I just mentioned earlier this week that I knew a girl who went to a detox program when she was 18 and most of her peers were 40-50 year old guys. I think she went home having made very little progress emotionally. She learned how to play cards.

The Orchid Recovery Center for Women is a drug treatment program that is exclusively for women. The staff are mostly women. Check out this video that leaves you with a real sense of the goals and philosophy of this unique facility.

I think the two biggest advantages of a single gender environment for recovery are an absence of certain social stressors and a higher incidence of people who are peers in the most absolute sense. I think sometimes people are forced to see themselves more clearly when they can observe the same traits in another person. It is my understanding that you have to get past the denial stage before you can make substantial progress with an addiction.