I loved the rags to riches story and found myself wishing I too could have a gift for cooking, business, dressmaking, etc etc. Her talents were enormous but her flaws were equally huge! Many of the addiction memoirs I’ve read don’t reference childhood trauma… But to flip that into reverse, it’s rare for a trauma story not to involve addiction. What I’m surprised to learn is that there’s a physiological component to trauma. Biologically, a girl who experiences it in early life will undergo significant changes in her body and brain. There’s a massive rise in the stress hormone cortisol, which triggers a whole chain of reactions. …Her biological systems are set at a sensitive threshold and she doesn’t have the usual biochemistry that lets her be resilient in the face of the next trauma and the next trauma. But by that point, she had probably had enough of worrying about community approval anyway. After her divorces (both by the age of just 25), she went to work as a journalist and was soon writing a newspaper column which also featured a photograph of her — something which so riled the cleric at the local mosque that he held forth to the congregation about the errant ways of Mir and “women [such as] her.”

She makes people believe that life is for a purpose and you have only one life to conquer what you want. A constant source of knowledge, support, influence, power, and inspiration combine to make a woman of substance. So, it’s all about your mindset! But the more she spoke to researchers, social workers, addicts and specialists, the clearer the paucity of data became. Although the drinking rate among men and women are actually about equal, and the pathways that lead women into drug abuse are heavily gendered, drug and alcohol research remains biased towards men. A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford is a 2014 RosettaBooks publication. (originally published in 1979) To me, the best part of this book is that Jenny Valentish tells her story in such an honest and bold way. Speaking up about such a difficult subject is admirable. Speaking up about it with so much respect and a strong voice like hers is simply admirable. They are happy to guide from the front, rather than follow from behind like sheep. 11. You think before you speak

It’s about family,” she continues more emphatically. “At the end of the day, the book is about family and loyalty and it’s about love and the things we have to do to survive when we are not on a level playing field.” One of the other interesting things in the book was how a mother’s mental state while pregnant can imprint itself on the fetus’s ability to deal with stress later in life. A stressed-out pregnant mom is flooded with cortisol. This can lead an infant to be born with anxiety and she may grow up to self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol (growing up could be as young as ten or twelve years old when they discover the joys of oblivion through drugs including alcohol). And if there’s one thing a woman of substance wants in her life, it’s to blossom into a better version of herself. 6. You’re smart in so many ways A friend described it as a "delicious read," which is an apt description. Another friend refers to as "your biblical guide for attaining excellence." As she tells her story, Valentish identifies a series of shortcomings of the medical and addiction treatment industries which have failed to understand and communicate how substance abuse affects women. “I had no idea that this was the case when I started writing,” she says. “I was just going to write about the female experience [of addiction] – there was going to be no call to arms.”

This helps them roll up their sleeves and get to work shaping their life the way they want it — without the excuses. 10. You’re not one to mindlessly follow the crowd Women, Valentish says she heard time and time again while researching the book, are also more likely than men to abuse drugs and alcohol as a means of self-medicating the symptoms of mental illness. Secondly, she exposes how the research into problematic substance use and the treatment of addictions has been focused on males, and the implications of that. Engages readers with storytelling while presenting scientific findings and theories in a way that is accessible to a broad audience.” Broadsheet

12. You give back

For a child that has a home life that is sometimes nurturing and sometimes neglectful, she may become teenager/adult that learns to self sooth by overeating and/or binging on alcohol. Both of those things cause a rush of dopamine. In the short term, it works. So she does it again. If she’s an addict, she’ll do it again and again to disastrous results. So how does Saima Mir think the Pakistani community is going to react to her debut novel The Khan’s depiction of a criminal syndicate run by Pakhtuns, who also happen to be pious Muslims? Everyone has the same basics to live their life. As a woman, it is essential for you to have some basic morals and principles to lead your life in a certain way. To be a woman of substance you need to have a stringent ideology and complete faith in your thinking.

Part monograph, part memoir, part Ginsbergian howl of outrage at a culture in which gender bias is a tenet. It is a work of compellingly articulate anger.’ —Antonella Gambotto-Burke,the AustralianIn the brooding moors above a humble Yorkshire village stood Fairley Hall. There, Emma Harte, its oppressed but resourceful servant girl, acquired a shrewd determination. There, she honed her skills, discovered the meaning of treachery, learned to survive, to become a woman, and vowed to make her mark on the world. Impulsivity is a big driver of substance abuse. It’s long been thought to be a male trait but actually men and women are on an equal footing when it comes to inhibition control, which is the ability – or inability – to put the brakes on. Women also tend to act out their impulsivity in less obvious ways, such as through theft or promiscuity. Estrogen doesn’t only make substances more attractive, some studies suggest it slows down their elimination. This means estrogen-based birth-control pills might extend the effects of intoxication of drugs and alcohol. The flipside is, alcohol can raise oestrogen levels. In one study, blood and urine estrogen levels increased up to thirty-two per cent in women who drank just two drinks a day.