In the US, alcohol abuse is one of this country’s largest problems. It often starts with school age kids. And, it has been proven that kids who start drinking alcohol in their teens are at much greater risk of having problems with alcohol abuse as they grow up.

Unfortunately, there are parents all across America who allow their kids to drink. They think it won’t hurt anything if they’re drinking at home and avoiding other drunks and risky behavior. The problem with kids being allowed to drink at home, besides the fact that’s illegal, is that brain damage can occur in a developing child after just 3 beers.

There have been studies on the effects of alcohol on the human brain, and it has been proven that after just three beers, the brain will begin to work differently. Scientists have actually put people into MRI scans while the participants drink to watch the changes to the brain as they happened.

You’ve no doubt heard the term “everything in moderation”, which can absolutely be applied to alcohol. A young person isn’t going to be permanently brain damaged if they have a drink. But, there will be negative effects if people drink over and over again, especially in higher quantities associated with binge drinking. And yes, it will be permanent and can impair critical thinking for extended periods of time.

If you’re thinking of letting your child drink, think again. Set a good example by saying no. You could save them from a life of issues with alcoholism and the possibility of brain damage and the for Drug Rehab later in their life.

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A recent article discussed the rise in the number of alcohol-related deaths in college-age kids. They increased by about 25% over a 7 year period. About 30 percent were actually in college. When we were our kids’ age, our parents didn’t have to worry so much about these things when we were going off to college. They didn’t think needing alcohol rehab would be an outcome of higher education.

Sure, they worried – about our grades, about the pressure, about how we’d do our first time away from home, and so on – but not about whether we were going to die from binge drinking, driving while drunk or being in a car with someone who was drunk, or having some other kind of accident that would never have happened had we not been drunk.

Personally, if my kid was already drinking before going to college, I’d send them to a good alcohol treatment center before college. I’d also pull them out of college temporarily to make sure they got treatment before they continued school. They’d not only be safer, they’d get a better education.

Did you know that binge drinking – which is how a lot of drinking in college is done, not in some moderate fashion, and it only consists of 4 or 5 drinks at a time – affects the brain? Numerous studies have been done.  Some show impaired memory and more than usual concentration necessary to perform simple tasks (even for people who drink like that only once a week), and some show that critical thinking is impaired for an entire month after one night of binge drinking.

Does that sound like the state they should be in to get a college education? Does that sound like an environment you want to send your kid into? I’d go out of my way to keep my kid OUT of college if those were the consequences.

Yes, most kids survive it all. But many continue on to become heavy drinkers throughout their lives. Not to mention that the vast majority of people graduating college don’t get a job doing what they studied for. Could it be they were too out of it to even know that they weren’t really interested in what they were studying?

It’s time to start taking college a little more seriously. And it’s up to the parents to make sure that’s how their kids feel about it, too. Shore them up against the college environment with alcohol and drug education, even if that means getting them through an alcohol and drug treatment program before they go, and make sure they have a real purpose for the college education they’ll be getting; that will also help keep them focused.

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Alcohol abuse is one of this country’s biggest problems. And, often, the problem starts when we’re young. In fact, those who drink while in their teens have a much greater chance of becoming alcoholics than others. Nevertheless, there are parents all over America who let their kids drink – thinking it’s harmless as long as they’re not out driving or doing something else that’s risky. But, really, you’re setting your kid up for brain damage.

A study on the effects of alcohol on the brain showed that after drinking the equivalent of just three beers, the brain starts to work differently. They put the people in this study in an MRI to scan their brain while they were drinking – and they saw it happen.

Okay – so once isn’t going to kill you. If you’re young and relatively healthy, the brain’s functioning normally again the next day. But what happens when you drink over and over again? You wind up with the “permanent brain damage that is known to occur in alcoholics.”  And that’s quote from the doctors who conducted the tests.

Just a couple more beers – i.e. five for a guy, four for a girl – actually impairs critical thinking for a month! That’s pretty serious. But we do it all the time, and let our kids do it.

Makes me wonder how much of our problems are really from brain damage.

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If you’ve ever been to a college football game, a frat party, prom party, or anything similar, you won’t notice too many beer cans or bottles around. Why? They buy it in kegs – a keg holds 15.5 gallons – the equivalent of 165 12-oz. cans of beer. And if they buy domestic beer, it will only cost them about $40, plus a not-too-expensive refundable deposit on the keg itself. Is it any wonder why we have so many young alcoholics checking into alcohol rehab and alcohol detox, so many more getting injured and ill from binge drinking, and so many car accidents and even alcohol-related deaths?

In New York, where one in three college-age kids drinks and one in 10 adults actually has an alcohol problem, they’re putting new restrictions on beer kegs to try to help the problem. A registration tag will be put on the kegs identifying the buyer and seller (and there’s a fine of $250 to $450 for damaging or removing the tag), and the deposit on kegs is being raised from $50 (that’s the NY deposit cost) to $75.

Studies have shown that raising taxes on alcohol may have acted as a mild deterrent, but in a college environment I don’t know how much it will help. With 20 people splitting the cost each person only has to come up with $7.00 and they’re going to get half of that back when they return the keg. Even 5 people would only have to come up with $28 - and there aren’t too many college kids that don’t have $28, especially when they’re going to get half of that returned.

However, many of them would probably have trouble coming up with that amount 2 or 3 times a week, though. So I guess that’s where the deterrent effect comes in.

Obviously, the best deterrent is the person not wanting to drink that much (or at all.) If that’s not the case, though, they may need alcohol rehab – which you can get through an alcohol and drug addiction treatment center. Don’t go for just a detox – that dries them out but does nothing to handle the urge to drink or the person’s ability to quit drinking.

Did you know that one night of binge drinking (that’s five drinks for a guy, four for a girl) impairs critical thinking for a month? Not only is the college kid in danger of becoming an alcoholic, he’s also pretty much wasting his education. Check out alcohol rehab.

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Last week I wrote a blog about people being unaware of why they drink – like the young man who’s only explanation was “I like a few beers when I get home from a day at work.” They know, really, that they shouldn’t drink as much as they do but they never look at why they’re drinking so much. They’ll look at that, and discover the reasons why, if they go to alcohol rehab. But it’s not likely without it.

I recently ran across a disturbing statistic about this unawareness from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI at cspinet.org) – 48% of college drinkers report that “drinking to get drunk” is an important reason for drinking.

Tha certainly explains why you don’t get anywhere when you ask them why they don’t just have one or two drinks and leave it at that – an experience I’m sure 99% of those who have a heavy drinker in the family have had.

What purpose does getting drunk serve? It’s way beyond ’social drinking’ at that point. They want to reach oblivion – reach the point where they are semi-conscious (or unconscious.) Only then do whatever demons they’re fighting move into the shadows.

That’s why the expertise of an experienced drug counselor who can get an answer to the obvious next question – why do you want to get drunk? – is so vital. Until the drinker knows the answer to that question, he’s not going to be able to resolve the drinking problem.

And that’s why you need to address the problem in an addiction treatment center. Give us a call to find out more today.

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I hope the news articles on the recent death of 19-year-old Jason Wren, a student at the University of Kansas who died after a night of binge drinking, alerted parents to the discrepancies in the application of the law regarding students’ privacy and the practice of informing parents, or not, when students have a problem with drug or alcohol addiction or abuse.

According to Jason’s father, he knew his son had an alcohol problem before he sent him off to university and, had he known it was still a problem – he did send him to a ‘dry’ school so he did have reason to believe it would not be a problem – he would have brought him home where he could keep an eye on him.

Instead, he didn’t find out about the problems Jason was having until attending his son’s memorial service at the school, where he was allowed to see his son’s records for the first time. His son was on probation in his residence hall for alcohol violations, hadn’t shown up for the personal counseling session he was supposed to get because of it, and hadn’t done the required alcohol abuse course.

The school provost – a high ranking official, this one responsible for student success (!) - had the nerve to say that “there is no national evidence that parental notification makes a difference.”

I beieve that’s the lamest, most irresponsible, insensitive excuse I’ve ever heard. Someone’s son just died and she’s being a politician – covering her ass.

The law states that parents should be informed in an emergency. Until 2007, ‘emergency’ was defined as an ‘extreme situation’. After a student at Virginia Tech shot and killed himself and 32 others in April of that year, the definiton changed to a ’significant threat to the health or safety of the student or other individuals.’

Well – that’s obviously open to interpretation. Ask 10 people on the street what they would consider a ’significant threat to the health or safety of the student or other individuals’ and you’ll get 10 different answers. And it’s been proven that even the so-experts – psychiatrists – can’t predict whether someone’s dangerous or not. How is some administrator at a school, or a school council, going to do it?

What should you do? Jason’s father sent him to a ‘dry’ school; obviously, that wasn’t enough.

Where college-aged sons  and daughters with alcohol problems should go is to alcohol rehab. Not university. And if they’re taking drugs, do the same. Get them into an addiction treatment center - a long-term residential treatment program that will take however many months are needed to get down to the bottom of the problem so your kid CAN and WILL say no when the time comes.

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A new study found that women drinking just one drink a day, of any kind of alcohol, can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer by 13%. Imagine what drinking more than that could do. Pancreatic cancer, by the way, is one of the worst. By the time someone goes to the doctor with symptoms it’s usually very advanced. Only one in five or six cases is operable. So the prognosis is not good.

The study also says it’s harder for women to quit drinking than men. I don’t know why that is, but they can get help through alcohol rehab – and may well need it, even if the amount they drink is considered just ’social’.

The criteria is not how much they drink, but whether or not they can stop.

Alcohol rehab addresses all the issues behind not being able to quit drinking. Physically, quitting probably wouldn’t be much of a problem if you’re only drinking one drink a day. But emotional dependence on that one drink is another story.

A good alcohol rehab program would get down to the bottom of that dependence.

You might know someone in this position. If so, you can find out more about it and get recommendations from a professional through us – Drug Rehab Referral. And make sure the women in your life know about this.

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A new alcohol study came out showing that older people are more affected by two or three drinks than younger people. It worries me that young people will use this to justify drinking. I can just see some defensive teen or twenty-something making a comment like “Well, I can hold my liquor better than you can!”, or some such thing, when their parents or other family members try to get them to quit, cut down, or get into alcohol rehab.

Many people who drink too much come up with anything they can find to justify their drinking or get you to back off.

Regarding the study – it’s full of holes. They studied two groups of people, one was 50 – 74 years of age and the other was 25 – 35, and they did two follow-up tests. On the first test, the older adults took a full five seconds longer that the younger crowd. But that could be explained by the fact that people aged 50 – 74, especially the older ones of that group, may not be as mentally alert as 25 – 35 years old in the first place. Did they do a baseline test to see how well each person did on the tests prior to drinking? There’s no mention of that in the reports.

Also, they did a second test 75 minutes after drinking (the first one was 25 minutes after drinking) and found no difference in the results of the two groups on that test. They have no explanation for that.

Not exactly findings you can take to the bank. And, speaking of banks, why is money being spent on a study like this anyway? Why isn’t the money being spent on getting the millions of people who need help into alcohol rehab?

Other findings – at the time of the first test the older adults said they felt fine; at the second test they said they felt impaired. The tests showed the opposite.

This can also be influenced by a number of factors. For example, if you have two or three drinks in one sitting it can sometimes take a while to hit you.

I remember going to a friend’s house when I was in my early 20’s. Great Italian family, and his dad made wine. I had no idea what kind of kick his home brews would have and sampled two or three of them in a short time. I thought I was fine until I got up, or, at least, tried to get up, about 45 minutes later. Could barely walk. The hangover lasted for two days. But there’s no way I felt impaired after 25 minutes.

Everyone metabolizes alcohol differently.

Bottom line, there are a lot of factors that influence whether or not a person can pass a test like that, and there are a lot of factors that influence whether or a not a person feels impaired, or even says they feel impaired. Case in point - of the nearly 20 million people in the U.S. that drink enough to be in the ‘needs treatment’ category, over 90% never get help because they don’t think they need it.

Other bottom line – there are a lot of bottom lines in this subject – millions of people’s lives are ruined by alcohol. Let’s spend our money on helping them quit drinking, not on figuring out whether they’re more or less impaired at age 35 and 50. If someone has a drinking problem, get them into alcohol rehab.

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It’s not surprising that the 60 billion dollar hospitality industry – of which serving liquor is a large part – is protesting the higher taxes on alcohol and the higher licensing fees proposed by recent legislation. But according to U.S. statistics, we’ve got about 20 million people in the U.S. who drink too much. Many of them have family problems (some lose their families altogether), lose their jobs, drive while they’re drinking, and so on, and end up in an addiction treatment center to try to get their life back on track.

And, often, that treatment comes right out of the pocket of taxpayers who don’t drink at all.

Is it wrong that an activity that causes that kind of destruction should be highly taxed? I personally don’t think so.

People may say that it’s people, not alcohol, who cause drunk-driving accidents (for example.) Yes, that’s true. They didn’t have to drink that much, did they?

But the unfortunate truth is that alcohol addiction, like drug addiction, is somewhat out of their control. As can be attested to by the millions of people attending AA meetings every day to get help resisting the demon rum.

Drugs are illegal, and even prescription drugs have warnings on them that you shouldn’t drive, operate heavy machinery etc. while taking them, but the only restriction we put on alcohol is how old you have to be to drink.

Those who drink moderately will not be very affected by the new taxes. Taxes on one or two drinks will not be prohibitive. On the other hand, if you’re going out to get drunk, the taxes could add up to a pretty penny. Likewise, it will make it more difficult for young people to head off to the store and buy a few cases of beer that are going to get a bunch of under-21′ers roaring and dangerously drunk that night.

All in all, I think we’re better off. What do you think? 

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If you would like your college-aged kids to drink less, make alcohol  tougher to get. It’s working with adults – both social drinkers and problem drinkers drink less when taxes on alcohol are higher.

When my teenage (and then young adult) son was drinking too much, but still living at home or dependent on me, I made money very scarce for him. I monitored his spending. He wasn’t working, his money came from me, so I did my best to make sure he didn’t have any. At least, not for alcohol. When he needed money he told me what it was for, I gave it to him, and he verified that’s what he bought with it.

Sounds cruel perhaps, and maybe even stupid, but it worked. He drank much less.

But it doesn’t work once they have money. It also doesn’t work if their friends do the buying. If there’s an alcohol addiction going on – they can’t, don’t, or won’t stop themselves from drinking, even if they don’t drink all day every day  – then they need help through an addiction treatment center.

I know plenty of families whose kids need alcohol rehab and most of them don’t even realize it. Drinking it so acceptable, parents expect their young adult kids to drink. It’s ’what kids do.’

But, you know, it’s not ‘what kids do’. Unless they’re influenced to do it. If their friends drink, their parents drink, their role models drink then, yes, they’re going to think it’s okay and maybe even ’cool’.

A good alcohol rehab program will set them straight on that. 

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