I been an addiction recovery coach since 2017, with a specific focus on women in addiction and recovery since 2022. As such, I have facilitated four different recovery support groups for women, and have conducted over 100 interviews with over 60 women. This work/research provides the material for the present paper.
Of the 63 women thus far interviewed, 61 have experienced significant physical or sexual abuse (most often both) antecedent to the onset of severe active addiction. In most cases, the experience of abuse has occurred over an extended period of time, with, for instance, criminal confinement and strangulation being common. These facts have direct implications for assessing freedom and responsibility in women’s addiction and recovery.
This paper argues that such patterns of violence constitute a “regime of gendered torture,” with a particular set of ideologies underpinning it. It then shows how Catholic teaching on gender reinforces these ideologies.