Woman of substances : a journey into drugs, alcohol and treatment / Jenny Valentish.

London : Head of Zeus, 2019.

xviii, 364 pages ; 20 cm

Second edition, paperback edition.

Originally published: London: Head of Zeus, 2018.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction -- Part One: Predictors of a problem -- 1. The petri dish of you: how childhood temperament can foreshadow substance use -- 2. Chaos theory: impulsivity, and how it escapes detection in teenage girls -- 3. Baby misogynist: hitching identity to drink, drugs and men -- Part two: Gendered adventures in addiction -- 4. Total control: self-destruction as a method of autonomy -- 5. Amateur alchemy: self-medicating mental illness and tweaking personality -- 6. A crude form of seduction: the sugar-daddy mentoring scheme of drugs -- 7. Pretty intense: promiscuity, borderline personality disorder and other labels that only come in pink -- 8. Collateral damage: blacking out, passing out, spiking ... and the opportunists who dig it -- 9. Body of evidence: the effects of substances on the female body and vice versa -- 10. Your brain as a pokie machine: other risky behaviours that hit the dopamine jackpot -- 11. The geographical: running away to the edge of the world and falling off -- Part three: Woman's lib -- 12. 52 observations: a week-by-week account of my first year after quitting -- 13. A word from my sponsor: the female spaces in AA and NA -- 14. Keeping mum: when addiction infiltrates the family home -- 15. A call to arms: how drug and alcohol research can fail women -- 16. Choose your own adventure: eight ideas for emancipation you way -- Acknowledgements -- Selected reading.