Japan's hidden dark side: rising female alcoholism and the battle to stay sober
Popular images of drinking in
Japan often involve office workers sharing toasts and casting off their inhibitions. But there is a hidden dark side: more women in Japan are drinking heavily, some to a dangerous degree, and becoming addicts in the process.
Shino Usui, a pharmacist and organiser of an alcoholism recovery peer group at a hospital in western Japan, can attest to the fact that the ratio of female drinkers in the country is rising at an alarming rate.
As someone who used to hit the bottle daily, she recognised that combating alcoholism as a woman in a society where men are normally seen as the heavy drinkers has become a sensitive, often shameful topic.
Health experts said that due to hormonal influences, women are more prone to becoming alcoholics in the short term.
Alcoholism is socially stigmatised as a male disease in Japan, and there are few recovery programmes designed to address the concerns and experiences of women.
According to the health ministry, the number of outpatients with alcohol dependency was around 108,000 in the 2021 financial year. The percentage of those who drink in amounts that increase the risk of lifestyle-related diseases was 14.1 per cent for men and 9.5 per cent for women in 2023. The ratio for the latter increased over a decade.
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