Alcohol Abuse Prevention

Alcohol abuse prevention is a growing concern, as it should be. If we can improve prevention efforts, we’ll likely see a reduction in premature death, healthcare costs will plummet and quality of life will improve for millions. Many courts are sending alcohol and drug cases to education programs to reduce risks related to alcohol and other drugs.

Parents and teachers are warning kids about drugs, from what I can understand. but there doesn’t appear to be a big enough alcohol prevention effort. Perhaps parents accept that their teenagers will drink beer and hope for the best. Maybe the parents don’t really understand the need for such a talk — maybe they don’t see alcohol as a major problem and don’t want to come across as old fashioned and out of touch.

Parents and teachers should learn how to present factual information about alcohol without coming across as judgmental. The facts are facts and every young person should know what types of problems alcohol causes in society before making a decision to drink. Young people also need to know that the decision to not drink is okay, too. Maybe if enough people in society understand that we don’t need an artificial stimulus in our body to have fun and feel comfortable in social situations more young people will have healthier attitudes toward drinking.

Here are a few excerpts for a good article about alcohol, risks and prevention:

Family factors strongly influence whether a young person will start to use alcohol.²¹ For example, lack of a positive parent–child relationship or a family history of alcohol problems both can increase risk. On the other hand, a child who has strong family bonds with his or her parents and who has parents who are actively involved in his or her life often is less likely to engage in underage drinking.^22–24 Because family influences are so pivotal in shaping adolescent problem behaviors, programs that focus on parenting practices—parent–child communication, parent–child bonding, and effective family management—can reduce problem behaviors in children and adolescents. Family-focused interventions can be successful both for general populations and for families with adolescents who exhibit more serious delinquent behaviors.¹⁴ A number of promising programs have been designed for different age-groups of adolescents.

Table 2. Promising Prevention Programs^14,17,27

Children younger than 10 years old

• Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers
• Raising Healthy Children
• Seattle Social Development Project
• Nurse-Family Partnership Program
• Preventive Treatment Program–Montreal

Adolescents ages 10 to 15 years

• Keepin’ It REAL
• Midwestern Prevention Project/Project STAR
• Project Northland
• Strengthening Families Program: For Parents and Youth 10–14

Older adolescents ages 16 to more than 20 years

• Project Toward No Drug Abuse
• Yale Work and Family Stress Program
• Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program and Added Brief Individual Intervention

Community and college interventions

• A Matter of Degree

• Communities Mobilizing for Change on Alcohol

• The Community Trials Project

• The Massachusetts Saving Lives Program

• Neighborhoods Engaging With Students

• The Safer California Universities

• The Study to Prevent Alcohol-Related Consequences

It’s really common sense that the more parents talk with their kids and educate their kids about life and growing up the better off the kid will be — especially as the young people go off to college:

Drinking—especially binge drinking—among college students remains a major concern for schools and parents alike.^25,26 Programs that merely provide information about alcohol and alcohol-related harm have not been found effective among college students. Despite this, such programs often are favored by institutions because they are inexpensive, easy to implement, and noncontroversial.²⁷

Prevention strategies showing the most success with this age-group include providing brief motivational intervention approaches, cognitive–behavioral interventions, and challenging students’ expectations about alcohol.²⁷ Motivational interventions focus on enhancing the student’s motivation and commitment to change his or her behavior. Typically delivered in one or two sessions, such sessions can take place by mail, online, or in person. Cognitive–behavioral interventions seek to change behavior by helping the student to recognize when and why he or she drinks too much and then providing tools for changing that behavior. Challenging students’ expectations about alcohol includes raising their awareness of how alcohol influences health and well being and correcting misperceptions about how much drinking is really going on among their peers.^27,28

These approaches are particularly effective when coupled with individualized feedback from trained counselors or from the students themselves using Web-based materials and other resources.²⁹ A number of online educational sites now are available that incorporate features found in effective cognitive–behavioral or brief motivational individual interventions. These include myStudentBody, CollegeAlc, Alcohol eCheckup to Go (previously known as e-Chug), and AlcoholEdu.^30–32 These resources all incorporate personalized feedback based on a student’s own information on his or her drinking behavior. The students can see how their own drinking compares to that of their peers. These programs typically incorporate interactive components along with information about alcohol and its effects. Some also provide students with tips on how to build skills for monitoring and limiting their drinking.²⁷ For example, in a recent study, AlcoholEdu showed promise in reducing alcohol-related problems among freshman early in the school year, a period when they are adjusting to campus life away from their family and community.³⁰