Why Addiction Is Different For Women: Jenny Valentish

Jenny Valentish is a British-Australian journalist and author. Her book Women of Substances is an addiction memoir that uses her own story as a case study to explore the gendered way women experience trauma, mental health, eating disorders, and addiction. She's also a board director of SMART Recovery in Australia and has written four books in total, the most recent on people who push their bodies to extremes.

She started drinking at 13 the day her grandmother died. Got a key cut for her dad's drinks cabinet. Filled a Body Shop shampoo bottle with mixed spirits and got the train into London at 14 to drink her way through Camden, Kensington and Portobello markets on her own. The drinking masked sexual abuse she'd experienced as a child, something she wasn't allowed to get help for because her mum didn't want people knowing.

She stopped at 34 after one final blackout where she woke up with nothing on the paper and nothing in her head. She stayed sober for eight years. Four years ago, in London with friends, she had a cocktail and chose to moderate rather than spiral into shame.

This conversation gets into territory most sobriety podcasts avoid: harm reduction, the biopsychosocial theory of addiction, and why "Choose Your Own Adventure" might be a more honest framework than abstinence-or-bust.

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If you want to connect with me via Instagram, you can find me on the instahandle @Soberdave https://www.instagram.com/soberdave/

or via my website https://davidwilsoncoaching.com/

Provided below are links for services offering additional help and advice, and links for Jenny.

Everything Harder Than Everyone Else

Woman of Substances

Jenny's writing coaching

Jenny on Instagram

https://www.wearewithyou.org.uk/

https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice/alcohol-support-services