George Will recently wrote a column on drug policy:

The Economist magazine says this means that more than 200 million people — almost 5 percent of the world’s adult population — take illegal drugs, the same proportion as a decade ago. The annual U.S. bill for attempting to diminish the supply of drugs is $40 billion. Of the 1.5 million Americans arrested each year on drug offenses, half a million are incarcerated. “[T]ougher drug laws are the main reason why one in five black American men spend some time behind bars,” the Economist said in March.

“There is no correlation between…

• A brief history of scholastic inebriation (Too bad they missed Robert Smith whose U of M fraternity brothers called his father to fetch him because his drinking was out of hand.)
• Claims injection site dropped Downtown Eastside crime ‘very much exaggerated,’ say cops
• Battling Addiction With Those Who Know It Best
• New UK study suggests minimal relationship between cannabis and schizophrenia or psychosis
• Cocaine exposure during pregnancy leads to impulsivity in male, not female, monkeys

The finding from a study of the relationship between alcohol advertising and adolescent alcohol use:

Based on the consistency of findings across the studies, the co-founders controlled for, the dose response relationships, as well as the theoretical plausibility and experimental findings regarding the impact of media exposure and commercial communications, it can be concluded from the studies reviewed that alcohol marketing increases the likelihood that adolescents will start to use alcohol, and to drink more if they are already using alcohol.

More evidence for the argument that lowering drinking ages would lead to more alcohol and drug problems later in life. The point about age of first use vs. regular use is interesting and offers some interesting questions about goals and strategies for prevention programming.

Background: Many studies have found that earlier drinking initiation predicts higher risk of later alcohol and substance use problems, but the causal relationship between age of initiation and later risk of substance use disorder remains unknown.

Method: We use a “natural experiment” study design to compare the 12-month prevalence of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fourth Edition, alcohol and substance use…

Two interesting findings about underage drinking. The first on the relationship between early alcohol use and chronic alcohol problems later in life. The second looks at the relationship between early alcohol use and poor judgment later in life.

We’ve known for some time that there is a relationship between early drinking and alcohol problems later in life. What’s been unclear is the nature of that relationship. Does early exposure to alcohol cause changes in the adolescent brain that lead to problems later in life? Does early exposure facilitate the expression of genes that are related to alcoholism? These two theories would…

This past week-end I went to see the movie “Julie and Julia,” a story about a young woman who decides to make every one of Julia Child’s 524 recipes in her famous book in the period of one year and write a blog about it.  She becomes obsessed with this project and as she progresses through each recipe, she becomes more like Julia Child, even to the point of wearing a single strand of pearls, just like Julia’s.  The movie also is about the real Mrs. Child and how she got her start in cooking and became the icon for…

Hard to know what to make of this. It would help if they provided a little context. What are the general trends in drunk driving arrests? In alcohol consumption?

Arrests for women driving under the influence jumped by nearly 30 percent during the decade ending in 2007, according to a study released Wednesday by the U.S. Transportation Department.

I suppose it should be too much of a surprise give we’ve been seeing increases in binge drinking by girls.

Technorati Tags: alcohol, drunk driving, women

I’m not dead set against lowering the drinking age, (see here) but I find it odd that in making the argument to lower the drinking age, John McCardell offers very troubling statistics without any serious interest in their cause:

at one major university, student visits to the emergency room for alcohol-related treatment have increased by 84 percent in the past three years. Between 1993 and 2001, 18-to-20-year-olds showed a 56 percent jump in the rate of heavy-drinking episodes. Underage drinkers now consume more than 90 percent of their alcohol during binges. These alarming rates have life-threatening consequences: each year, underage drinking kills…

For some, alcohol is a fuel; for others it is a vice. Numerous artists have called upon alcohol as a muse, even Winston Churchill attributed his six part memoir to alcohol. Churchill said, “always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than it has taken out of me.” Mark Twain is quoted as saying,“My vices protect me but they would assassinate you!”

Many addicts in recovery are likely to agree that the truth, for us, is: “It has taken more out of me than I have taken from it.”

While a direct genetic link between alcohol and creativity has not been…

• Assessing Parolees’ Health Care Needs and Potential Access to Health Care Services in California (Health Care Needs Are High, but Mental Health and Drug Treatment Needs Are Even Higher)
• Advertising may lead to increased alcohol consumption
• More College Students Dying from Drinking, NIAAA Reports
  
• Dad’s Drinking Predicts Teen Imbibing, Study Finds

Technorati Tags: prevention, parole, alcohol

A reminder of the social costs of alcohol.

Not to be interpreted as a call for prohibition, but keep this in mind the next time someone points to the success of alcohol legalization and regulation as a model for drugs.

Technorati Tags: alcohol, policy

Another study finding that psychiatric problems typically follow alcohol problems rather than the other way around. This suggests that, more often than not, psychiatric problems are secondary to alcohol problems.

Technorati Tags: mental illness, dual duagnosis, alcohol

Good news! Another study suggesting that parents do have influence over their child’s alcohol use–even when their peer group uses alcohol. Influence isn’t the same as control, but it’s something.

Abstract: This study used latent growth mixture modeling to identify discrete developmental patterns of heavy drinking, perceived parental disapproval of substance use, and association with peers who drink from early to late adolescence among a sample of 5591 youth. We also examined associations among these trajectories to determine how the development of heavy drinking relates to the development of perceived parental disapproval of substance use and association with peer drinkers, both separately…

This study surveyed medical inpatients receiving treatment for a medical problem other than alcoholism. Among risky drinkers, higher Perception of Problems scores were associated with more drinking at follow-up, while higher Taking Action scores were associated with less drinking.

This is interesting, has some limitations, in my view. First, the subjects were offered treatment. I suspect that those with higher Taking Action scores accepted the offer of treatment. If so, were their improvements an artifact of readiness to change or participation in treatment? Second, the study appears to lump people meeting criteria for DSM Abuse and DSM Dependence. Are these outcomes a…

As a mother to two school age children, I have come to realize a new challenge in sobriety: socialization offers from parents that center around booze. In the past few months I have been invited to several adult only activities by the parents of my children’s friends, only to find upon further questioning that the activity is centered around alcohol. I thought I had this socializing thing mastered. The work events that I have had to attend for either myself or my husband are few and far between, and most of the time they are family friendly events that don’t…

Well, here we are - the last day of Alcohol Awareness Month - and I must first express my gratitude to Alix M. who has diligently (and I mean work your butt off diligent) contacted writers and made sure that every single day during this very important month, a new story was posted about someone’s journey on the ferris wheel  of addiction and recovery.

I have been honored to write the last entry:

What Recovery Means To Me:

Being able to look people in the eye

Knowing that I can be trusted driving other peoples’ children in my car

Asking for help when I need…

I’ve given a lot of thought to what today should mean. Five years seems like a good chunk of life, then again at times it’s almost as if time has stood still. Am I different? Better? Wouldn’t we all like to think so about ourselves? To believe that in a span of a few years we improved our outlook, understood just a little more about life as we know it. For some people that thinking is a must to go on, to find some semblance of serenity within them.

Five years ago I had my last drink. How do I feel…

Part Two ~ Pandora’s Box

I got drunk for the first time shortly after I turned 16. I remember the night as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. Not bad for a black out drinker. It was a high school party at kid’s house whom I really didn’t know. I was picked up by one of my fellow cheerleader friends. It was the first time I had ever been to a high school party and I was stoked. I spent the evening downing cheap wine coolers and trying like hell to look cool.

It was to be a night of “firsts”…

A nonalcoholic writer writes about a month of sobriety:

I am not an alcoholic. I don’t get sick, fall down or start my day with tots of whiskey. But I do love wine. I am entranced by the socio-historical and chemical properties of the vine. It is, for me, an intellectual pursuit–albeit one that is also literally intoxicating.

The threshold of addiction is a foggy place. You more or less know when you’re dependent, and you know when you’re independent. But most of us stumble around somewhere in between: we’ll just have one more; we don’t need it, we just like it;…

What is there to say? I would really like to stop posting this stuff.

Every day, in the shadow of Parliament Hill, 30 homeless alcoholics are fed, housed and served drinks, each hour on the hour, between early morning and evening.

That this “managed alcohol” program run by Ottawa’s Inner City Health Inc. in the ByWard Market, is effective, is beyond dispute. For one thing, it has saved the local health-care system in the neighbourhood of $3.5 million by reducing or eliminating its clients’ frequent visits to hospital emergency rooms. For another, it has dramatically improved the quality of life for a…

Alix at The Second Road gives us a heads up about a PBS show on Betty Ford.

Here’s Bill White’s salute to her from a couple of years ago:

In the decades following the repeal of Prohibition, American women faced a unique cultural double bind. They were targeted for unrelenting product promotion by the alcohol, tobacco, and pharmaceutical industries at the same time social stigma increased for addicted women. Only a few women of prominence (e.g., public health pioneer Marty Mann and actresses Lillian Roth and Mercedes McCambridge) braved such stigma to publicly acknowledge their recoveries from alcoholism, while women struggling with narcotic addiction,…

From a press release about a study in the Archives of General Psychiatry:

Although numerous studies have linked alcohol problems and depression, whether the relationship is causal or whether there is a common underlying factor remains unclear, they said.

To explore the issue, they examined data from the Christchurch Health and Development study, which followed 1,055 individuals born in New Zealand for 25 years from birth.

…

In an attempt to determine causality, the researchers tested three statistical models on the data:

• One in which both disorders increased risk of the other in a feedback loop
• One in which major depression caused alcohol problems
• One in which alcohol…

Here’s a great example of the perverse incentives created by tax revenue from alcohol sales and a strong lobby that prevents increases in alcohol taxes.

Is this what we want for marijuana?

• In Georgia, Connecticut, Indiana, Texas, Alabama and Minnesota, lawmakers are considering legislation this year that would end the ban on Sunday liquor sales. All but 15 states sell booze on Sundays.
• In Nebraska, a state lawmaker has proposed allowing beer to be consumed in state parks as a way to boost tourism.
• Other states, including Utah, are considering allowing the sale of liquor on Election Day.

In fairness, the article does point out that…

A California Assemblyman is looking to a marijuana tax help address their budget woes. It’s a common argument and I think it’s a bad one. I’ve repeatedly made it clear that I’m not a marijuana alarmist, but commercialization and taxation of tobacco and alcohol have been wrought with serious problems. Their lobbies are extremely powerful and the alcohol lobby has been very successful at keeping taxes low. With all of California’s budget problems, there is no alcohol tax increase in their budget accord. In Michigan, the worst economy in the country, the beer tax has not increased since 1966. Worse, they rely on…

The slipping economy is affecting most industries. Advertising is no exception and their standards are also slipping. With revenues dropping, many advertisers are now willing to accept ads normally deemed inappropriate. The LA Times reports an increase in ads promoting alcohol, KY Jelly, and extramarital affairs

“When you have the evaporation of advertising revenue, you have to look for new and creative ways of getting sellers in the door,” said Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council. “It’s coming in the way of adult-themed products and content.”

New and creative? Are those the buzz words for selling our soul during tough times?…

The moment your child is placed in your hands at birth, that moment of clarity that you can’t deny…the promise you make to yourself that she will never have the life you had.  I couldn’t stop remembering that promise as I stared at the picture before me with tears streaming down my face.  How could she, where did I go wrong? Didn’t she learn anything from me? My eyes are spellbound to the image on the monitor in front of me.  All those haunted words whisper in my ear, the accolades she had given me for taking the high road…

Tonight I found myself having a mental exorcism. This happens when I find myself thinking about someone and a particular conflict we have shared. I call it a mental exorcism, but quite simply, it’s the process of re-imagining the situation where my reaction a) is more pro-active b) comes off more snappy and smart. I try to stick with Option A though, and often these little exorcisms offer me some insight to how I could handle a situation more, cough, maturely.

See, there was this girl. To be known as Shawn and really, she was a big thorn in my side.
My…

I saw this yesterday and feared that alcoholism research was going the same route as research on psychiatric prevalence–finding implausibly high rates of disorders.

A 20% lifetime rate of dependence for men would either be false or demonstrate the uselessness of dependence criteria. Reading the press release left me confused about whether that 20% figure was dependence or the sum of dependence AND abuse.

This Join Together research summary suggests that it is the latter. (Whew! Especially since Marc Schuckit is the lead author. I’d be very disappointed if his research began to look unreliable.)

Some data points of interest about early use and…

Powerful evidence about the social costs associated with alcohol:

Carpenter and Dobkin then electronically examined the death certificates of every 19- to-22-year-old who died in the United States between 1997 and 2005.

Young people’s alcohol consumption increases by over 20 percent as they hit their 21st birthday. Meanwhile, death rates increase by 9 percent exactly at age 21. Carpenter and Dobkin traced this further, finding that the mortality jump was largest for motor vehicle accidents, suicides, and other causes plausibly linked with alcohol use. The correlation isn’t a slam dunk, but it is close. The authors estimate that reducing the minimum drinking age…

It’s a funny relationship.

I remember being about ten and sitting on the sofa watching a baseball game with my father.  I never saw him sit and watch a game with a beer in his hand before.  If anything, we drink seltzer or ginger ale.  Maybe Coke of Fresca.  But that day he had a beer in his hand and he passed it over to me and said, “Do you want to taste it?”

Now you have to understand.  If we drink anything, or eat anything in our family, it is unthinkable not to share.  And in Europe they drank beer when they couldn’t trust the water, so…