The scarcity of treatment spaces for women in such programs stems largely from the longstanding assumption by the health system that alcoholism is essentially a male illness. Having asserted that women tend to under-utilize alcohol abuse services, we need to examine the issues and realities that fail to bring women into treatment. Women in rural areas, especially in South Africa, are further prejudiced by having no support system in their home environments. The exaggerated stigmatization of women alcoholics in small isolated towns appears to be stronger, which in turn further victimizes the women and prevents them from seeking assistance. Her study revealed that only 29 out of 500 treatment facilities offered specialized treatment programs for women.
Some countries are still without a single women's program or even a co-ed program.
Hence the vast majority of women substance abusers continue to be treated in facilities that fail to meet many of' their most pressing needs. Black women, despite the change in the country's policy on race, still experience difficulty and discrimination in accessing treatment. Community stereotypes, financial difficulties, marketing and awareness raising programs in the townships and rural areas are still a problem. This approach to the alcoholic woman may contribute to the problem of cross addiction. Even if women are able to avoid the route of the psychiatric ward, women find themselves in treatment programs which are neither prepared not committed to meeting many of their fundamental psychological and practical needs.