Young women on "boosters". Doctors, lawyers and managers go to therapy
But it didn’t end with one line. She took a second, third, fourth, fifth. And again the calculation: how much longer he can sit and drink so as not to be late for work. If it was 2 a.m., don’t worry. Two is not six in the morning.
She associated the lines with drinking.
– When I took stimulants without alcohol, my heart started pounding and I started to panic – says Marta Markiewicz. She was shaking, her hands and feet were sweaty, her heart felt like it was going to burst through her chest.
So she stuck to the pattern: drinking, then alternating lines and drinking, and finally drinking to sleep.
When she ran out, she pulled her hood up so that her face was not visible and went to the liquor store to buy two clean monkeys.
She was the best when high. When the high wore off, there was a hangover, a comedown. Then back to drugs, drinking, getting high to get rid of fears and start thinking a little better about yourself.
– For most of my life I thought badly about myself – explains Markiewicz. She thought she wasn’t pretty enough, didn’t know enough, wasn’t doing well enough in life. “Whenever I was exposed to someone else’s judgment, my brain turned into fucking mush. At school, on a date, at work, when meeting a friend – in my opinion, I was always compared to my detriment. In every situation in life, I passed the exam and in every situation I failed him,” she explains in the book. She was ashamed when she couldn’t cope with a task at school, and at work she was afraid that she would not fulfill her boss’s orders well. Whenever she sensed that she might be misjudged, her body went into alarm mode, she had hot flashes, shallow breathing, and red spots on her face. In the book she recalls: “I did everything not to embarrass myself, not to make a fool of myself, not to offend anyone and not to give anyone a reason to say anything bad about me.”
Monkey under the cheese
Prof. Mariusz Jędrzejko, a sociologist and addiction therapist, enters Żabka and sees a young woman with groceries for breakfast: juice, sliced cheese, and a monkey under the cheese. – If a monkey starts his day, it’s already an alarm bell, but of course he doesn’t hear it. He thinks to himself: “What’s one monkey in the morning? I won’t fall over after one monkey.” And in the evening, after work, have a gin and tonic and again reassure yourself that it’s nothing. She’s not an alcoholic, she didn’t put half a liter on the table right away – says prof. Jędrzejko. He researches risky behavior and notices that women who drink one or two drinks in the morning and a glass of wine or gin and tonic in the evening do not add up how much they drank during the day. Often, alcohol is not their only “helper”.
Alcohol is not the only “helper”. Meeting a non-cross-dependent person now is almost like seeing a unicorn
They drink and smoke joints. They drink and snort or inject something. They drink and take medicines – for sleep, for pain, to calm down. Meeting a non-cross-dependent person now is almost like seeing a unicorn. – Extremely rare – admits Kuba Marcol from the Desiderata Addiction Psychotherapy Center in Rabka-Zdrój. There are plenty of mixed addictions and more and more addicted women. – In the past, when they came to therapy, they were usually elderly, extremely damaged, from the streets – says Marcol. Usually BeBe – homeless, toothless.
Now they are young, sometimes doctors and lawyers. They have recently started working and are already on the margins of life. – There is so much pressure, so much pressure and such a fast pace of life that they become addicted relatively quickly and quickly fall to the bottom – says Kuba Marcol.
Apart from the fact that addictions “only” to alcohol, “only” to drugs or “only” to drugs are extremely rare, it is also often difficult to determine what is mixed with what. – We examine every person who comes to us for therapy and, of course, we ask what they were taking. Often she doesn’t know. He says marijuana. But is it clean? She could have found a batch of marijuana soaked in fentanyl. Various mixtures are now being made, explains Marcol.
– I didn’t like marijuana, it made me feel more anxious and paranoid, it made me feel disconnected – says Marta Markiewicz. To get into a good state, she took mephedrone, 3-MMC. Or, more precisely, that’s what she ordered herself. Most often with a recommended taxi driver. She took in what he brought her. But he doesn’t really know what he was bringing. She even found it a little funny when someone in an online chat assured that they had good access to them and vouched for the cleanliness of the goods. She was aware that dealers use various “additives”, but for someone who needs to get high, it doesn’t matter much. The most important thing is to have a phase.
– Once I got into it, I felt like I could do anything. I had so much energy and endorphins that it was off the charts. The brain worked like a machine set to high speed, he explains. She didn’t feel tired, she didn’t feel like sleeping. – I would go two, sometimes three days without sleep. I used to be up for six hours. There were times when I became psychotic, but that didn’t discourage me.
Male domination
– We have a cultural increase in addictions among women – says prof. Jędrzejko. He suspects that without assistance they are unable to carry what falls on them.
They draw lines and those who have to make “targets” on piecework during the night shift in the garbage truck. And those who aim high because they have to break through and then maintain their position.
– The requirements for women are incomparably greater than those for men. A woman is expected to be the best at work and to clean, wash, cook and go to interviews at home. She has to be resourceful, strong and feisty. At the same time delicate, well-groomed and elegant – says prof. Jędrzejko.
This is not expected from men. – If anyone tried, they would slam the door. And women try to meet expectations, explains the professor.
If they want to take the place previously occupied by a man, they have to carve out a path for advancement, overcome male domination and solidarity, and deal with discrimination, which still persists in many environments. Research by the Polki w Medycynie Foundation shows that as many as 7 out of 10 female medics experience discrimination. It starts already in college, with unpleasant comments relating to gender and appearance. Half had to endure sexual innuendo, one fifth received sexual propositions. It is not easy in the legal environment either – a study by the Women in Law foundation, the PSPP association and PwC Legal Polska shows that as many as 8 out of 10 lawyers have experienced depreciation of their competences, 6 out of 10 have had to deal with behavior that could be considered mobbing, and 15 percent have experienced mobbing. – with sexual harassment at work.
The girl in the limo
– When I went to Monar for the first time, I saw a black limousine with tinted windows approaching. A young woman got out of the backseat – elegantly dressed, in expensive high heels. A lawyer, the daughter of a successful lawyer, brought by a driver from her father’s office – says Agata Jankowska, co-author of the book “Hajland. How our children take drugs”. While collecting material about addicted teenagers, she went to centers where there were many daughters of wealthy parents. Raised in poverty and in the belief that they had to succeed, in high school they were addicted to preparing for tests. At university – to pass exams. Parents often expected them to complete both the application and the doctorate as soon as possible. Just like the girl in the black limousine: 26 years old, two small children, working on a PhD, working in her father’s office. – Traditional culture is fucked up, so cocaine in the morning to have energy. A few monkeys during the day to survive. Everyone from the office was going out for drinks after work, so she went too. And in the evening, to fall asleep, she took sleeping pills. One day – drunk and high – she was walking with a baby in a stroller, it fell out, a passer-by called the police, she was threatened with having her parental rights taken away – says Agata Jankowska.
Before she came to Monar, the lawyer from the limousine had been to several expensive, private centers and had not completed any of the therapies. The one in Monar too. As soon as the court dismissed the parental rights case, she discontinued treatment. Her father sent a limousine to pick her up.
– Women’s addiction is often downplayed by their loved ones. And first, it went unnoticed for a very long time, says Agata Jankowska.
When a lawyer, doctor or corporate manager returns from work, her partner or husband is not surprised that she prepares a drink or opens wine. He finally has time for himself. She needs to relax a bit, her blood pressure needs to go down, after all, she had a difficult case in court, a serious case in the hospital or some sort of tension in the corporate office. And there are still some papers to look through. – So he sits over them with a glass of wine or a drink. Your husband or partner won’t care if it’s just another glass of the day. And he won’t notice that there is a blister of pills on the bedside table. They will think they are dietary supplements, says Agata Jankowska. Meanwhile, they can be – as they say in youth slang – sneakers, clones or roller skates. That is, tramal, clonazepam or relanium.
Until a woman starts falling, embarrasses her husband at a family party, loses her job, or her baby falls out of the stroller, no one will probably tell her that she should go for treatment.
– In a house where a man is addicted, there will be clear signs: arguments that he is drunk or high again. There will probably be violence. And in the morning there were empty bottles on the table, a puked toilet, clothes thrown in the middle of the room. Meanwhile, in the home of an addicted but high-functioning woman, there is usually no clear evidence of addiction. It’s nice for quite a long time. It’s just a game of illusions, says Agata Jankowska.
At work, women may also keep their addiction a secret longer.
– If a man comes to the office with a hangover, looks bad, his shirt is not ironed, everyone knows that he has been drinking. Besides, from the doorway he announces: “I drank yesterday.” If he holds an important position, he will tell his assistant to call the doctor to give him a drip and lock himself in his office. A hungover woman will come to work looking like the best version of herself. She won’t let anyone notice that she’s been drinking or getting high, says Agata Jankowska.
– Women are great at camouflaging themselves. They have ways and tricks to avoid being seen. They may put on more makeup, use stronger perfume, or say they feel bad because they are having their period. The fact that they have more opportunities and justifications than men means that before they find out and go to therapy, they can go very deep into addictions – says prof. Jędrzejko.
Half a liter and “The Little Prince”
– One of the worst moments? When I woke up in bed with a man. And I didn’t remember how I got there at all. I immediately escaped from that bed, says Marta Markiewicz. – What could have happened before waking up? I was afraid just thinking about it. I was ashamed because he probably knew people from my work, so I lived in fear that he would tell them. It was eating me up, I felt sick, he recalls.
She denied for a long time that she was addicted. – I thought I needed therapy because I had anxiety and an eating disorder, not a problem with alcohol or drugs. Even though I had already planned my life to drink or get high. I once went to the cinema to see “The Little Prince” with a half-liter bottle of vodka, says Markiewicz.
She entered addiction treatment a month before her 26th birthday. And she felt like her life was over.
– I felt a lot of anger, regret and sadness. I thought that nothing would happen to me in my life. I won’t have a life at all. After all, I based everything on drinking and taking drugs. What will I do without taking it? Will I have a job? If so, it’s probably the worst in the world – explains Marta Markiewicz.
When she took drugs, she lost a lot of weight. – I was attractive. And when I stopped taking it, I gained almost 20 kg very quickly. But somehow I persevered. Although I had no hope at the beginning, later the thought appeared that after the therapy it was not the end, but a change. And everything changed, says Marta Markiewicz. She doesn’t use drugs, she lost weight, wrote a book, organizes sober SobeRave events, and educates on TikTok and Instagram. – I just survived.
