WOMEN AND ALCOHOL: DEFINING THE PROBLEM AND SEEKING HELP

This paper examines the accounts of three women, taken from the general population, who will not seek help for their alcohol problems. The narrative construction of their drinking forms a bricolage from the babble of discourses around alcohol that they encounter in their everyday lives. Much of the literature on alcohol & alcohol problems is written from the point of view of subjective experience mapped onto an objective definition which may show that they are not offering a true account of themselves, that they are in denial, or that they are displacing their (real) problem with alcohol onto something else. In this scenario, a cure can only be effected by first making the women understand, & then admit, what their real problem is. It is suggested that the reason these women, & possibly others, do not seek help is precisely because they fear that their own stories will be denied as untrue & that in this process, their own identities & personal accounts will be lost. In the confusion & difficulty they experience in defining the problem, they need an open space where they can explore their drinking & increase their knowledge from the many knowledges available, but free from the constraints & risks that they feel access to these knowledges would inevitably involve.