Department of Alcohol and Drug Prevention and Education

Safety

"... roughly 10 percent of women have experienced an attempted or completed rape during their first year at an American college and, often, alcohol is involved." ⁴
"... odds of experiencing sexual aggression were nine times higher on heavy days and three times higher on non heavy days of alcohol consumption compared with days of no alcohol consumption. The odds of experiencing nonsexual aggression were more than seven times higher on heavy days and nearly three times higher on non heavy days of alcohol consumption compared with days of no alcohol consumption." ⁴

Reproduction

"Menstrual disorders (e.g., painful menstruation, heavy flow, premenstrual discomfort, and irregular or absent cycles) have been associated with chronic heavy drinking. These disorders can have adverse effects on fertility. Further, continued drinking may lead to early menopause." ²
"Most girls are 2 to 3 months pregnant before they find out. Given the prime childbearing age range, the odds are very high that about 20% of babies have been exposed to multiple binges in high levels of alcohol in the first trimester, before the girl even knew she was pregnant. It is Party Hearty Time. The vast majority of these girls are NOT alcoholics. Maternal prenatal alcohol consumption even at low levels is adversely related to child behavior. The effect was observed at average exposure levels as low as 1 drink per week." ¹

Alcohol's Effects

"In the past decade alone, girls have closed the gender gap in terms of drinking. I wrote this book because girls are drinking as much, and as early, as boys for the first time in history, because there has been a threefold increase in the number of women who get drunk at least ten times a month, and because a 2001 study showed 40 percent of college girls binge drink. When you factor in increased rates of depression, suicide, alcohol poisoning, and sexual assault, plus emerging research that suggests women who drink have greater chances of liver disease, reproductive disorders, and brain abnormalities, the consequences of alcohol abuse are far heavier for girls than boys" ⁵
"In the "late stages" of alcoholism in women, they also develop hypertension, anemia, and malnutrition much quicker than alcoholic men, according to the Centers for Disease Control." ³
"Light-to-moderate drinking may be associated with increased bone mineral density and decreased risk of fracture in postmenopausal women" ⁶
" A study by the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that a woman's risk of breast cancer rises with the amount of alcohol regularly consumed. Drinking moderately or not at all can reduce the chance of getting breast cancer." ³
"More than 150 prescription and over-the-counter medications interact negatively with alcohol" ⁶

Women and Alcohol