More About Underage Drinking…
I read a blog post this morning by Abbie Vianes, MA, for the Worldwide Organization for Women, titled “Preventing Child Abuse.” It has some terrific information on teen alcohol use, which I’ve copied below:
- “Alcohol use by teens is widespread.
- The difference today is that children are using alcohol at younger and younger ages and drinking more. Binge drinking is beginning in elementary school grades.
- The new technology of brain imaging (functional MRI scans) is opening doors of understanding into brain addiction.
- Because of the plasticity of the developing teen brain, alcohol affects an adolescent’s brain differently than it does an adult brain. If a child begins drinking before the age of 15, he/she has a 40% chance of becoming alcohol dependent. However, if the age of onset of alcohol use is delayed until the legal age of 21, that percent of addiction drops to 5 to 7%.
- Research shows that lowering the drinking age would greatly increase underage drinking, DUI’s, and addiction rates.
- Density of alcohol outlets also increases underage use. Continuing to add bars and retail alcohol outlets, increases our children’s access to alcohol as well as crime: physical and sexual assault, disorderly conduct, and domestic violence.
- Alcohol kills more teens than all the street drugs combined. Alcohol is present in the 4 ways teens die: homicides, suicides, automobile crashes and accidents. Alcohol causes an increase in unwanted sexual activity.”
For the complete article, please click here.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Hi Lisa, I had read your comments on alcoholism/addiction on another website and I commented on what you said. You wrote back and I noted your website and had to make a visit here.
There cannot be enough comments on addiction. Those of us who love or have loved an addicted person (I try not to use the term “addict” because of the visual images that that term imprints on our psyche – the disheveled, low-life loser criminal that we’ve too long associated with that word – I prefer to call them addicted people, which I think is a little less degrading) must continue to speak out anywhere we can about this disease that is taking far too many lives each year.
Addicted people have a disease, a chronic, relapsing brain disease, and they need help, just as any other person afflicted with a disease needs. They already castigate themselves enough for their disease, we, as a society do not need to add to their despair. As my son always told me, “Mom, nobody wakes up one day and decides to be an addict.” Indeed they do not. Nobody chooses addiction. They may choose to do drugs but they do not choose addiction. Addiction is a horrible side effect of the unwise choice to do drugs or to self-medicate.
The Teen Brain is definitely different from the mature brain (anyone who has ever raised a teen can tell you that,) because their brains have not fully matured.
I’m on the Parent Advisory Board of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and they have a lot of wonderful information on their site (www.drug-free.org) about the Teen Brain. I copied (with their permission of course) a whole article on the Teen Brain from their site for my second book, Slaying the Addiction Monster.
My passion is reaching out to the younger kids – the ones in 5th and 6th grade and up. Shockingly (or perhaps not so shockingly to those who work in addiction) we have to reach these kids at a younger and younger age, before the Addiction Monster has firmly taken over their brain.
My third book, which is my first children’s book is called The Addiction Monster and the Square Cat. This is geared toward 5th and 6th grade and up and talks to the kids about not only drugs, but addiction. I believe this is what we have to focus on – the fact that anybody can become addicted on their very first line of cocaine or crystal meth or heroin or Oxy ot whatever. It can happen. My own son did not believe this, even after constant admonition from my husband and I and after many family discussions about drugs, until on his 17th birthday a band mate laid out a line of cocaine for him as his birthday present – some birthday present! and he was immediately addicted, and could not get enough of mind altering drugs. He told me they made him feel like what he thought “normal” people felt like. The tragedy of that statement is enormous and heartbreaking.
The Addiction Monster and the Square Cat is a fictionalized version of my youngest son Scott’s struggle and death. It is told with humor and pathos by the sassy but lovable family cat.
I always tell people I did not write this book for money and it’s a good thing I didn’t, because that’s not what my goal is (a nice side effect to be sure but not the goal). My goal is to reach these young kids and make them sit up and take notice. I’m trying to get this book in the libraries, if not classrooms, all across the country.
I hope you’ll forgive the promotion of this book here in your forum but I feel so passionately about this story (the book is consistently on Amazon.com’s Best Sellers List in Substance Abuse) and I want to reach as many kids as I can. No parent should suffer the heartbreak of surviving their child and I will do all that I can as long as I’m alive to deliver the message to young kids about alcohol/drugs addiction.
Thank you for providing this form to read about and to learn about addiction. We must keep going until the stigma of a drug-related death is erased. We must understand the disease.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:34 pm
PS: I’m sorry for the typos, I hit Submit before I proof-read my comments. If anyone would like to talk to me about addiction, or if someone just needs a shoulder to lean on, I am always available. My website is http://www.theaddictionmonster.com.
Thank you again for this forum and chance to speak out about addiction.
November 21st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Dear Sheryl,
Thank you so much for your comments and for letting us know about your books. I agree with your belief that we need to reach children at younger ages than we’d ever dreamed necessary.
Lisa