“I started consuming pills to rest and sleep and, little by little, I realized that I needed them to live.” Miriam, 53, now says this safely, but it cost him a while to be aware that He had generated an addiction to benzodiazepines, caused by the feeling of not being 100% in any field of his life. Being successful at work, being able to reconcile with the family, exercise regularly and have social or personal life becomes an impossible in a society that loads women an added demand. She does not say, not even the experts, the data says: the prevalence of consumption of hypnosedants among women is 65% greater than in men and there are already several studies that point to gender inequality as a key conditioning in the Psychopharmaceutical consumption.
Miriam’s case is paradigmatic, because most women begin to take anxiolytic or benzodiazepines to mitigate a condition that in many cases is not medical, but social and emotional. And the solution, in the end, becomes the problem. “It all started because I had family problems, I was saturated from working inside and outside the home and having the feeling of not getting to everything,” he tells 20 minutes. With two children, the Asturian was overwhelmed by a multitude of fronts and also ended up falling into alcohol consumption to evade her situation. “It was a fish that bit the tail, because family and work problems increased even more, to the point that my then partner threatened to leave me if I continued,” he says.
In the end, he confesses, he got out of hand: “It consumed such a number of pills that fell fainted and they had to enter the hospital to make me stomach washes. ” take the reins of your life.
The only substance they consume more than them
In general, the use of anxiolytics and hypnnosedants has increased considerably in recent decades, and Spain is already the country of the world with the greatest consumption of tranquilizers. In fact, according to the Survey of the Ministry of Health, Ages 2024, the hypnnants, with or without a recipe, were the Fourth more consumed substance in the last year in Spainonly behind alcohol (76.5%), tobacco (36.8%) and cannabis (12.6%). Of all those analyzed in the study, these medications, which are usually prescribed to treat anxiety or insomnia paintings, are the only substance in which women have a greater pattern of greater consumption (14.7%) than men (9, 3%). Approximately 456,000 people began the consumption of these medications in the last 12 months prior to the publication of the study.
Other investigation From the University of Santiago de Compostela, it shows that the use of these medications tripled between 2005 and 2022, and that the population group with the highest prevalence is that of women aged 55 to 64, with 21.4%.
Avoid pain with immediate responses
“There is a tendency to self -medication and it seems that we will avoid suffering and pain with very immediate responses,” Elisabeth Ortega Vice President of the UNAD addiction attention network assures this newspaper. As explained, in the case of women the problematic consumption of benzodiazepines and anxiolytics is closely related to the care and responsibilities that continue to be attributed unequally to them. Roles that are added to the fact that society is still much more demanding with them. “We start from caring for others and, in addition, having a beautiful body, going to the gym, being super successful at workbe very formed and have time to be one hundred percent in all areas of a person’s life, “he emphasizes.
The result is that, if all these expectations are not met, the fault arises for not reaching everything; And from the feeling of guilt, anxiety, anguish, lack of energy or insomnia and despair to find something that mitigates it is born. The problem is that this solution, which in most cases are hypnosedants, do not go to the cause, to which it is generating that women feel overwhelmed. “Then, we enter an eternal circle, because Although I am Medician, I still live and experience situations that generate me. And I spend more and more self -medication. And I enter that loop that I am not able to leave, because, in the end, the fact of not having anxiety is not helping me to continue fulfilling all those tasks and with all those responsibilities, “says Ortega.
Probabilities are triggered in cases of greater vulnerability. Having suffered gender violence, sexualbeing poor or, ultimately, any trauma is a risk factor in itself to develop problematic consumption. “It becomes an escape valve so as not to think or not externalize what they have suffered,” says Ortega.
Accessible and normalized
Ana Macías, Technical Director of Prevention and Treatment Programs at Aldaba-Project Man Valladolid coincides. Macías says that when we consume a substance that ends up invading other areas of our life and without which we could not carry out many activities of everyday life, it is when you can be generating an addiction. A problematic consumption of anxiolytic and benzodiazepines that are also easy to find and are very normalized. “When we do workshops with women we realize that they say they started consuming through other women who have advised them to do so. It is the problem of having it so normalized. They are equally addictive, but they are better seen, Because they do not produce such a remarkable effect as a drunkenness and because in most cases they are achieved under medical prescription, “he says.
“Obviously These treatments have a beginning and end, because it is not when addiction occurs “maintains the vice president of UNAD, who ensures that there are people who consume this type of drugs without being aware that there is the possibility that they will develop a dependency. According to Project Man, the anxiolytics and sleepy occupy 7% of problematic consumption attended to women, compared to 3% of men.
“A pill will not remove the pain”
The way to follow to reduce that trend, according to Ortega, is to guarantee a more multidisciplinary intervention in health care. “That there is a much more integrative job, more focused on the problem, and try to combine it with other types of therapies,” defend. But the problem, denounces, is that there is not enough medical staff for it. “And then I think we must raise awareness, not only to the medical community but to society itself, about the fact that a pill will not take away the pain, it will simply stop the symptoms for a while, but the problem goes To continue there … because what causes you pain requires another type of attention, “he concludes.
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