of woodland scenes.
Welcome to the Hanley-Hazelden Center for Women's Recovery, a kinder, gentler -- and gender-specific -- sort of rehab. The 1 o'clock meeting is just getting underway.
"Where are you in this spiral of addiction?" asks Kathleen, a comfortable, maternal-looking counselor, as she points to a diagram set on an easel. Grouped in a circle around her are eight patients, well-groomed women in their 20s and 30s. After a moment, a woman with short hair and dangly earrings speaks.
"I'm in the middle of the spiral. I already hit bottom, and I'm on my way back up."
"What was bottom for you?" asks Kathleen.
"Being in a sick relationship, and wanting to die," she replies matter-of-factly. Kathleen nods vigorously.
"We all know about the kinds of relationships we get into when we're using," she says. "What are some words to describe the kind of relationships we'll have when we're clean?"
The women begin throwing out answers.
"Honesty," volunteers one.
"Trust," says another.
A demure-looking blond furrows her brow. "Love?"
Kathleen pivots and points. "Love!" she exclaims. "Love is good, but we can't let it distract us from what we really need to concentrate on -- our own recovery."
"Yeah, it's like -- what's love got to do with it?" cracks the woman with short hair.
"What is love?" Kathleen chimes in.
"A secondhand emotion!" comes the inevitable response, and the whole group joins in an impromptu chorus of Tina Turner's gruff anthem.
Actually, love has a lot to do with it, according to the counselors at Hanley-Hazelden. Unlike men, who usually begin abusing alcohol with their buddies, female alcoholics are often introduced to the bottle by a male partner. "The feelings and behaviors they learn around intimacy are not healthy," says Donna Corrente, the center's director. "That's why we spend so much time talking about relationships."
The program she manages occupies a low-slung stucco building, sheltered by palm trees and staffed exclusively by women. No "fraternization" is permitted with the men's unit, a few hundred yards away.
Located in West Palm Beach, Fla., and barely a year old, the Hanley-Hazelden facility is one of a growing number of "gender-responsive" recovery programs taking root all over the country. Advocates extol them as a long-overdue antidote to decades of neglect of the needs of female addicts. "The idea used to be that you had to confront alcoholics' denial, tear them down and re-create them -- but that approach is disastrous for women," says Christine Saulnier, Ph.D., assistant professor at Boston University. "They've been beaten up enough already by their addiction. To promote an even greater sense of powerlessness and helplessness is just bizarre."
Women-only rehab programs adopt a caring, nurturing tone, and focus their curricula on healing trauma, building self-esteem and learning how to establish healthy relationships. This approach has its critics, however, who charge that single-sex treatment perpetuates gender stereotypes, patronizes its patients and promotes a victim mentality. They take issue with the bedrock assumption of gender-responsive programs: that alcoholism is a radically different experience for women.
Next page: Female alcoholics face far more scorn and stigma than their male counterparts