The purpose of this research paper was to investigate gender and alcohol use patterns. Studies regarding risk of dependence for men and women are consistent; the risk of alcoholism is reported to be greater for male offspring of alcoholic parents and environmental factors are more associated with females. Findings regarding expectancies are less consistent; some studies report that women and men have different beliefs that effect drinking behavior, others state that these differences are disappearing with the increase of drinking in women. Differences in gender effects of alcohol remain unclear; some report that women tend to be more susceptible to adverse effects. Research regarding depression is even less clear, depression is linked to both women and men. Treatment studies show that men tend to demonstrate more lifelong problems and tend to seek immediate treatment less than women.
This research paper will address differing aspects of alcohol addiction/abuse for men and women. Included in the discussion will be gender specific differences with regard to the following: etiological and inheritance risk; expectancies; effects; depressive symptoms; and treatment.
Jang, Livesley, and Vernon (1997) reported that consistent in the literature is the finding that there are differences in risk of dependence for men and women. The risk of alcoholism is found to be greater for male offspring of alcoholic parents. The authors substantiated these findings and further reported results of their study, that additive genetic effects were found in males and most substance use problems were determined by environmental factors in women (p. 1265).
The study sample consisted of 693 volunteer twin pairs from the general population (209 monozygotic female, 138 monozygotic male, 170 dizygotic female, 82 dizygotic male, and 94 dizygotic opposite-sex twin pairs). The use of twins allows for the estimate of proportion of variance in ...