ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author considers the responses of health professionals to women with alcohol and drug problems, and the effects of interventions on women's help-seeking, from the perspectives of the women involved. It considers study participants' accounts of their GPs' attitudes towards them, barriers to open communication between doctors and drug-using or drinking patients, and the effects on access to specialist treatment for women. Women are approximately twice as likely as men to receive prescriptions for minor tranquillisers and antidepressant drugs from their primary care physicians. Women in withdrawal from heroin often find methadone a useful substitute. Methadone, despite being a prescribed drug, is closer to the 'bad drug' end of the spectrum, which places it in a sphere inhabited by 'junkies'; by definition women who are 'hopeless cases'. The author also describes women's experiences of hospitalisation and contacts with hospital staff.
