★Drugs, gambling, shopping, plastic surgery, sex addiction...Why do women in modern times fall into addiction?
★A powerful story of four women who broke free from obsession and began their journey toward happiness.

“Addiction didn’t destroy me—it protected me.”

Addicted Women is a rare and bold book that explores the theme of addiction through the lens of women’s lives. Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, gambling, cosmetic surgery, shopping, or sex, these addictions aren’t just personal struggles —they’re deeply tied to survival, trauma, and the structural oppression women face in today’s world.

This book tells the real stories of four women who went through addiction, not as moral failures, but as coping mechanisms in the face of domestic violence, poverty, and societal stigma.
For them, addiction was both a crisis and an escape. It became a way to survive and ultimately, a path to rediscover who they really were.

Even after choosing to recover, these women faced a second wave of stigma. Unlike men, women dealing with the same issues were met with heavier guilt, shame, and harsher social judgment. Addicted Women challenges the idea that addiction is simply a result of weak willpower. Instead, it reframes addiction as a complex survival strategy born from the social realities uniquely imposed on women. More than just a book about addiction, this is a powerful call to listen to the silenced voices of women, to question the systems that failed them, and to imagine a life after recovery.

임해영 received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Sungkyunkwan University. She is currently a full-time professor of Social Welfare at Yemyung Graduate School, where she teaches master's and doctoral students. Her research interests include women with disabilities, families, addiction, and qualitative research methods.

최미경 received her master's and doctoral degrees in social welfare from Sogang University. As a senior researcher at the Sogang University Life and Culture Research Institute, she conducts research on recovery support, communicating with addicts and their families. As a social worker specializing in addiction, she provides case supervision and provides addiction prevention education and counseling for juvenile delinquents at designated institutions under the Ministry of Justice. Her research focuses on mental health, addiction, families, caregiving, and qualitative research methods.

강선경 is a professor at Sogang University Graduate School of Theology and served as Chairman of the Korea Social Welfare Mutual Aid Association. 강 has gained clinical experience as a mental health social worker and, since 2015, has dedicated to research on the four major addictions (gambling, drugs, alcohol, and the internet). Through life-cycle surveys and qualitative research, 강 has identified and conducted in-depth research on the risk and protective factors for gambling, drugs, alcohol, smartphone, and social media addictions faced by children, adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, and the elderly.