to take drugs for the first time to be part of a group and fit in more so than women. at first interaction, women may experience more pleasure from drugs than men do. women tend to progress more rapidly from first experience to addiction than men. physicians, psychiatrists and social workers have believed for decades that women escalate alcohol use more rapidly once they start. once the addictive behavior is established for women they stabilize at higher doses of drugs than males do. when withdrawing from smoking women experience greater stress response. males experience greater symptoms when withdrawing from alcohol. there are gender differences when it comes to rehabilitation and relapse rates. for alcohol, relapse rates were very similar for men and women. for women, marriage and marital stress were risk factors for alcohol relapse. for men, being married lowered the risk of relapse. this difference may be a result of gendered differences in excessive drinking. alcoholic women are much more likely to be married to partners that drink excessively than are alcoholic men. as a result of this, men may be protected from relapse by marriage while women are at higher risk when married. however, women are less likely than men to experience relapse to substance use. when men experience a relapse to substance use, they more than likely had a positive experience prior to the relapse. on the other hand, when women relapse to substance use, they were more than likely affected by negative circumstances or interpersonal problems.