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When trying to teach our kids to avoid drugs and alcohol, doesn’t it sometimes feel like we’re fighting a losing battle?
Honestly, I’ve developed a whole new respect for the salmon that swim upstream to spawn!
As the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) wrote in a new report, “Alcohol is so ubiquitous in our society that it’s like wallpaper. We don’t even recognize its presence.”
This comment came from a study last month that found a 54% increase in sales of alcohol during the pandemic. The same study reported that more than 99,000 people died in 2020 of alcohol-related causes, ranging from alcohol-associated liver diseases to mental and behavioral disorders to drug overdoses involving alcohol.
Dangerous acceptance
April is Alcohol Awareness Month, so I wanted to shine a spotlight on this ubiquitous drug—along with tobacco and vaping—because it’s been shown over and over that these are gateway drugs to the illegal kind.
But they are deadly in their own right, too. Even though tobacco use is down the last few decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 480,000 Americans still die from tobacco-related causes each year. And the turn to vaping just perpetuates its use, in the guise of making it seem “safer.”
Alcohol, too, has been touted as healthy and even good for you. But recent studies have shown that no amount of alcohol is healthy. Another study published in JAMA this month found that drinking any amount of alcohol was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, even though wine is supposed to be good for the heart.
Battling beliefs
So, what’s the answer? Understand your own beliefs and understand the culture that created and surround those beliefs. Do your belief square with the Medical Research? Or are you learning your beliefs from advertising and your peers? Ask yourself: how is your child seeing the world, what messages are you sending and what messages is the media sending. Take the Alcohol Literacy Challenge: https://alcoholliteracychallenge.com/
We must swim against the prevailing current of beliefs/thinking that alcohol is just a relaxant, or a social lubricant that’s expected at every gathering. Without realizing it, we’ve been sold the notion that this is acceptable, that “wine, women, and song” are part of our culture, that binge drinking is just a normal part of teenage years. That’s scary!
Begin at home
One good place to start is our initiative: Safe Homes, Smart Parties. We created this statewide program to encourage parents and teens’ peers to help ensure that parties in their homes are free of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA):
• The median age at which children begin drinking is 12 years old.
• Young people who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence than those who wait until they’re 21 years old.
• Approximately 4,300 children die each year of underage-drinking-related causes.
Safe Homes, Smart Parties is a comprehensive approach that involves not just parents but the whole community in an effort to promote safe parties for teens.
You can do your part by signing our pledge to:
• Set firm, clear guidelines for parties held in your home.
• Prohibit underage youth to drink alcoholic beverages or use tobacco or other drugs in your home or place of business.
• Be present at all pre-teen and teenage parties held in your home.
• Encourage future drug and alcohol-free activities for underage youth.
• Spread the message to family and friends.
And be sure to visit our website to download a comprehensive set of Parent Tools with tips on preventing teen drug use at parties, as well as an Ambassador Toolkit to promote Safe Homes, Smart Parties at your school or in your community.
Visit: https://www.informedfamilies.org/shsp/ or scan the QR code below:
Meanwhile, remember we are swimming against society’s current beliefs about Alcohol…just deliver THE FACTS!
