An Exploratory Analysis of Women and Men Within a Self-Help, Communal-Living Recovery Setting: A New Beginning in a New House

Abstract

In the present exploratory study, women without children (n = 13) and women with children (n = 23) were compared to men (n = 35) on demographic and self-reported variables on entering a communal-living, self-help recovery program called Oxford House. Men were more often hospitalized for their addiction than either group of women, and men and women with children were older and had been previously hospitalized longer for their addiction than women without children. There were no significant differences among groups in terms of their codependency on others, and men felt a stronger sense of camaraderie with other residents than women with or without children. Men and women with children also tended to feel they shared more in the decisions within their house than did women without children. Further, with partial correlates (controlling for the number of children), women with children indicated that the greater their self-reported codependency, the less accepting they were of their children and the more depressed they were about their parenting abilities. Dysfunctional characteristics of the children also were related to negative characteristics in the children reported by their mothers. In short, men and women with and without children entering an Oxford House have similar profiles, yet women with children have additional stressors associated with parental responsibilities.