Addiction, Treatment and Recovery

Women’s Addiction Conferences will be convened in Baltimore and San Diego in September, 2003. The nation’s leading non-profit treatment providers, Rancho Mirage, California-based Betty Ford Center, Wernersville, Pennsylvania-based Caron Foundation and Father Martin’s Ashley of Havre DeGrace, Maryland, are the presenting organizations.

Together, the September 5-6 conference at the Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor and the September 19-20 conference at the San Diego Marriott Del Mar are expected to attract as many as 500 addiction/treatment professionals and persons in recovery. The programs are organized so the first day (a Friday) is aimed primarily at professionals; day two (Saturday) is for professionals and persons in recovery.

Women’s Addiction Conferences have been held in several American cities since they were inaugurated in November, 1997. The September 2003 sessions will be focused around the theme of “Relationships and Recovery.”

Several of the nation’s leading researchers and writers in the field will be present at the conferences, including:

• Mary Pipher, PhD. Dr. Pipher is widely recognized as a leader in the field of families and recovery. Her many books include Reviving Ophelia, The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families, and Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders.
• Marilyn Mason, PhD. Dr. Mason works nationally and internationally training professionals and guiding women recovering from substance abuse. She is co-author of Facing Shame: Families in Recovery.
• Rokelle Lerner is an expert on addicted family systems and is the author of several bestsellers, including Living in the Comfort Zone: The Gift of Boundaries in Relationships, and Daily Affirmations for Adult Children of Alcoholics.
• Judith V. Jordan, PhD. is considered the “foremother” of feminist therapy. She teaches at Harvard Medical School and is co-author of Women’s Growth in Connection.

According to one of the conference organizers, the Betty Ford Center’s Dr. Nancy Waite-O’Brien, one of the highlights of the Baltimore and San Diego conferences is the number and variety of experiential workshops. “On the second day of the conferences,” says Dr. Waite-O’Brien, “we really encourage participants to do just that – participate.”

Several interactive sessions are scheduled for the September conferences, with topics that include “The Spiritual Journey: Growing Into Your Higher Self,” “Blessings on the Wind: Sacred Notes to a Higher Power” and “The Many Faces to Recovery and Relapse: From Transition to Maintenance.”

Dr. Waite-O’Brien says the philosophical foundation of all the Women’s Addiction Conferences is the simple fact that a woman’s experience with addiction, treatment and recovery is different than a man’s.

“Our culture,” she says, “reinforces the shame and guilt associated with being a woman alcoholic or addict, the devastating physical complications of this disease when it affects women, the impact women’s economic circumstances have on her access to treatment, and the psychological problems that add layers of complexity to the treatment of this illness in women.”

“And,” she continues, “when examining the issue of culture, it’s important to remember that the harshest critic of the female alcoholic/addict isn’t society in the abstract, it’s the woman herself – whether it’s mother, professional, wife, partner. This harsh internal and external judgment results in higher levels of shame and guilt in women alcoholics/addicts than it does in men.”

Dr. Waite-O’Brien, Director of Education and Training at the Betty Ford Center (where treatment has long been gender-specific), describes treatment for addicted women as being – at the same time – both “wonderful and frightening” for the female alcoholic/addict. “Frightening,” she says, “because problems are addressed, head-on. Wonderful, because most women who come into treatment have never taken any time for themselves; they’ve spent years balancing the demands of others with the demands of their disease.”

“Caught in that trap, they’ve lost sight of who they really are. They’ve become lonely, isolated and separated from their real self. An important goal of our Women’s Addiction Conferences is to both illuminate and explore that ‘real self.’”

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