Breakingthecycles.com – Changing the Conversations

by Lisa Frederiksen

What do you say when someone you care deeply about keeps telling you time and again they’re sorry.

They’re sorry, but they were drunk; or they’re sorry, but they must have blacked out; or they’re sorry, but they don’t remember; or they do remember and they’re so very, very  sorry for…

- vomiting in your car (”Ah man… I don’t feel so good…”)
- peeing in your closet (”Hey… I thought it was the bathroom.”)
- picking a fight with your sister at your mother’s birthday dinner (She started it…it was none of her business whether I was having another beer, and what about you? You went along with her.”)
- trashing your house (”What do you mean I did this. What happened?”)
- trying to pick up your best friend  (”Hey, she kept coming onto me,  and that’s the last I remember.”)

I don’t have any answers, other than to say, as long as a person drinks more than their brains and body can process, there will always be a next time, sometime, and once again, they’ll be sorry, but…

Alcopops Only Look Innocent, Hook Kids
The alcohol industry has found ways to make its products attractive to kids, and parents may not realize what it is their children are drinking. So-called ”alcopops” taste like fruit juice but can contain as much booze, or more, than some beers. Girls, in particular, love the sweet malt punch. Other beverages are packaged to look like popular energy drinks, but contain liquor. ”One of the big trends we are seeing is with alcopops. We’ve had clients who don’t even realize they are alcohol,” said Tiffanie Ferguson, an adolescent program coordinator at Akron’s Community Health Center. Read more…

Coalition Works to Curb Teen Drinking
…Parent results were similar across the board. They overwhelmingly felt the most significant influence on their child’s choices were their peers. Conversely, students in Weston and Wilton stated their parents had the most influence on them when it came to making decisions about alcohol or drugs. Read more…

Parent Notification Policies for Underage Drinking Evolve
For years, Virginia Tech had a complicated system for deciding when to let parents know about their underage children’s alcohol-related transgressions. Visits to the hospital or police station warranted immediate notification, but Mom and Dad didn’t have to know about less-serious offenses, such as sneaking a six-pack into the dorm, unless it happened more than once.  But this semester, Virginia Tech joined a growing list of colleges that notify parents every time a student younger than 21 is caught drinking, drunk or in possession of alcohol. George Washington University also tightened its notification policy last year after a student died of alcohol poisoning. Read more…

Teens and Marijuana: Why Parents Can’t Look the Other Way
In last month’s holiday rush, you may have missed the bad news on 2009 trends in American teenage drug use. According to the University of Michigan’s annual Monitoring the Future Survey, marijuana use by American adolescents, especially eighth and tenth graders, is trending upward for the third year in a row, reversing a decline tracked since 1992. Two other even more worrisome trends were reported in the survey. The age of first time marijuana users is dropping, and fewer teenagers believe there are health risks associated with their use of marijuana. That these trends are present when so much existing scientific research points to the complicity of marijuana in triggering first episodes of psychosis in teenagers is terrifying. Or it should be. Read more…

Watch a TV Ad Warning Children About Alcohol — an excellent clip with a very powerful message!

Alcohol. It’s No Joke. This site has created and hosts some very powerful, short video clips, enforcing the message of how important it is to talk to our young people, long before they’re faced with the decision to drink or not.

by Lisa Frederiksen

It seems at least once a week I read a story about a young person’s death due to alcohol poisoning – often with friends in the vicinity. Talking about what it is, what it looks like, what to do with your teen or young adult child can save a life. Talking about it also offers another opportunity to talk with your teen or young adult child about their own drinking (or reinforce their decision not to drink). Here are some facts you can share with your teen as a basis for this conversation. They are prepared by National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Task Force on College Drinking. For a pdf, print version copy, click here.

by Lisa Frederiksen

Bob Curley’s News Feature on Join Together’s website summarizes the recent conference on “How to Raise a Drug-Free Kid: The Straight Dope.” It is filled with great information and suggestions. I’ve included a few of the highlights below:

• Opening comments of Dr. Nora Volkow’s (she is the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and a phenomenal leader in the addiction research effort — check out www.hbo.com/addiction to see what I am talking about):  “…the brains of children and adolescents are still forming, and  their ‘developmental trajectory’ can be greatly influenced by external stimuli — especially that provided by parents.”
• Conference speaker Cynthia Kuhn, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at the Duke University Medical Center and co-author of a pair of books on youth and drugs: “Kids are making choices using criteria we as adults don’t remember, because we don’t think that way anymore.”  “Parents, you’re their frontal cortex, because they don’t have one yet.”
• Joseph A. Califano, Chairman and Founder of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA*) at Columbia University: “Nine Facets of Parental Engagement” from his latest book, which lent its title to the conference -  a ‘how-to’ checklist for parents:
  • Be there: Get involved in your children’s lives and activities.
  • Open the lines of communication and keep them open.
  • Set a good example: Actions are more persuasive than words.
  • Set rules and expect your children to follow them.
  • Monitor your children’s whereabouts.
  • Maintain family rituals such as eating dinner together.
  • Incorporate religious and spiritual practices into family life.
  • Get Dad engaged — and keep him engaged.
  • Engage the larger family of your children’s friends, teachers, classmates, neighbors and community.

For the complete article by Bob Curley, appearing on Join Together’s website, click here.

Below you will find several new NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) publications:

Alcohol Alert #77: Neuroscience: Pathways to Alcohol Dependence

Why do some people become dependent on alcohol? Scientists are addressing the question of alcohol dependence and its effect on thought, mood, and behavior through neuroscience, the study of the brain, where both intoxication and alcohol dependence begin. Through neuroscientific research, scientists are gaining a better understanding of how alcohol changes the brain and how those changes influence certain behaviors.

Alcohol Research & Health: A Developmental Perspective on Underage Alcohol Use (Volume 32, Number 1, 2009)

Volume 32(1) of Alcohol Research & Health focuses on underage drinking, spotlighting findings that originally appeared in the journal Pediatrics (Vol. 121, Supplement, 2008). This issue includes an introductory developmental perspective on alcohol use, as well as overviews of risk factors for alcohol use and abuse and the effects of alcohol on children in different developmental stages from birth to late adolescence. This issue also covers preventive interventions for underage drinking and treatment for alcohol and other drugs in adolescence.

Alcohol Alert #78: A Developmental Perspective on Underage Alcohol Use

The Alcohol Alert on underage drinking corresponds with the Alcohol Research & Health issue on the same subject. This Alert addresses our understanding of alcohol’s effects on the key stages of human development from birth through age 20.

For NIAAA publications and other resources, visit the NIAAA Web site (www.niaaa.nih.gov) or write to: NIAAA, Publications Distribution Center, P.O. Box 10686, Rockville, MD 20849–0686.

I urge you to click here to watch this documentary movie trailer…

Quoting from the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2007 Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking, “In graduating from elementary to middle school, from middle school to high school, and from high school to college or the workplace, adolescents move in and out of different social contexts and peer groups, which exposes them to new stressors. These transitions lead to increased responsibilities and academic expectations, which are also potential sources of stress. This is important because research shows a link between stress and alcohol consumption [among adolescents].”

The physical effects of puberty create dramatic changes in the sexual and

social experience of maturing adolescents that require significant psycho­

logical and social adaptation. Together with hormonally induced mood

and behavior changes, these sexual and social maturation stressors may

contribute to increased consumption of alcohol during the adolescent

period (Tschann et al. 1994). In graduating from elementary to middle

school, from middle school to high school, and from high school to college

or the workplace, adolescents move in and out of different social contexts

and peer groups, which exposes them to new stressors. These transitions

lead to increased responsibilities and academic expectations, which are

also potential sources of stress. This is important because research shows

a link between stress and alcohol consumption.

The physical effects of puberty create dramatic changes in the sexual and

social experience of maturing adolescents that require significant psycho­

logical and social adaptation. Together with hormonally induced mood

and behavior changes, these sexual and social maturation stressors may

contribute to increased consumption of alcohol during the adolescent

period (Tschann et al. 1994). In graduating from elementary to middle

school, from middle school to high school, and from high school to college

or the workplace, adolescents move in and out of different social contexts

and peer groups, which exposes them to new stressors. These transitions

lead to increased responsibilities and academic expectations, which are

also potential sources of stress. This is important because research shows

a link between stress and alcohol consumption.

by Lisa Frederiksen

There are a number of short assessment / screening tools for anonymously assessing your or someone else’s drinking, such as: CAGE, WHO Audit, NIAAA Clinician’s Guide and NIAAA’s Rethinking Drinking. Keep in mind that when done by a layperson, these tools are for assessing NOT diagnosing. They are simply a way of validating a person’s concern about their own or someone else’s drinking patterns. Why use one? Mostly so you can stop the denial that a problem exists, if it does. People are often looking for a better understanding of what is considered a drinking problem and what is not, so they can feel more confident in believing what they think is happening after completing an anonymous assessment. Using one of these screening / assessment tools can prompt them to want to learn more about drinking problems and what can be done about them.  See related post, “And They All Fall Down… This ‘Thing’ They Call ‘Denial‘”.

Below you will find a screening tool designed specifically for persons under 21, known as CRAFFT (the acronym comes from the bold letter in each line). It is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Substance Abuse for use with adolescents. As with the other screening tools, this should be administered by a medical professional to be considered a diagnosis, but as a person in a young person’s life, it may be helpful for you to answer the questions, yourself, as a starting point for yourself to decide what you may or may not want to do next.

If you think there may be a problem (based on any ‘yes’ answers), here are some resources that can provide you with more information and possible next steps:

Adolescent Addiction by HBO, NIAAA, NIDA, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Parent’s Resource Center by the Partnership for a Drug Free America

by Lisa Frederiksen

“Nearly 60 percent of high school students say their parents are the biggest influence on their driving,” says Dave Melton, a driving safety expert with the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, as reported in a Liberty Mutual PRwire piece on October 19. In addition to the more obvious actions contributing to a teen’s potential for a car accident – text messaging, speeding, road rage, number of passengers – there is driving while under the influence. With such a significant influence (60%), parents can go a long way to modeling the behavior that can help keep teens safe in this situation as well. When going out to dinner or to an event or to a family holiday celebration, if a parent drinks alcohol (regardless of how moderately) and then drives, they send the message that there is some level of drinking and driving that is safe.
The following two ads bring this point home so well…

National Teen Driver Safety Week was established by Congress in 2007 to focus attention on the nation’s epidemic of teen car crashes and to find solutions to lower teen drivers’ fatal crash risk. Liberty Mutual offers a driving Ground Rules contract for you and your teen to sign –  it may be a great place to start safe driving discussions.

by Lisa Frederiksen

Jane Stevens reported in her article, “Traumatic Childhood Takes 20 Years Off Life Expectancy,” published today by Lawrence Journal World and News, the latest findings in the ongoing 14-year old Adverse Childhood Experiences Study. This study is “one of the largest investigations ever conducted on the links between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being.” It is a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego, Health Maintenance Organization (HMO).

I encourage you to read the article in its entirety. For me, it was the reference to three types of childhood trauma, which are also risk factors contributing to a person developing alcohol abuse and/or alcohol dependence problems — namely emotional abuse, growing up in a home with a household member who’s an alcoholic or drug user and/or growing up in a household with a household member who’s diagnosed with a mental illness.

Another statement that caught my attention read,

“In parallel research, the neuroscience community has found that trauma alters the function and development of children’s brains and nervous systems. Epigeneticists, who study how a person’s experiences turn their genes off and on, have found that trauma can turn on genes that manufacture the chemical stressors that affect the brain.

“That’s what’s happening in the brains of traumatized children who become hyper-vigilant, edgy, impulsive, and have hot tempers. They’re unable to focus on their schoolwork, they can’t sit still, and they regard social interactions as threats — all behaviors that can get them in trouble or suspended, and that can lead to engaging in risky behaviors, such as smoking, drinking too much alcohol, workaholism, eating too much, etc., that can affect their health.”

Ms. Steven’s article is well-worth the read – especially if you’re interested how the brain develops and the impacts of early childhood experiences on that development.