Gender and Female Recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous in the City of São Paulo-Brazil

ABSTRACT

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is considered a public health problem and Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is considered effective, but it is predominantly frequented by men in Brazil. The purpose of this article is to understand how women conceive and experience their recovery in AA women’s meetings. For this, an ethnographic research was carried out with women from AA groups located in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, from March 2020 to February 2021. Data collection was carried out through participant observation in female AA meetings and semi-structured interviews with thirty women who participated in the meetings. The results showed that for women, AUD is a disease linked to gender asymmetries in Brazilian society, so that they do not feel comfortable discussing details of their intimacy in the presence of men, since in mixed meetings they were often target of sexist harassment and discrimination. Despite AA’s patriarchal culture, women help each other in a gender-only space where they find the mutual support necessary for their recovery. This research is considered to contribute to the understanding of how gender inequalities affect the treatment of women in AA and the importance of having only women’s meetings to strengthen them.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcohol use disorder
• Alcoholics Anonymous
• gender inequality
• gender perspective
• gender roles
• sexism discrimination
• qualitative research

Highlights

• Women suffer gender prejudice and social stigma in AA meetings with men;

• Gender asymmetries harms the treatment of women in Alcoholics Anonymous;

• Women-only Alcoholics Anonymous meeting strengthens and helps in the recovery of the women.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the São Paulo State Foundation for the Support of Research (FAPESP-SP) for the financial support received for this study under reference number 2017/18535-9, and to the Higher Education Personnel Improvement Coordination (CAPES - Brazil) - PROEX reference number: 0420/2021/23038.010697/2021-38.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CAPES [Número PROEX e processo: 0420/2021 / 23038.01069]; Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [2017/18535-9].