Many parents rationalize underage drinking and allow their children, and often other children, to consume alcohol in their home. In my previous blog about “party homes,” I mentioned some of the reasons parents do this – and there are plenty: “at least I know where my child is;” “at least they are not in a [...]
What if we saw addiction more like we see cancer? Both deadly diseases, they are worlds apart in how they are perceived. It would sound heartless to tell a cancer patient to “get over it,” yet alcoholics and addicts are judged harshly for their malady. Read more
Happy adolescents report less involvement in crime and drug use than other youth, a new UC Davis study finds. The paper, “Get Happy! Positive Emotion, Depression and Juvenile Crime,” is co-authored by Bill McCarthy, a UC Davis sociology professor, and Teresa Casey, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis, and will be presented at 10:30 a.m. [...]
As we prepare to send kids back to classrooms for another school year, it’s important to equip parents and caregivers with the tools for talking with their children about alcohol. This issue is especially personal for me because my beautiful 15-year-old daughter, Alisa Joy, was killed by an underage drunk driver. While the pain of losing a [...]
Teen drug addiction can be a frightening path to travel down as a mother, father or friend of an addict. There are some instances in which there is nothing to do in preventing a drug addiction in a teenaged child. Although, in some cases taking preventative action can sway a teen from making a poor [...]
Half, 50%, one in two – that’s how many teens today are smoking, drinking or using drugs according to a study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA). The findings, which are based on surveys of 1,000 high school students, 1,000 parents of high school students and 500 school officers, along with [...]
More than 125 physicians descended on Capitol Hill this week to demand some relief in their fight against prescription drug addiction. With nearly 30,000 Americans dying from overdose last year – roughly half from prescription drugs – they say it’s time for the federal government to step in. Their solution: Require health care professionals who [...]
Only 1 in 5 people who misuse opioid painkillers like Vicodin get their drugs exclusively from doctors, and 69% never obtain any of these drugs from medical sources, according to a recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers led by Yale’s Dr. William Becker examined 2006-08 data from the National Household Survey [...]
The near death of a German teenager who consumed huge amounts of energy drinks mixed with vodka highlights the largely unrecognized danger of such beverage combinations, researchers report. The 17-year-old boy suffered acute kidney failure and was hospitalized for 10 days following the incident, when he drank one liter of vodka combined with three liters of [...]
NATIONAL STUDY REVEALS: ORIGINS OF AN EPIDEMIC, TEEN SUBSTANCE USE AMERICA’S #1 PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEM 90 PERCENT OF AMERICANS SUFFERING FROM ADDICTION STARTED SMOKING, DRINKING, OR USING OTHER DRUGS BEFORE AGE 18 ALMOST HALF OF ALL AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS SMOKE, DRINK, OR USE OTHER DRUGS NEW YORK, NY, June 29, 2011 – Nine out [...]
