Articles

Crystal meth has different effects on the lives of women versus men. Aside from the physical damage it deals to the female body, there is a higher risk of mental trauma due to the behaviors that go along with meth use. This makes it all the more important to educate youths before they get hooked, and to provide mental health treatment along with addiction treatment if they do.

We’ve all seen the disturbing before and after photos on the internet. You would think those, on their own, would prevent young women from even associating with meth users. But youth carries with it a feeling of invincibility and a “that won’t happen to me” attitude, which sadly turns the images into a joke among friends. The outcome isn’t funny for the women in the pictures.

A more immediate consequence of meth use for women is what can happen to them in the midst of other users. Instances of rape, serious injury, and death are higher than normal when a group of individuals use meth together. The drug relieves users of inhibitions, making them feel like rules of good conduct don’t apply to them. Couple that with feeling stronger and more agile, with a threshold for pain that is through the roof, and you have a game of tragedy roulette.

Maybe the knowledge that their security can go to zero at any second on meth, may just keep them from using even once.

If she survives time as an addict and hasn’t permanently damaged reproductive organs, brain tissue, her heart, liver, or lungs, a woman will have likely been traumatized at least once. Many of them won’t even see forced sex as a past trauma, at first, seeing it only as a part of the lifestyle. But as the addicted brain begins to recover and emotions rise to the surface, those and similar events can drastically inhibit recovery and may lead to a relapse.

At Tarzana Treatment Centers, we recognize these critical differences in how women respond to drug treatment. Our women only programs utilize trauma-informed and gender-specific counseling techniques to improve treatment outcomes. Eligible women can enter residential treatment with small children, allowing those important bonds to be strengthened.

Tarzana Treatment Centers in Los Angeles provides a full array of health care services including adult and youth alcohol and drug treatment. We specialize in treatment for mental health and substance use disorders, and have two primary medical care clinics in the San Fernando Valley and Antelope Valley and specialized services for HIV/AIDS care. If you or a loved one needs help with alcohol dependence, drug addiction, or co-occurring mental health disorders or from other services we offer, please call us now at 888-777-8565 or contact us using our secure contact form.

Telemedicine services are also available with online medical care, online mental health treatment, and online alcohol and drug treatment.

Tarzana Treatment Centers has locations all over Southern California in Los Angeles County. Other than our central location in Tarzana, we have facilities in Lancaster in the Antelope Valley, Long Beach, and in Northridge and Reseda in the San Fernando Valley.