More of us are drinking than ever before, with two thirds of adult women and about 80 percent of teenage girls now using alcohol regularly. Whereas society once frowned upon and even punished women for drinking, alcohol is now available to us –at times even pushed on us in a dizzying range of social and business situations.

Now that more of us are working outside the home, we have more opportunity to drink and more money of our own to spend on alcohol. The multimillion dollar alcohol industry has been quick to take advantage of women’s changing social and economic status with a aggressive advertising campaign geared to the female market. In diverse magazines, we can scarcely turn a page without being offered a new kind of drink and with it the subtle promise of increased status, sophistication or sexiness. It is perhaps snot surprising that in U.S alone; more than three million of us experience problems with alcohol use.

We often forget that alcohol is a powerful, potentially addictive drug. Whenever we have wine with dinner, a vodka and tonic at a party or a couple of beers with the late movie, we are consuming a central nervous system depressant that slows down all our body’s major functions. Taken in small quantities, alcohol has a mildly relaxing effect that under most circumstances is harmless and pleasant. But if we continue to drink, motor coordination, judgment, emotional control and reasoning power are diminished. In having sex with a man, it is easier to forget protection and risk of unwanted pregnancy. In heavy drinking situations we also may become more vulnerable to rape or other physical abuse.

Excessive drinking over a period of time not only leads to physical addiction but increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, brain damage, liver disease, muscle disease, pancreatitis, phlebitis and gastrointestinal problem. Alcohol abuse is associated with cancer of liver, breast, mouth, larynx, esophagus, stomach, colon, rectum and thyroid gland. Women who smoke and drink are at particular high risk of developing cancers of the upper respiratory and digestive tracts. In some cases, an alcohol over-dose can be fatal.

Women who drink very heavily during pregnancy- at least six drinks per day, may give birth to babies with fetal alcohol syndrome, a pattern of irreversible abnormalities that include mental retardation, prenatal and postnatal growth deficiencies and joint defects. As little as two drinks per day during pregnancy has been associated with lesser effects, notably lower birth weight in newborns. At present, no safe level of alcohol use during pregnancy has been established.