Doctors sound alert over binge drinking from age eight

By Dan | July 3, 2009

Children as young as eight are being brought into hospitals unconscious after getting drunk on cheap cider, spirits and alcopops such is the ease of access to cut-price alcohol, according to doctors.

The problems of binge-drinking are now so serious that small hospitals that used to treat one intoxicated child a month are now receiving several under-age drinkers every Friday and Saturday night, the British Medical Association’s annual conference was told.

The warnings from doctors were backed today by figures suggesting that a child under 12 is being admitted to Accident & Emergency departments because of alcohol every other day. Of the more than 4,500 hospital admissions of children under the age of 16 caused by alcohol last year, 181 involved under-12s.

Reporting that drink-related problems had become “much, much greater” over the past decade, doctors called for a minimum price per unit of alcohol, clearer labelling of alcoholic content and a ban on the advertising of beers, wines and spirits.

Keith Brent, a paediatrician from Bournemouth, said that the Government’s refusal to take strong action on the most pressing of public health issues was symptomatic of an administration that “bowed down to big business”.

“The intoxicated children I see are not being brought in because they are getting drunk in pubs and bars,” Dr Brent said. “They are being found unconscious in the park and on the beach. They have £20 in their pocket and their aim is to get as drunk as possible. If you put a minimum price on a unit of alcohol, then at least you can begin to limit the amount of alcohol that can be bought.

“But what the Government is doing is what it’s done in the past with public health measures. It’s pushing it into the long grass. The things we are suggesting aren’t going to be solve all problems at a stroke, but they are likely to be helpful and anything that’s helpful should be tried.”

Dr Brent said that he used to see cases of children intoxicated by alcohol “very occasionally”, but now saw children every weekend. “It is very sad. I now have to start my ward rounds by working out how many intoxicated youngsters we’ve got in.”

The latest A&E figures, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, reveal that there have been 1,426 admissions for children under 12 due to alcohol since 2002. Last year there were 4,441 emergency hospital admissions of young people aged 12 to 15 and 7,766 admissions of 16 and 17-year olds due to alcohol — rises on 2002 figures of 12 per cent and 66 per cent respectively.

Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said the figures were “shocking new evidence of the scale of the alcohol crisis facing this country”.

“The Government cannot continue to ignore the fact that thousands of children are drinking so much that they end up in A&E,” he said.

“Unless we invest in treatment services, put an end to alcohol being sold at pocket-money prices and start educating our children then these figures are only set to get worse.”

Last year the Department of Health commissioned the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) from the University of Sheffield to carry out an independent review of the evidence on the effects of the pricing and promotion of alcohol. It concluded that pricing and availability were the two greatest levers to controlling consumption.

In March Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, warned that easy access to cheap alcohol was “killing us as never before” and must be curbed with tough licensing laws and a minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol. But the Prime Minister, who issued a rebuttal to Sir Liam’s report in advance of its publication, said that he did not want to impose additional burdens on the majority, who were “moderate” drinkers.

Proposing the BMA motion to control the nation’s drinking habits, Chandra Mohan, from London, said yesterday that the Government had to stop making excuses for inaction and follow moves in Scotland to introduce a minimum price per unit of alcohol. He said research showed there could be a cut of 100,000 hospital admissions every year in England if minimum pricing was introduced. Over a decade, health savings would be £1.37 billion.

“It is time for us to say enough is enough,” Dr Mohan said. “Alcohol excess affects every part of our society; young professionals; harassed parents; lonely elderly people; children. We need to send out a clear message that this is not acceptable.”

Dr Charles Daniels, from the BMA’s GPs committee, spoke against the motion, saying it was “nanny state politics” and would “punish the majority for the sins of the minority”.

A recent report by the NHS Information Centre showed that a quarter of adults are drinking in quantities that are hazardous to their health, with more than 850,000 people needing hospital treatment for alcohol-related problems in a year.

The number of people admitted to hospital in England with alcohol-related problems has risen by 69 per cent in five years, to 863,000 in 2007-08, although changes to data collection — which now include secondary diagnoses, such as alcohol-related injuries — have contributed to the surge in cases. Two thirds of the admissions were men.

The cost to the NHS of supplying drugs for the treatment of alcohol dependency is £2.4 million, up 39 per cent on 2003.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said that the Government had decided not to proceed with any national or local measures around minimum unit price.

“While there is good evidence that cheap alcohol is linked to people drinking more and subsequent harm to their health, it is important that any Government interventions reduce harm without impacting unduly on the majority of responsible drinkers. We will look to develop further the evidence base in this area.”

source: The Times

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1 in 8 combat troops needs alcohol counseling

By Dan | July 2, 2009

One in eight troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2008 were referred for counseling for alcohol problems after their post-deployment health assessments, according to data from the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.

Service members complete their initial health assessments within 30 days of returning home.

The authors of the study, published in the Medical Surveillance Monthly Report, compared numbers of active-duty service members who had an alcohol-related medical encounter with those who received counseling for alcohol, noting that studies have shown troops with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to be substance abusers.

Defense officials said they are aware of the data. “Substance misuse/abuse is a psychological health issue, and thus one we are actively involved with,” said Navy Capt. Edward Simmer, Senior Executive Director for Psychological Health Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health.

In recent years, a number of soldiers and Marines have been discharged because of a “pattern of misconduct” stemming from alcohol abuse. Earlier this month, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Chiarelli ordered military leaders to do a better job of getting treatment for soldiers or discharging offenders if they have received help and still have problems.

In an internal memo, Chiarelli wrote that “a growing population” of soldiers with substance abuse problems — identified either through urine tests or through “alcohol-related actions” — have not been referred to the Army Substance Abuse Program by their commanders.

Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association, sees a deeper issue.

Troops “fear seeking help, so they self-medicate,” she said. “You’ve got competing stigmas going on here.”

In other words, troops may use alcohol to numb themselves from thinking about friends they’ve lost or people they’ve shot because they’re afraid to seek mental health counseling. But they also don’t seek help for the alcohol issues because, again, they’re afraid doing so might hurt their careers.

Simmer said the military is testing two new policies to address the problem. In one, a service member’s command will not automatically be notified if the member seeks treatment. Simmer said the hope is that this will lead more people to seek treatment.

In a second pilot program, if a service member screens positive for alcohol issues on a post-deployment health assessment but is not referred for counseling by a health care provider, the provider must document why.

“It’s quite possible that when the provider talks with the member, the provider finds, very appropriately, that a referral is not clinically indicated,” Simmer said. “By having this documented on the form, however, we will be able to track these reasons and make better-informed decisions to increase the number who receive needed interventions for alcohol use.”

Simmer said identifying an alcohol problem also could help military doctors dig up combat-stress issues, so each person who comes in on an alcohol referral is also screened for PTSD.

According to the new report, 61 percent of soldiers who receive an alcohol-related diagnosis are treated within a year.

Only 42 percent of Marines and 59 percent of sailors receive treatment within a year. For airmen, 63 percent receive treatment within a year.

The report said further research is needed to see whether troops referred for alcohol problems after deployment get appropriate counseling and treatment.

When service members return from Iraq or Afghanistan, where they are not allowed alcohol, they are briefed about the dangers of using alcohol to deal with stress. However, younger service members often celebrate their return home with a boozy night out at the bars — and for many, the practice lingers.

Researchers found that 65,269 service members — including those who hadn’t deployed — had at least one alcohol-related medical encounter over the three years studied, and 7,188 people had at least one acute alcohol-related hospitalization. Of those with medical encounters, 50,296 were in paygrades E-4 and below, 6,526 were female and 31,320 were ages 21 to 24.

“The services should target alcohol and other substance-abuse programs to the youngest and most junior female members — beginning in recruit training,” the report states.

For all active-duty service members — including those who haven’t deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan — the Army still had the highest rate of medical encounters, with about one out of 44 soldiers with an alcohol-related clinic or hospital visit.

The figures were one out of 115 for the Air Force; one out of 60 for the Marine Corps; and one out of 77 for the Navy. About one in 150 service members had three or more acute alcohol diagnoses separated by at least 30 days.

People who have a medical encounter for alcohol use before they deploy are 2.5 times more likely to mark at least one item on their post-deployment screening for alcohol issues.

Researchers speculated that because a person is unlikely to succeed in the military if they have an alcohol problem, older officers and enlisted troops may be avoiding counseling.

“In turn, prevalences and rates of alcohol and other substance-abuse problems are likely underestimated from diagnoses and procedures documented on standard medical records — more so among officers and senior enlisted members than other military members,” the report states.

source:  Military Times

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Nepal-born scholar in alcoholism neuroscience breakthrough

By Dan | July 1, 2009

Finding could spawn novel ways to treat alcoholism, epilepsy

A team of researchers, with Nepali-born Prafulla Aryal as key member, of the Salk Institute of Biological Sciences in La Jolla, California, has located the alcohol-binding site in the brain that could pave the way to a whole new approach to treating alcoholism, drug addiction, abuse-related brain diseases, and epilepsy.

Aryal was born in Jayabageshwari, Kathmandu in 1981 and did his schooling until the fifth grade at Siddhartha Banasthali School. He migrated to the United States in 1991 and is now a US citizen. After receiving undergraduate education from the University of Colorado-Boulder, he joined the PhD program at the University of California-San Diego in 2003. Now a permanent resident of Denver, Colorado, Aryal´s role was instrumental to the finding.

After zeroing in on a potential alcohol-binding site in the brain, Aryal systematically introduced amino acid substitutions to the site to deny alcohol molecules access to the site. After he introduced the substitution, alcohol no longer had its effect, thus confirming that it was indeed the alcohol-binding site in the brain.

The binding-site is not only responsible for the brain´s response to alcohol, but also to epileptic seizures.

The finding by Aryal and his team, published by the Science Daily on Tuesday, is the closest that scientists have reached in understanding how alcohol affects the brain.

With the finding, “it may be possible to develop a drug that antagonizes the actions of alcohol for the treatment of alcohol dependence,” said the Institute in a statement.

Alternatively, if scientists could find a novel drug that fits the alcohol-binding site, this would dampen overall neuronal excitability in the brain and perhaps provide a new tool for treating epilepsy too, the team´s leader Dr Paul A Slesinger, associate professor in the Peptide Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, said in the statement.

In an e-mail to myrepublica.com, Aryal said he had been working on the study at Dr Slesinger´s lab at the Salk Institute for the past four years, as part of his thesis work in the field of neuroscience.

“This work shows, for the first time, a direct binding site for alcohol in a protein involved in alcohol´s action in the brain. This is a very novel and significant finding in the field of alcohol research and neuroscience,” Aryal wrote to myrepublica.com in an e-mail.

He further wrote that the finding was significant in that it sheds light on how exactly alcohol acts on the brain to alter its function. “I think, it is a great advancement in our knowledge about alcohol and for scientists that originated from Nepal,” Aryal wrote.

Other members of the research team are Dr Senyon Choe, a professor in the Structural Biology Laboratory, and Dr Hay Dvir, a postdoctoral researcher in Choe´s lab.

This work was supported by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and on General Medical Sciences, the HN & Frances Berger Foundation and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

The Salk Institute, a not-for-profit organization, was founded by Dr Jonas Salk, who discovered the Polio vaccine and chose to distribute it throughout the world, without proprietary concern, to eradicate the disease.

source: My Republica

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When alcohol is the problem in your relationship

By Dan | June 30, 2009

What is it about this type of drink that causes people to become attached to it? What is it about alcohol that is so much more difficult to handle than say tea or milk? Could it possibly be that there is the huge possibility of an addiction coming to the surface; an addiction that even those who are faced with the problem can’t identify? So if one knows that one could possibly be at risk for dealing with such an addiction, why put one’s self into the position of having to deal with an uphill battle against the odds and alcohol? This question is even more apparent when it involves two people in a relationship. When the dangerous consumption of alcohol (and by this I mean the too frequent consumption to where it seems you have to have it just to make it through the day) in the middle of a relationship, things can become pretty rocky. I have personally known and watched many couples battle over the issue of one in the relationship being an alcoholic. So what do you do? If you’re the one in the relationship loving the alcoholic but not the alcohol, then its hard to say. After all, we always hear that the proper way to love someone is by accepting them as they are no matter what, but what happens when this ideal, unconditional type of love becomes too difficult to do?

Of all the things that can end a relationship (such as money issues, infidelity, abuse, etc), why does alcohol seem to be one of the leading factors these days. Yes, the U.S. is in a state of economic recession. Yes, people are losing their jobs. Yes, times are really tough right now. So why make things more difficult to deal with by turning to a bottle that costs way too much to be buying in the first place, and unless one is consistently consuming it and nothing else, only leads to a hangover in the morning. This is not what the world means by “going green.”

I know of a couple, I’ve actually mentioned them before. Allie and Craig are faced with this problem. Once again they deal with another relationship problem. Now, in their case, Allie’s consumption of alcohol might not be as drastic as some others, but she doesn’t know when she’s had enough. When Allie continually consumes alcohol, she becomes belligerent, mean, and Mrs. Hyde. Craig has tried to talk to Allie about how much she consumes, but she reacts the same way every time: she becomes defensive, proclaiming she doesn’t have a problem, and then points the finger at Craig. He begs her to lighten up on the alcohol, but she doesn’t. She even takes offense to some of these suggestions. So their relationship continues down the same path it has for the previous couple of years: continual arguing compounded with great make-up sex. Or so I’m told. And believe me when I say that both Craig and Allie are completely open about their sex life and sharing it with others. Hence, why they don’t mind me using them as points in articles.

For another example, I’m going to let you into my life for a moment. I like alcohol, probably a little more than it really likes me. I’ve drank too much before, and M usually gets pretty aggravated with me for doing so. Like Craig told Allie, M tells me that my attitude completely changes. He states that I don’t become mean or anything, just loud, hyper, and flirtatious. He then calms me down by saying that I don’t flirt with anybody other than him, but it’s like I lose all control of what decible level I’m speaking on, and he can’t calm me down when it’s necessary. When M first told me this, I reacted in much the same way Allie did. Then, during Ladies’ Night at the Veranda in June of 2007, I had drank way too much wine, got behind the wheel of a car, and drove home: something I always had sworn I would never do. Thankfully, I made it home fine that night without hurting myself, the car, or more importantly anyone else. The next morning, I was laying in bed when M came into the room and was talking to me about what had happened the night before. As I sat there, tears filled my eyes, and all I could think about was I could have killed somebody. It was right then and there that M told me he needed me to back my drinking off or else something was going to change between us. Drastic? Maybe, but it’s exactly what I needed. Unlike Craig and Allie’s relationship which seems to thrive on confrontations, mine and M’s doesn’t, and unfortunately, the alcohol was giving our relationship exactly what it didn’t need.

M and I are still together obviously, which means that I have backed off the alcohol to a limit of two on nights we go out to dinner. And with the economy the way it is, for most weeks, that night never comes, but I’m okay with that now. Relationships are hard enough without adding to them. Some may say that alcohol is something so inconsequential that it shouldn’t be a problem in a relationship, and if one ends due to that problem then there was obviously something more going on behind the scenes. Now, I’m not saying if your someone has a problem with alcohol that you should leave them (unless the alcohol has caused abuse of any shape or form). What I am saying is that alcohol can alter someone’s personality, and like the two examples I have provided for you, that change is not always for the better. So what do you?

Talk to your someone; sit them down and calmly, without getting angry, tell them how it makes you feel. Explain what it’s doing to you and to the relationship. If you’re comfortable with the alcohol then I suppose you are one step closer to achieving the ability to love unconditionally. If you are not comfortable with it, then be honest about it. Alcohol is one problem in a relationship that is usually compounded by a few others: dishonesty (on both sides) and a lack of ability to talk about the issues each are facing. Sometimes just hearing how someone truly feels about things is enough to make that person want to stop drinking. Remember though, there are situations when the person can’t stop drinking on his/her own. Here is where you being strong enough to intervene can really come in to play.

While saying all this, I must add that alcoholics, people who are truly addicted to alcohol and cannot go a day without their beverage of choice, usually cannot do it on their own. If you’re their special someone, help them. Get involved in AA, they even have meetings online now. But remember–an alcoholic will not change unless they are willing to understand that there is a problem and that they need help. The change has to start with them, but if someone they love is explaining how much it hurts them, maybe it might be enough to instigate that decision.

source: The Examiner

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Troubling binge-drinking trend turns up in study

By Dan | June 29, 2009

Binge drinking typically conjures images of college frat boys at wild house parties smashing Lone Star cans on their foreheads.

Texas State student Sarah Brown, however, knows a different reality. She’s seen firsthand that men haven’t cornered the market on binge drinking.

“There’s a lot of guys who want to drink as much as they possibly can, and there’s a lot of girls who want to keep up with those guys,” said the 21-year-old. “I’ve seen people pass out on sidewalks, pass out in dorms, pass out anywhere.”

She’s not the only one seeing the troubling trend. A recent decades-long study finds that binge drinking has decreased significantly or stayed stagnant across a variety of demographics except one: women.

The study, conducted by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, examined nationwide data on more than 500,000 subjects gathered by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 1979 and 2006.

According to the study, the most recent statistics showed that more than half of 21- to 23-year-old males reported that they binge drink, a level that has remained relatively unchanged since 1979. However, in 2006 almost 39 percent of women ages 21 to 23 reported that they binge drink. A percentage increase of 30 percent from 1979.

Binge drinking, defined as consuming five or more drinks on a given occasion, declined for young men not in college and rose 20 percent among young women not in school.

Richard Grucza, author of the study, said the overall decline in binge drinking can be attributed to raising the legal drinking age, zero tolerance drunk-driving laws and societal changes.

Scott Walters, associate professor at The University of Texas School of Public Health, said the increase in female alcohol consumption is a consequence of the gender gap closing. “One of the most remarkable changes of the last 50 years is that young women have become more like young men,” Walters said. “Alcohol is one example, but they are engaging in a lot of other riskier behaviors such as drug abuse and smoking.”

David Jernigan, executive director of the center on alcohol marketing and youth, said the rise in female binge drinkers can be attributed to recent advertising campaigns for “alcopops,” which are sweet, fizzy, fruit-flavored drinks.

“Starting in 1999, distilled spirits companies transformed their marketing. They brought out alcopops, a wave of products such as Smirnoff Ice or Bacardi Silver — they could be sold and advertised like beer.”

The associate professor at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore said in 2001 there were less than 2,000 distilled spirit advertisements on television compared to 62,000 in 2007. He said girls were much more likely to be exposed to alcohol advertising than boys.

“Boys see a lot of alcohol advertising cause so much of it is on sports programs,” Jernigan said. “We looked at magazines and the number of alcohol advertisements was stunning. Underage women saw 68 percent more beer ads and 95 percent more alcopops advertising in 2002 compared to what women of legal age were seeing.”

Binge drinking carries serious and often deadly physical ramifications for both genders. But women face some unique disadvantages when it comes to heavy drinking.

Walters said one factor is women on average weigh less than men, so they are going to get drunk more quickly.

“The second factor is this idea of body composition,” Walters said. “Alcohol is a water soluble molecule so it goes anywhere in the body that there’s water. Women have less water in their body so there’s less place for the alcohol to go. It tends to be clustered around the brain and vital organs.”

Britney Box, a 22-year-old University of Houston graduate, said the majority of binge drinking goes on at house parties.

“Girls drink more popularized drinks,” she said. “A guy is going to drink a cranberry vodka or something like that. A girl is going to drink a Sex on the Beach, a Cosmo or an apple martini.”

Box said when men offer girls drinks, it is usually a shot. She speculates men buy hard liquor to help girls have a good time, loosen up, or just get them drunk quicker.

Brown, the Texas State student, said, “When you start out as a freshman and you are going out to house parties, apartment parties, frat parties — I don’t want to say it was peer pressure, but the people who are having such a great time are the ones drinking,” she said.

The Spring native said underage girls drink more than their legal counterparts and the effects can be shocking.

“I have seen someone dressed like Jesus standing on the side of the highway waving at cars and people naked riding bikes down the street,” she said.

Brown, a graduate of Klein High School, said alcohol is more accessible for females.

“I normally don’t spend money when I go to the bars. If I want somebody to buy me a drink, it usually happens. Me and my roommates go to the bar and sit and hang out and next thing you know there’s shots in front of us.”

source: Houston Chronicle

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Alcohol kills a person every 15 seconds

By Dan | June 28, 2009

A few sips of wine may be good for your heart, but alcohol-related disease and accidents take a life every 15 seconds according to research from the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Problem is, few people stop at one drink.

Researchers found that disorders linked to drinking wine, beer, whiskey, mixed drinks, etc are among the most disabling diseases in the world. The problems are especially problematic for men although women have been drinking more during the past decade. Unlike other diseases, the risks linked to drinking frequently kill young people.

Alcohol’s destruction is mostly due to injuries in accidents, cancer, heart disease and liver damage. Globally, one in twenty-five deaths is due to alcohol consumption.

Gail Czukar executive vice-president, Policy, Education and Health Promotion for the Canadian Centre says, “There are significant social, health and economic problems caused by alcohol, but research gives us sound, proven interventions that governments and health providers can use to address these problems.”

source: The Examiner

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Alcohol link to one in 25 deaths

By Dan | June 27, 2009

One in 25 deaths across the world are linked to alcohol consumption, Canadian experts have suggested.

Writing in the Lancet, the team from the University of Toronto added that the level of disease linked to drinking affects poorest people the most.

Worldwide, average alcohol consumption is around 12 units a week - but in Europe that soars to 21.5.

The report authors warn the effect of alcohol disease is similar to that of smoking a decade ago.

The analysis also found that 5% of years lived with disability are attributable to alcohol consumption.

The paper says that, although there have been some benefits of moderate drinking in relation to cardiovascular disease, these are far outweighed by the detrimental effects of alcohol on disease and injury.

In addition to diseases directly caused by drinking, such as liver disorders, a wide range of other conditions such as mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, depression and stroke are linked to drinking.

Drinking patterns do vary around the world, and the researchers point out that most of the adult population - 45% of men and 66% of women - abstain from drinking alcohol for most of them for their life.

Across the Americas, average consumption is 17 units per week, while the Middle East was the lowest at 1.3 units per week.

Death rates

For 2004, the latest year for which comparable data are available on a global level, 3.8% of all global deaths (around 1 in 25) were attributable to alcohol.

Overall, alcohol-attributable deaths have increased since 2000 mainly because of increases in the number of women drinking.

Europe had the highest proportion of deaths related to alcohol, with 1 in 10 deaths directly attributable.

Within Europe, the former Soviet Union countries had the highest proportion at 15%, or around one in seven deaths.

Globally, men are five times more likely to die from alcohol-related illness than women.

And young people are more likely to have a disease linked to alcohol than older people.

Of all years lived with disability attributable to alcohol, 34% were experienced by people aged 15-29, 31% in the 30-44 age group, and 22% by those aged 45-59.

Writing in The Lancet, the researchers led by Dr Jurgen Rehm said: “Globally, the effect of alcohol on burden of disease is about the same size as that of smoking in 2000, but it is greatest in developing countries.”

But they added: “This finding is not surprising since global consumption is increasing, especially in the most populous countries of India and China.

“We face a large and increasing alcohol-attributable burden at a time when we know more than ever about which strategies can effectively and cost-effectively control alcohol-related harms.”

‘Irresponsible sale’

Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians and chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said: “This study is a global wake-up call.

“We need an international framework convention for alcohol control, similar to that on tobacco, as soon as possible, to put into practice the evidence-based measures needed to reduce alcohol-related harm.

“These include increasing the price of alcohol, reducing its availability and banning advertising, and the action needs to start now.”

Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker added: “These statistics are unfortunately reflected in England, where we have seen deaths caused by alcohol increase almost a fifth since the beginning of the decade.

“On both a national and global scale we’re facing a disease burden of huge proportions.

“There is no longer any doubt that if a society drinks large amounts of alcohol, we’ll see high levels of harm as a result.”

He added: “Many countries are investigating new ways to cut deaths and disease and reduce the burden on health services by using the price of alcohol to lower consumption.

“As the chief medical officer has identified, putting a stop to the irresponsible sale of low cost alcohol would be an effective step in the right direction.

source: BBC News

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Study blames alcohol for half 1990s Russian deaths

By Dan | June 26, 2009

A new study by an international team of public health researchers documents the devastating impact of alcohol abuse on Russia — showing that drinking caused more than half of deaths among Russians aged 15 to 54 in the turbulent era following the Soviet collapse.

The 52 percent figure compares to estimates that less than 4 percent of deaths worldwide are caused by alcohol abuse, according to the study by Russian, British and French researchers published in Friday’s edition of the British medical journal The Lancet.

The Russian findings were based on a survey of almost 49,000 deaths between 1990 and 2001 among young adult and middle-aged Russians in three industrial towns in western Siberia, which had typical 1990s Russian mortality patterns.

Professor David Zaridze, head of the Russian Cancer Research Center and lead author of the study, estimated that the increase in alcohol consumption since 1987, the year when then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s restrictions on alcohol sales collapsed, cost the lives of 3 million Russians who would otherwise be alive today. “This loss is similar to that of a war,” Zaridze said.

Dr. Murray Feshbach, a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and a leading expert on Russian public health, called the study “very impressive, very substantive” and the overall methodologically sound. He was not part of the research team.

The tragic die-off was largely invisible outside of Russia, but devastated Russian society — claiming the lives of millions during what should have been their most productive years. The study is part of a long-running debate among public health scientists as to the causes of an unprecedented spike in mortality among Russians in the post-Soviet era.

Some researchers have blamed the crumbling of the Soviet health care system, increased smoking, changes in diet or a loss of jobs that raised stress levels for the mysterious rise in deaths.

Many others, like Zaridze and his team, pin the blame squarely on increased drinking, which the report says roughly doubled in Russia between 1987 and 1994 — from the equivalent of about 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of pure alcohol annually to about 10.5 liters (2.8 gallons.)

“If you look at the dynamics of death and the dynamics of alcohol consumption in Russia, it is obvious that all these sharp increases and decreases of the mortality level are caused by increases and decreases in alcohol consumption,” Zaridze said.

The scientist argued that the social and economic shocks of the late 1980s and 1990s drove people to drink.

“Alcohol consumption is always connected with poverty,” he said. “It’s been associated with social crisis. If we take our mortality statistics, it will be obvious that it’s parallel to our social crisis, to our social instability.”

Russia and some of its Eastern European neighbors still have the world’s highest levels of alcohol consumption, according to another study also published in the Lancet on Friday as part of series on alcohol and global health.

Two other papers in the series called for stronger government policies worldwide to reduce the dangers of alcohol abuse.

Russians currently consume almost twice the global average, the equivalent of 6.2 liters (1.64 gallons) of pure ethanol alcohol per year, the global report found.

Although life expectancy here has risen slightly in recent years, Russia still has one of the lowest in Europe.

According to the most recent U.N. National Human Development Report on Russia, males born in Russia in 2006 could only expect to live to just over 60 years, while a woman born that year could expect to live on average about 73 years. By comparison, the average western European man could expect to live to be 77, about 17 years longer than his Russian counterpart.

The average western European woman could expect to live to be 82, about nine years longer than the average Russian woman.

The Lancet’s Russian study was based on a long-term, large-scale study of drinking patterns and deaths in three industrial cities in western Siberia: Barnaul, Biysk and Omsk.

Researchers conducted tens of thousands of personal interviews and mined death records in gathering data for the report. They reported finding a strong link between heavy drinking and causes of death associated with high alcohol abuse, including alcohol poisoning, trauma, pneumonia and liver disease.

The link between life expectancy and alcohol in Russia has long been the subject of study. Mortality rates fell sharply in Russia from late 1985 to 1987, when then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev imposed strict limits on alcohol sales. During the period of political and social revolution that followed, death rates soared to levels unprecedented in modern industrialized nations.

By 2000, the reported noted, the chances that a 15 year old Russian male would die before his 35th birthday was one in ten. In Europe, the chances of a 15-year-old male dying by age 35 was one in 50.

Part of the problem may be the important cultural role vodka and alcohol play in Russian society. Moderate drinking is considered healthy by many Russians, and few major events are celebrated without raising a 100-gram glass or two — or three — of vodka.

“If the soul needs it — we drink, if the soul doesn’t need it — we don’t drink,” said Alexei Kitayev, a St. Petersburg cab driver. “Do I drink often? Beer after work to relax, vodka and beer at the weekends with my family at dinner — it’s good for me and the soul is happy.”

Russians generally blame alcohol deaths on the consumption of adulterated or industrial alcohol. Maxim Vdovin, an unemployed St. Petersburg resident, voiced the commonly-held view here that many Russians die because the state does not control the sale of adulterated spirits.

“No one gives a damn,” Vdovin said. “So many people are dying because of this raw vodka and they don’t give a damn, everybody is drinking and so many people die,” he said.

A previous study carried out by British and Russian researchers and published in the Lancet in 2007 estimated that drinking alcohol not meant for consumption like cologne and antiseptics was responsible for nearly half of all deaths among working-age Russian men.

A recent government crackdown on the sale of alcohol not intended for human consumption appears to have significantly cut those deaths, experts say.

But there is relatively little recognition here that excessive drinking of alcohol in any form, including beer and wine, can lead to serious health problems.

source: Associated Press

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Mixing Drinks With Work and Staying Sober, Too

By Dan | June 25, 2009

FOR Del Pedro, a bartender at the Pegu Club in SoHo, Mondays are especially challenging.

That’s when he allows himself careful tastes of new drinks at the bar, where cocktails are designed with precision.

Mr. Pedro, an alcoholic with almost 15 years of sobriety behind him, is part of a quiet brigade of people who are trying to live a sober life in a business that is soaked in alcohol. Although the hospitality industry has itself calmed down and has outgrown many of its hard-partying ways, nondrinkers and restaurant work don’t always mix easily.

Mr. Pedro, 50, learned early on that it was sometimes difficult to tell the difference between the bartenders and the customers.

“When I first started, a guy I worked with turned to me and said, ‘Look, you better be able to count money when you’re drunk,’ ” he said.

So he did. About seven years later, he looked in a mirror and had what alcoholics in recovery call a moment of clarity. He was miserable, sick of waking up bloated and hung over. A friend took him to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, which he attended for about two years.

As he lived a sober life privately, his reputation around New York as a great mixer of both drinks and customers grew. He started in an era of easy-to-blend vodka drinks, where he could rely on recipes and taste memories from his drinking days. For trickier cocktails and wine buying duties at places like Les Halles and Grange Hall, he used a panel of tasters whose opinions he trusted. Sober, he even invented some drinks. One, called the Bedford, has made it into two online compendiums.

People would ask how he could be around all that booze and not drink.

“They just don’t have the experience of having to deal with it,” he said, talking about alcoholism, “and knowing what going back to that would mean.”

Then, in October, a chance to work at the Pegu Club came along.

If Mr. Pedro didn’t taste, he wouldn’t be able to succeed at a bar that is considered the Harvard of mixology.

“When I saw what they were doing, how refined it was, I knew there was no way I could guess anymore,” he said. So he decided to begin controlled tasting. That means spitting, and no recreational drinking. If Mr. Pedro ends up back pulling beers at a neighborhood pub, he will stop tasting.

It hasn’t been easy, and he knows that by Alcoholics Anonymous standards he is not technically sober. And Mr. Pedro likens himself to a vegan friend of his who is a private chef. Sometimes, she has to taste pork.

Of course, he realizes the analogy isn’t perfect.

“People don’t lose everything because they eat too much pork,” he said.

Leaders in the hospitality industry have long acknowledged that alcohol and drug abuse are dangerous byproducts of a stressful business with ready access to both. Food service workers have the highest rate of illicit drug use and the third-highest rate of heavy alcohol use among major occupations, according to the latest data from the United States Department of Health and Human Services. (Construction workers and miners drink the most, and installation and maintenance workers are second.)

“It is one of the downfalls of our business,” said Gale Gand, the executive pastry chef and a partner in Tru in Chicago. The restaurant is part of the Lettuce Entertain You group, which, like many companies, trains managers to help employees with addiction problems.

Ms. Gand and others say that sober waiters, cooks and bartenders are more common than they used to be. They attribute that in part to the growth of an industry that now employs about 13 million people and has become more professional as its profile has grown.

Restaurant culture is shifting, too. Drinks in the kitchen or at the bar at the end of a busy night are still routine, but fewer restaurants pay for them. And imbibing during shifts has become less acceptable.

Some restaurant owners say they have no problem making room for employees who don’t drink (although no one suggested that a sober sommelier would be a great hire). Chefs can ask other cooks to taste dishes with alcohol, bartenders can follow formulas and waiters can gather pairing suggestions from knowledgeable colleagues.

“Service is so much about reading other people and verbal skills and eye-hand coordination,” Ms. Gand said. “We have waiters who are allergic to chocolate and they can still serve chocolate desserts. And certainly, when Beethoven went deaf he could still write music.”

But a stigma exists. Bartenders, waiters and wine experts who are in Alcoholics Anonymous contacted for this story wouldn’t talk publicly — not only because the organization’s traditions suggest they don’t reveal their membership to the media but also because they don’t want to jeopardize their livelihoods.

At the Culinary Institute of America, administrators are examining how to accommodate students who don’t drink. Jeremy Umansky, 26, who has been sober for seven years, is a semester away from graduating with a culinary degree. One thing that stands in his way is an intensive, three-week wine course. He tried to take it last June, but says he found it too stressful.

“I have an unhealthy mental obsession with alcohol,” he said. “Being in a room with that much alcohol is not healthy for me.” Armed with doctors’ notes and his family’s support, he asked for an alternative to the class that never materialized, he said. In March, he filed a complaint with the New York State Division of Human Rights.

In keeping with the state’s guidelines, Tim Ryan, the president of the school, said he could not confirm or deny that such a case exists. But he said that students are not required to drink alcohol or even smell it to graduate, whether they are abstaining for religious, health or other reasons. Wine lectures could be taped so students wouldn’t have to be in the same room with alcohol, he said.

Liz Scott, who was once a private chef for Brooke Astor, hasn’t had a drink in 10 years. She recently gave a lecture at the Culinary Institute about her own recovery and how to cook without alcohol.

The idea, she told the students, is to approach it as a challenge in the way they might adapt recipes for diners who are vegan, kosher or allergic. After the lecture, half a dozen students came up to her and said they, too, had quit drinking, she said.

The end of Ms. Scott’s drinking life began when she was working as a private chef for the DuPont family in New York on Fishers Island. After a night at the local bar where the service workers hung out, she crashed the family’s S.U.V. and broke several bones.

When she got sober through a combination of rehabilitation and 12-step meetings, she didn’t want to stop cooking. So she figured out how to work in a kitchen without alcohol, turning her experience into three books, the latest of which is “Zero-Proof Cocktails” (Ten Speed Press, April 2009).

Unlike Mr. Pedro, she believes in complete abstinence. One sip or even a bottle on a counter can trigger intense cravings in some people, she said. And she points to studies that show alcohol never completely burns off in a dish.

So she uses substitutions. For example, strongly brewed blackcurrant-flavored tea mixed with simple syrup and caramel-flavored syrup can approximate Madeira.

Not all recovering alcoholics are as strict as Ms. Scott or as loose as Mr. Pedro. Valerie Hill, a pastry chef at Johnny’s Half Shell in Washington, uses alcohol in some desserts.

She stopped drinking 20 years ago. “I just realized, Wait a minute; this is ruling my life,” she said. “We all know you can’t do anything until you get to that point.”

At first, she felt shaky and ashamed at work. But now her sober palate is a point of pride. “I believe you can taste things better if you don’t deaden all your senses with alcohol and drugs,” she said.

It’s tougher for people in the front of the house. “After work, they just sit there and pound cocktails,” she said. But she doesn’t mind being around her friends who drink.

“I’m not going to be shut out because of that,” she said. “I just get Pellegrino with lemon.”

The trick, say people who navigate the restaurant world sober, is to get support from other people who have also stopped and to never forget what might happen if they pick up another drink.

That’s the religion Michael Quinn, one of England’s original celebrity chefs, preaches. In the 1980s he had a Michelin star and was the first Briton to run the kitchen at the Ritz-Carlton in London. But by the 1990s, he had drunk himself out of a job and literally, he says, into the gutter.

In 1996, he was in a Leeds clinic with a host of medical problems. As a priest was reading him his last rites, he had his moment of clarity. He has been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous ever since.

In 2001, he started the Ark Foundation to help other chefs and restaurant workers with alcohol problems. He and volunteers give hundreds of lectures a year at Britain’s cooking schools. Chefs like Jamie Oliver and Heston Blumenthal are supporters.

Mr. Quinn says that once someone gets sober, there is no reason to stay away from restaurant jobs and the culture of drinking that goes along with them. If someone really wants to drink, he will find a way, whether alcohol is easily accessible or not, he said.

“The key is to admit we need help and start that path of recovery,” he said. “Then we can go into any situation and feel protected. We have nothing to fear.”

Being around alcohol doesn’t faze Harry Denton, either. Good thing, because he runs the Starlight Room, a popular nightclub atop the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco.

“I don’t know if it’s God’s blessing or what,” he said. “I don’t want to drink and I’ve had no problem with other people drinking. It just doesn’t bother me at all.”

Although Mr. Denton, 64, still toys with a few other addictions, food among them, he stopped drinking after a stint in a 12-step-based rehabilitation center 14 years ago. He relies on a manager whose opinion he trusts to taste for him.

“I’m a raging alcoholic who sells booze for a living, but it works for me,” he said. “I love the opposites in my life.”

source:  New York Times

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Higher drinking age reduces binge drinking

By Dan | June 24, 2009

A study has revealed that there has been a substantial reduction in binge drinking among people of all ages, except college students,
ever since the national drinking age in America was set at 21 about two decades ago.

The research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also found that the rates of binge drinking in male collegians remain unchanged, but the rates in female collegians have increased dramatically.

The researchers have said that while the policy initiatives aimed at lowering rates of underage drinking generally have been successful, and that binge drinking is down among young people overall, it still remains a problem on college campuses.

Led by Dr. Richard A. Grucza, assistant professor of psychiatry, the researchers analysed data gathered between 1979 and 2006 by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

The data covered over 500,000 subjects, and the researchers divided them into groups, according to age, sex, ethnicity and student status.

“We found that overall, binge drinking is less common than it once was. Young men account for the majority of binge drinkers, and their rates have dropped substantially since 1979. However, at the same time, the ‘gender gap’ between male and female drinkers has been closing. In this study, we found that women are drinking more, and their rates of binge drinking have risen over the last 30 years,” said Grucza.

Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks on a given occasion.

The researchers observed that in 2006, the last year for which the data were analysed, more than half of college-age males, and almost 40% of college-age females reported binge drinking.

But the researchers found reductions in binge drinking, especially among boys and young men 20 and younger.

In males ages 15 to 17, binge-drinking rates declined nearly 50% between 1979 and 2006, while the rates declined more than 20% in males aged 18 to 20 and 10% in males aged 21 to 23.

On the other hand, binge drinking was statistically unchanged since 1979 in women aged 15 to 20, while for women 21 to 23, binge drinking rose by about 40%.

The biggest surprises involved differences between college students and men and women of the same age not enrolled in college.

Binge drinking declined in young men, unless they were in college. It was up slightly in young women, but significantly higher in college women.

Among 18- to 20-year-old non-college men, binge drinking declined by more than 30% over the study period, whereas it was statistically unchanged among the men in college.

The study has been reported in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

source: Times of India

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Hunting ways to protect babies when mom drinks

By Dan | June 23, 2009

Drinking during pregnancy can seriously harm a baby’s brain, yet thousands of mothers-to-be still do. Now scientists have begun testing whether a prenatal nutrient might offer those babies a little protection, part of a growing quest for ways to reverse the damage.

The only help today: intense behavioral or educational therapies once children with fetal alcohol-caused disabilities reach preschool or school age, says new research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency is spending $1.5 million this year to start spreading those programs so more youngsters can find care.

Better would be discovering a way to short-circuit what scientists now know is a complex chain reaction of toxicity that even moderate drinking during pregnancy — and especially a binge — can trigger in a baby’s developing brain.

Don’t misunderstand: This is not a hunt for a pill to allow women to drink. Even if scientists eventually find a treatment, one medication could never cover all the ways that alcohol harms.

“There’s not going to be a single treatment that’s going to be a panacea,” cautions Dr. Jennifer Thomas of San Diego State University, whose animal research sparked interest in the nutrient choline, found in such foods as eggs and liver.

But, “there’s heightened interest now since despite our best efforts, we haven’t eliminated drinking in pregnancy and haven’t made a huge dent in it,” adds Dr. Christina Chambers of the University of California, San Diego. She is overseeing the first clinical trial — aiming to test 600 pregnant women in Ukraine — to see if prenatal choline might help.

About 12 percent of U.S. women drink at least some during pregnancy and 2 percent binge-drink. A CDC study last month concluded those numbers haven’t substantially changed since 1991.

With 4 million annual births, that adds up. Full-blown fetal alcohol syndrome — a combination of brain, facial and growth abnormalities — is considered a leading preventable cause of mental retardation. There isn’t a good count, but the CDC estimates that anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000 U.S. babies a year are born with it. CDC says at least three times as many have less severe alcohol-related neurodevelopmental problems, such as learning disabilities and speech delays.

In parts of the world like Ukraine, fetal alcohol syndrome is far more prevalent.

Chambers stresses that no one thinks the mom who has a glass of wine the week before learning she’s pregnant needs to worry. But because doctors don’t yet know the safe limit, health officials say to abstain during pregnancy. How much damage alcohol causes depends on how much the mother consumes, and at what point in gestation.

Nutrition plays a powerful role in proper development of the brain and nervous system: Getting enough folate during pregnancy, for example, can prevent spina bifida and related birth defects. And significant alcohol consumption interferes with mom’s ability to absorb various nutrients, in turn affecting whether her fetus gets enough.

So Thomas’ group tested choline, a precursor to a brain chemical that plays a key role in learning. She exposed pregnant rats to alcohol during a third-trimester spurt of brain growth. Giving the mother rats extra choline — or, importantly, giving newborn pups the nutrient — significantly improved the pups’ later ability to learn.

On to humans: The study in Ukraine is recruiting women who acknowledge drinking while pregnant. They’ll be counseled to stop, and then randomly assigned to take either a standard Ukrainian vitamin supplement every day, or that vitamin plus 750 milligrams of choline — more than the 450 mg pregnant women are advised to get from food. About 120 women have been enrolled so far, and researchers expect preliminary results within a year.

“Whether you’ll be able to intervene when the woman’s drinking is highly questionable,” acknowledges Thomas, who says future work may need to examine newborn treatment.

The choline pathway isn’t the only possible target:

Northwestern University researchers gave alcohol to rats in the equivalent of the second trimester and recorded a stunning alteration in the gene activity of their pups’ brains — an alteration that in turn led to markedly lower levels of thyroid hormones in brain regions that control learning, memory and emotional behaviors. Children with fetal alcohol disorders also display abnormalities in thyroid hormones, which play a role in brain development, lead researcher Laura Sittig told a recent meeting of the nation’s endocrinologists. The question is whether thyroid hormones might offer a treatment.

Australian researchers recently found dietary zinc played a role in protecting fetal mice exposed to alcohol even earlier in pregnancy.

This is very early stage science. For already affected children, the CDC advises families to seek behavioral training specifically targeted to fetal alcohol disorders — from the math trouble these youngsters frequently have to the common inability to learn through social experiences.

source: Associated Press

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Teen binge drinking project

By Dan | June 22, 2009

A Project to curb underage binge drinking across the nation will be trialled in Tasmania.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the Government had signed a $700,000 funding agreement with the State Government to operate a pilot program in southern Tasmania teaching teenagers about the risks of drinking.

“The pilot is part of an innovative national framework for early intervention and diversion of drinkers, aged under 18 years, who come to the attention of police for liquor-related offences,” Ms Roxon said.

“It offers young people the opportunity to better comprehend the risks they are taking.”

The money is part of $19 million allocated nationally for the Early Intervention Pilot Program and will go to the Tasmania Police Southern District Command area.

Outreach centres will be employed to conduct alcohol education sessions for teenagers and programs will be developed to provide ongoing treatment for young problem drinkers.

Ms Roxon said the program aimed to counter early drinking cultures and would back up the Government’s $20 million advertising campaign urging young people to recognise the consequences of binge drinking and take responsibility for themselves.

She said the Federal Government would work with Tasmanian authorities to ensure statistics were collected properly and the information would be used in future policy.

The head of Tasmania’s Alcohol and Drug Service, Adrian Reynolds, said earlier this year that binge drinking by teenagers and young adults could lead to brain damage.

Dr Reynolds said drinking by young people was often associated with serious accidents and injury, violence, self-harm and even suicide. Young drinkers were also more likely to take up other drugs.

source: The Mercury

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Alcohol Abuse, Addiction Affect Suicide Rates

By Dan | June 21, 2009

Factors that affect suicide rates include drug addiction and alcohol abuse. Studies also shows that being male, or part of a minority group, affects the incidence of suicide. New data from the CDC’s Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report shows that interventional programs should focus on alcohol treatment and rehabilitation to reduce the risk of suicide among minorities especially.

The study examined suicides reported in 17 states in 2005 and 2006. Almost one fourth had alcohol levels that exceed legal limits for driving when tested following suicide. The study was led by Dr. Alex Crosby of the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, showing that alcohol is a major contributor to suicide rates.

Crosby says that interventional programs that try to address suicide prevention should focus on alcohol as a cause. Public health policies should focus on how much alcohol is really contributing to depression, impaired judgment, and health problems related to the nervous system and behavior. In addition to alcohol treatment and rehabilitation, the authors propose higher tax rates and laws on alcohol to prevent a problem that is “considered ordinary behavior”.

Alcohol can worsen depression, making intervention important, especially among Hispanics and American Indian and Alaska Natives who have the highest rates of alcohol related suicides. Alcohol and drug rehabilitation programs can play an important role in helping to reduce the risk of deaths from worsening depression and hopelessness.

Given the findings that high alcohol levels are found in a large number of suicide cases, more alcohol programs should be developed. Dr. Eric Caine, chair of psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y. says, “Here’s more data on how something like alcohol is fuel on the fire, and we need to ask ourselves what we are going to do about it.” Raising alcohol taxes, and focusing on alcohol treatment programs should become a public focus to reduce the toll of alcohol consumption on health and suicide rates.

source: CDC

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Alcohol Addiction and Mothering

By Dan | June 20, 2009

A friend of mine who is an accomplished psychologist and mother of two recently confessed something to me: she likes wine, a lot. After working all day with troubled adolescents, picking her girls up from school and making a dinner that loosely resembles a healthy meal, she drinks. Her daily consumption included one glass of wine with dinner, one while cleaning up after dinner, and one once the kids went to bed. Given her slight frame, this amount was enough to make her unsteady, and yet, she continued to drink. Her weekly grocery trip included the purchase of two bottles of red wine–of which she “shared” with her husband. On one such grocery trip, she heard herself half-shout, “watch my wine!” as her five-year old clamored out of the cart nearly stepping on the bottle. The rolling wine bottle and her defensive reaction to it was her wake-up call. My friend, who counsels people with addictive personalities was shocked to find herself modeling the behavior of an alcoholic. Upon her realization, she spoke with her husband about it (he had been noticing her increasing consumption) and simply quit–cold turkey before her addiction could get further out of control.

My friend’s reaction was not typical. For her, quiting was easy, yes she had to change some behaviors and get used to not relying on the wine to calm her down after a particularly stressful day in the mental health profession, but overall she didn’t struggle with the process. For many mothers and fathers who find themselves in the clutches of alcohol addiction, this process isn’t so simple. Groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon (for the families of alcoholics) can provide resources and support for those who are struggling with the effects of alcoholism. Regardless of whether the alcoholic is functional (can still work and function in society), the effects of alcohol abuse on families are staggering. Data shows that over 7 million children in the U.S. have a parent who is suffering from alcoholism or drug dependency. Children of alcoholics exhibit symptoms of depression, anxiety and codependency more than children of non-alcoholics. Additionally, children of alcoholics are also more likely to score lower in cognitive and verbal skill tests (National Association for Children of Alcoholics nacoa.org).

My friend looks back at that brief period of her life with a sense of thankfulness that her addiction didn’t completely take over. She knows her response of “just quitting” isn’t the norm. Sometimes in the rush of work, bake sales, meetings, carpooling and all of the other 900 tasks mothers must accomplish daily, there can be a tendency to overlook one’s health. She recognized that instead of dealing with her stress in a healthy way like yoga, journaling or talking with a friend, she was self-medicating with alcohol. It took her 5 year-old wrestling out of a shopping cart and almost breaking a wine bottle to make her realize that her nightly ritual had become a compulsion.

source: Examiner

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Alcohol abuse by GIs soars since ‘03

By Dan | June 19, 2009

The rate of Army soldiers enrolled in treatment programs for alcohol dependency or abuse has nearly doubled since 2003 — a sign of the growing stress of repeated deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Army statistics and interviews.

Soldiers diagnosed by Army substance abuse counselors with alcoholism or alcohol abuse, such as binge drinking, increased from 6.1 per 1,000 soldiers in 2003 to an estimated 11.4 as of March 31, according to the data. The latest data cover the first six months of the fiscal year that began in October.

“We’re seeing a lot of alcohol consumption,” Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s vice chief of staff, told top officers during a briefing on the Army’s growing number of suicides.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed concern. “I’m sure there are many factors for the rising numbers (of enrollments) … but I can’t believe the stress our people are under after eight years of combat isn’t taking a toll,” he said.

Likewise, Marines who screen positive for drug or alcohol problems increased 12% from 2005 to 2008, according to Marine Corps statistics. In addition, there were 1,060 drunken-driving cases involving Marines during the first seven months of fiscal 2009, which began in October, compared with 1,430 cases in all of fiscal 2008.

In an interview last week, Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Carlton Kent said alcohol abuse is an indication of the stress, particularly with the ongoing cycle of combat deployments. “Alcohol can tie into a lot of things, and we’re just keeping a close eye on it,” Kent said.

Mullen and Chiarelli said the U.S. needs to reduce the overall number of deployed troops as planned to ease the strain.

Concerns about alcohol abuse led Chiarelli to issue a memo in May urging commanders to treat and, where necessary under Army rules, punish soldiers who test positive for substance abuse or fail blood-alcohol tests. During a visit to six Army installations this year, Chiarelli said, he found hundreds of cases where soldiers who failed those tests, in some cases more than once, were not treated for the problem or processed for possible discharge, as required by Army regulation.

Enrollments in drug abuse treatment programs have remained largely unchanged in the Army during the war, rising from 3.7 per 1,000 in 2003 to an estimated 4.2 as of May.

Chiarelli said top staff officers might not properly deal with the problem because of a need to “keep their numbers up” for combat deployments.

He said identifying and treating substance and alcohol abuse will help improve the Army’s mental health care and curb suicides, which reached a record 142 cases in 2008. There have been 82 confirmed or suspected suicides this year among active-duty, compared with 51 for the same period in 2008.

source: USA Today

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Middle classes vulnerable to binge drinking

By Dan | June 18, 2009

Alcohol is being used as a tool to mask the inner demons of the middle classes, the chief executive of a new body to tackle substance abuse claimed last night.

Binge drinking – commonly perceived as a problem associated with rowdy town and city centres – is equally evident in homes across Wales, according to Wynford Ellis Owen, who leads the newly-formed Welsh Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs.

Mr Owen, a minister’s son from Denbighshire who been in recovery from alcohol and drugs addiction since 1992, chaired the organisation’s first meeting in Cardiff last night.

He claims that the Welsh Assembly Government’s 10-year “harm reduction” strategy is stabilising alcohol and drug addiction in Wales – but not stopping it.

“The Assembly is containing the problem but we want to eliminate addiction altogether,” he said.

“People tend to try to escape life, through turning to binge-drinking, drugs, television, food, pornography, gambling and any means open to them, in order to try to flee their inner feelings.

“For example, a heroin addict might substitute it with methadone but, although it will change their mood, their way of thinking and emotions don’t change.

“Most substance misuse treatments are not good enough.

“We need to look at all these addictions and look at what they do for us that we cannot do for ourselves.

“I had to ask myself that question all those years ago.

“As a young man going to a party I would drink before I got there.

“Basically I was drinking so that I wouldn’t have to be myself.

“But it took guts and courage for me to confront the burden of being human; feeling nervous, insecure and realising that I didn’t know all the answers to all the questions.

“I realised I didn’t have to be perfect and people could see me for how I was.”

He set up a treatment centre in Cardiff and admits that he periodically feels unable to cope with the scale of the alcohol problem in modern Wales.

According to the Assembly Government’s Substance Misuse Strategy for Wales 2008 to 2018, half of all men and a third of all women in Wales admit to drinking more than the recommended safety limits, with one-in- four men and one-in-10 women admitting misusing alcohol.

“It is not just the binge drinkers,” he said.

“Deaths from alcohol misuse have doubled over the last 15 years.

“Out of 40 countries worldwide, Wales had the highest percentage of 13-year-olds reporting having been drunk more than twice – 27% of boys and 26% of girls.

“And alcohol is the cheapest it’s ever been. We’re in big trouble.

“Most of this problem is hidden, noticed only by the bottle recyclers of Wales and by the sufferers themselves, who must be in abject despair and suffering from unbearable loneliness and fear. Children are the main victims of this hidden harm and the partners, husbands and wives.

“I know that I was afraid to be me. But I am now enjoying being me and the freedom that it brings.”

Yesterday was the first time the council and the three registered treatment centres in Wales – Ty’n Rodyn/Hafan Wen in Bangor, Brynawel House in Llanharan and Rhoserchan in Aberystwyth – worked together to tackle the wider debate on addiction therapy.

Dr David Best, a reader in Criminal Justice at the University of the West of Scotland, who spoke at the meeting, criticised the standard of substance dependency treatment.

He said: “Most substance use treatment is not good enough.

“And that treatment itself is not enough – it is not sufficient in its current form to support recovery.

“The most important factors in sustaining recovery were ‘moving away from substance-using friends’, suitable accommodation and support from non-using friends.

“It was the development of a support network that allowed recovery to be sustained.”

source: Western Mail

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Confronting the Alcohol issue

By Dan | June 17, 2009

If you’ve evaluated your drinking and have decided that you might have a problem with alcohol, then it’s worth taking the next step to investigate what you can do about it. You might still have mixed feelings about whether or not you have a problem; this is a completely normal way to feel and does not mean that you shouldn’t seek treatment. Doctors, counselors, and others who help people with alcohol problems will address these feelings and will work with you to develop a plan that meets your specific needs.

Alcohol treatment has become notorious in popular culture due to numerous onscreen portrayals of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings. Deciding to seek treatment, however, does not necessarily mean enrolling in AA or a group with a similar format, but rather enlisting appropriate help to evaluate your problem professionally and work with you to determine the best course of treatment. This treatment can take many other forms besides group meetings.

The best place to start getting help depends on what makes you feel the most comfortable. Talking to a trusted, nonjudgmental friend or family member about your thoughts might be a good place to start if you’re looking to enlist support. This conversation would be a good way to practice talking about it and will give you a chance to organize your thoughts and feelings about the issue in a coherent way. Depending on which type of support you want, this friend could accompany you to the initial doctor’s appointment or could sit with you while you call a hotline. Make sure that it’s not someone who’s going to be critical or tell you what to do; this person should be someone who is going to support you in making your own decisions. Also make sure that this is someone who will keep the information confidential; you might not be comfortable with everyone knowing about the situation at once. After talking to the family member or friend, your next stop should be to see your health care provider.

If you don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone in your personal life about the situation, you can start directly with your health care provider. He or she will probably ask you some questions about your drinking and then will perform a physical exam to determine if you’re physically dependent on alcohol. Cutting back or stopping drinking should be done under the supervision of a medical provider due to the fact that if you’re physically dependent on alcohol, you may have withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking and your medical provider can work with you to manage these effects. Your health care provider might refer you to someone who has a speciality in alcohol treatment; this way, the specialist can devote entire visits with you to ensure that you’re on a safe plan or in a safe environment to cut back or stop drinking.

Your health care provider may also recommend that you see a mental health counselor or psychologist for help with cutting back or stopping drinking. Not only will a mental health professional provide continued support to you, they will also help you to understand what triggers your drinking or what issues caused you to start drinking in the first place. Understanding the condition and understanding how to manage emotions surrounding the condition are critical processes for recovery. If you’ve been drinking to ease stress or worry, then a mental health professional can help you to find ways to coping that won’t harm you physically, mentally, socially, or emotionally.

If you meet certain criteria, then residential treatment might also be something that your medical provider might discuss with you. Residential treatment allows for intensive, 24-hour monitoring of your condition and round-the-clock help as well. Group therapy, treatment with medication, and individual therapy may all be pieces of residential treatment. Depending on your specific situation, your stay in a residential facility could be anywhere from a few weeks to a few months; according to the Recovery Connection, the average length of stay for someone with private insurance is 20 days.

source: Examiner

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Booze overtaking drugs as teen addiction problem

By Dan | June 16, 2009

Alcohol is increasingly becoming the drug of choice for young people, with a 10 per cent rise of the number of under-18s seeking addiction advice over the past year, new figures show.

Angela Slaven, director of youth services at Kent County Council, said while the number of people seeking help for under-age drinking were up, those experiencing problems with cannabis was down 26 per cent.

Young people getting help for addiction to ‘other substances’ such as ecstasy, heroin and cocaine fell by 47 per cent.

The figures came from the Kent Drug and Alcohol Action Team (KDAAT), of which Ms Slaven is also director, and are for the period 2007-08 and 2008-09.

“There are a whole range of issues around alcohol,” she said. “It is easy to access and cheap - you can go into a supermarket and buy vodka for £7.

“I think the principal driver is cheapness and there is evidence to suggest that it is to do with cultural and social norms.

“Parents supply 17-year-olds and give their children alcohol perhaps in the belief it is a way of managing it but it could be exacerbating it.”

KDAAT’s figures take into account a range of support mechanisms from a young person talking to a teacher or youth worker about concerns over drug and alcohol addiction through to treatment such as professional counselling and at the top tier detox programmes.

As part of a BBC investigation this week, it was revealed that the number of young people seeking treatment for drug and alcohol problems had increased 12 per cent over two years.

Figures obtained by the broadcaster from the National Treatment Agency showed that 44 per cent more under-25s had problems with drugs like cannabis and cocaine but heroin and crack addiction had gone down.

“Kent is different to the national picture and for whatever reason the drug of choice among young people is alcohol,” Ms Slaven said.

“It could be that young people do not consider alcohol to be a drug because part of our normal society.”

Ms Slaven was speaking to Kent on Sunday to mark National Tackling Drugs Week, which ran from this Monday to Friday, she said while KDAAT was investing in alcohol addiction prevention schemes it had not taken its eyes off issues around drugs.

“There is a gap in 18 to 25s treatment and we are doing work to improve accessibility so that people can seek help with drugs,” she said.

“If people are beginning at 18 to increase their cannabis smoking that is problematic in itself, and if people move towards other class A drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin.

“We are looking at how we shape these services because it is a time when you think you are in control but actually these things creep up on you.”

In Kent, 5, 505 people under-18 accessed KDAAT services in 2007-08, which decreased to 5,007 for the last financial year.

Those referred for alcohol addiction increased from 169 to 192 while cannabis referrals went down from 374 to 276. But cannabis remains the drug that the most young people are seeking help for. Young people seeking help for other substance abuse such as ecstasy and class As like heroin decreased sharply from 71 to 37.

Cannabis was the prevailing drug in young men aged between 16 and 24, Ms Slaven said. She said heroin was most abused by the 35 to 44 age group.

Asked if this showed young people were turning away from it, she said: “Huge amounts of work have been done with harm reduction and prevention issues around blood born viruses and sharing needles these messages are getting across.”

In Kent she said crack addiction was most prevalent in the Medway Towns, she added: “It has not yet spread down into the more rural parts of Kent. Cocaine is associated with more affluence and it could be that they are not presenting to our services.”

source: Canterbury News

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Red Watch Band friends don’t let friends get too drunk

By Dan | June 15, 2009

When Suzanne Fields’ son died of an alcohol overdose last year, a few days after completing his first year of college, she decided she wanted to keep other students from suffering the same fate.

“I thought at the time my son died that his death was preventable, that I wanted to do something to prevent other students from dying the way he did,” she says.

So when Shirley Strum Kenny, the president of Stony Brook University, where Fields is a professor and administrator, asked if there was anything she could do to help, Fields suggested a program to empower students to help their peers when they’ve had too much to drink.

The result was the Red Watch Band movement, which aims to give students the skills to intervene when someone passes out from binge drinking. Students volunteer for the program, which involves 2½ hours of CPR training and an hour of alcohol-related emergency training.

After the training is complete, students receive a red watch that serves as a symbol of the band of students watching out for one another.

About 90 Stony Brook students have completed the training, says Jenny Hwang, associate dean and director for prevention and outreach, and more than 100 other institutions have expressed interest in bringing the program to their schools in the fall.

The school’s effort comes as the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports today that alcohol-related deaths and heavy drinking at college campuses continue to rise.

Based on government data and national surveys, the report says drinking-related accidental deaths among 18- to 24-year-olds have crept upward from 1,440 in 1998 to 1,825 in 2005; the percentage of students admitting to binge drinking has risen from 42% to 45%.

Ralph Hingson, director of the institute’s division of epidemiology and prevention research, says colleges and surrounding communities need to use the information available to address the issue. “It’s sort of ironic that as our knowledge base has increased on how to reduce these problems, the problem is getting worse,” he says.

Hwang says a program like the Red Watch Band movement is necessary because it is unrealistic to expect students to “100% abstain from alcohol use.”

“Our students absolutely need to know how to stay alive, and we need to be doing something to equip them and empower them to create a culture where they can look out for each other and care about each other,” she says.

Kenny says that by getting students involved in the program, school officials hope to change campus culture to a place where students “know it’s not cool to over-drink.”

“We realized that if this is going to stop it has to come from the students themselves,” she says, and “that lecturing them about it is not a way to change behaviors.”

Tim Workman, assistant professor in the school of allied health sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, says the public deaths of many students from alcohol poisoning has caused a spike in programs like the Red Watch Band in the past decade. Many of these programs provide students with wallet cards or point them to websites that give information on how to handle an alcohol emergency.

“We’ve just had case after case after case where students’ friends were just going to let them sleep it off,” he says.

He adds that programs like the Red Watch Band are important, but they need to be paired with prevention education. “We don’t just want to see an increase in 911 calls. What we want to see is a decrease in incidents,” he says.

source: USA Today

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How much alcohol is too much?

By Dan | June 14, 2009

When does drinking cross the line into problem territory? Diagnostic tools abound in medical offices across the country, but realizing that you have a problem with alcohol often happens before you cross a therapist’s threshold. Years of fond memories accumulated from college keg parties, open-bar weddings, and beer pong at cookouts may disguise the fact that drinking is no longer an occasional, relatively harmless night of fun for you. The simplest way to determine whether you should explore a potential issue with alcohol is: if you’re thinking you might have a problem, you probably do.

To have an alcohol problem does not necessarily mean that someone is waking up covered in empty beer cans on someone else’s floor and not remembering the night before: it means that it negatively interferes with your usual functioning or causes a significant reduction of quality in daily life. Finding that you’re drifting through many days at work with cloudy thoughts and reduced motivation to accomplish tasks due to a hangover could be a sign of an alcohol problem. Recognizing that you dread social events unless you know that you’ll be drinking heavily could be a sign of an alcohol problem. Realizing that you’re using alcohol to relax and unwind in the evenings during a stressful period at work could be a sign of an alcohol problem. Even pounding beers while ignoring your initial impulse to stop every Saturday night and waking up on Sunday sick until the late afternoon could be a sign of an alcohol problem, even though it only happens once per week.

In order to recognize if you have an alcohol problem, think about your drinking. Asking yourself some questions might get you started on building an overall picture of your drinking habits and how they affect your life (these are NOT intended to be a diagnostic tool, only to get you started in thinking about your drinking):

How much and how often do you generally drink? Are you happy with this amount?

Do you often schedule things around drinking, such as not making Sunday plans or not scheduling early classes because you’ll be recovering from a hangover?

Do you have fun without drinking, and would you go to the same social events you currently attend if alcohol were not available?

Do you find yourself resolving to drink fewer drinks, but somehow you always end up drinking just as much or more than you would have anyway?

Have friends or family expressed concern to you or made comments about the amount you drink?

Do you feel guilty after drinking, or find that you say and do things when you’re drinking that harms your relationships with other people?

Have you ever tried to stop drinking for a period of time (for example, a week or a month) and found that you weren’t able to (and yes, it counts as not able to even if “special occasions” got in the way like weddings or parties?)

Most importantly, think to yourself about what living your best life means to you. Is your drinking hindering you in achieving your best life, accomplishing goals, or being happy and healthy? If so, the potential of having an alcohol problem might be worth exploring. In the next article, we will explore the process of evaluating a drinking problem, taking that first step to do something about it, and different types of alcohol treatment.

source: The Examiner

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