ALCOHOL USE IN TEENS

ALCOHOL USE IN TEENS

Did you know that there has been an increase in the number of teens ages 11 – 15 who drink alcohol on a regular basis? The scarier thought is the fact that the amount of alcohol they drink in one setting is increasing as well. This phenomenon attributes to more teen drinking and driving incidents, suicides, sexual assaults, and high risk sex. Teens already have a hard time evaluating situations maturely and the introduction of alcohol only makes their decision making that much worse. They find themselves in situations they might not otherwise get themselves into. The more alcohol they consume overtime, the more the teen stands to impair their ability to properly react in situations, remember basic things, and their overall cognitive abilities are impaired, possibly for life. By exposing the brain to alcohol during the growing years of adolescence, teens are interrupting their brains’ development and opening themselves up to long term risks of liver damage, pancreatitis, cancers and possibly shrinkage of their brain.

Intervention at an early age is a must. It is reported that teens who start drinking before the age of 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence at some time in their lives as opposed to those who have their first drink at age 20 or older.1


Here are a few other statistics:

The rate of fatal crashes involving alcohol in drivers 16-20 is more than twice that of drivers 21 and over.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among people ages 14-25. Alcohol increased the chances of those attempts.

About 10% of high school female students reported being raped and research suggests that alcohol use in the attacker and/or victim increases the chances of this occurring.

In 1995, 318 people between the ages of 15-24 died from alcohol poisoning alone. I’m sure the amount has increased since then.


Take a stand now to make these statistics decrease and with hope be eradicated…be present, intervene, and educate yourself…Never think your child or one that you know would never drink or use drugs. It’s a scary reality we cannot ignore.

Amy Lawhorn
Blog

1The Health effects of Teen alcohol use, http://teendrugabuse.us

Unsupervised Teens Have More Sex

Unsupervised Teens Have More Sex

Phone 866-889-3665

The less after-school supervision teens have, the more likely they are to have sex, new research says. And that sexual activity is likely to happen at the home of one of the teens, claims a new study in the December issue of Pediatrics.

Dr. Deborah Cohen, a researcher at the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif., and her colleagues evaluated more than 2,000 students in grades 9 through 12 in six public high schools. They found that 56 percent were home without an adult present at least four hours each day after school.

Then they compared supervision with sexual activity and found a strong relationship between the number of unsupervised hours and sexual activity. Those who were unsupervised for at least 30 hours a week, or roughly six hours each weekday, were more likely to be sexually active compared with those left alone for no more than five hours a week. Those who were unsupervised for more than five hours weekly also reported more sexually transmitted diseases.

They also found that among those who had intercourse, 91 percent said the last time occurred at their home, their partner's home, or a friend's home -- usually after school.

The students who were evaluated were 98 percent black, many from low-income families and more than half from single-parent homes. While the study results may not be applicable to all populations, Cohen says, it "should raise red flags."

She adds there were no differences between single parent and two-parent families, further lending credence that it was indeed the lack of supervision, not the family structure, that was associated with the sexual activity.

She also points to a report done earlier this year by Child Trends, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group, in which those researchers found that more than half of boys and girls aged 16 to 18 had sex for the first time in their own home or that of their partner's -- presumably when parents were not around, although the researchers didn't ask that question. In the current study, the most surprising finding to Cohen was the amount of unsupervised time. "These are high school kids," she says. "People expect them to be more responsible."

While teens are physically more able to take care of themselves than younger children, she says teens would still "be better off if adults were around more."

If that's impossible because of work schedules, parents might investigate after-school activities that are supervised, she suggests.

The findings of the latest study don't surprise Julia Davis, a senior program officer at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "You can only assume the less time parents spend with the kids, the less opportunity [they have] to talk about sex." Even though teens are uncomfortable talking to their parents about sex, says Davis, citing her own research on teen sexuality, they still look to their parents for guidance.

Spending more time with teens will present more opportunities to open that dialogue about sex, Davis says. "Make it clear what your opinion is of being sexually active, what they need to know about protection, risks and consequences," she adds. "The key issue is to communicate to your teen there can be a dialogue. It isn't just one talk, but ongoing dialogue."

The dialogue, she adds, must change as your teen's needs change. A 15-year-old, for instance, probably needs very different information than an 18-year-old about to go off to college.

Phone 866-889-3665
Visions Adolescent Treatment Center

Mixing Sex, Drugs and Alcohol Puts Many Teens at Risk

Mixing Sex, Drugs and Alcohol Puts Many Teens at Risk

Phone 866-889-3665

Experts say adolescents should be made aware of how using drugs and alcohol can lead to sexual activities that may change their lives forever. While drinking and having sex may be unofficially authorized milestones in the typical American teen's coming of age, a new study reveals that more and more adolescents are experimenting with both, leaving themselves susceptible to pregnancy, disease and violence.

In a random survey of 1,200 adolescents and young adults ages 13 to 24 throughout the United States, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 81 percent reported that they have had intercourse, and 50 percent agreed that "people their age" mix alcohol and drugs "a lot."

Experts say these findings, to be presented today at a substance abuse and sexual behavior conference at Columbia University in New York, are so disturbing because drugs and alcohol can significantly compromise one's judgment and put teens into high-risk situations.

“We knew that teenagers were doing this, but frankly it is a bit shocking that the numbers were so high,” said Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABCNEWS' medical editor.

Unintended and Unprotected Sex

Drinking and doing drugs often leads young people to engage in more sexual activity than they intended to partake in, and more importantly, to unprotected sex, says Joseph Califano, former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare and president of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia.

Overall, 29 percent of sexually active 15- to 24-year-olds surveyed say that they have “done more” sexually than they had planned while drinking or using drugs, and 74 percent say their peers "often do not use condoms when they are drinking or using drugs."

Considering the high rate of alcohol use among high-schoolers, it is no wonder the Centers for Disease Control reports that almost 1 million unwanted teenage pregnancies occur every year, and one in every three sexually active people in the United States will contract a sexually transmitted disease by the age of 24. This includes everything from genital warts to the life-threatening HIV.

In addition, drinking has been shown to play a predominant role in sexual violence, with more than half of college campus rapes including alcohol use by either the victim, the attacker, or both. Experts believe alcohol causes people to both misread and missend sexual signals, and also can create situations where people are vulnerable to attack.

Mix Your Messages

So what can concerned parents do to help their teens avoid these hazards? Califano says the best thing you can do is get involved.

“Parental engagement is probably the most effective way to reduce the risk of smoking, drinking, and doing drugs, and the overwhelming majority of research studies show that teens who are close to their parents are more likely to remain sexually abstinent and postpone intercourse, more likely to use contraceptives if they are sexually active, more likely to have fewer sexual partners, and less likely to become pregnant,” says Califano.

And whether you believe that abstinence is a moral imperative, or if you think that sexual activity is simply a rite of passage for all teens, Califano emphasizes that “everyone must drive home the very real dangers of mixing alcohol, drugs, and sex — pregnancy, HIV, STDs, and rape.”

He also strongly recommends that when having the “big talks” with your kids, emphasize the connection between drinking and sex. Because even though your teen may feel strongly about “how far they will go,” morals and intentions can be easily led astray after a couple of beers at a party.

“Make sure that every time you talk to your kids about sex, you also talk about drugs and alcohol, and every time you talk to them about drugs and alcohol, you talk to them about sex,” Califano advises. He says kids should learn how the topics are connected, so they are better equipped to deal with challenging situations when they arise.

Experts also suggest keeping an eye on the television shows your children watch, the music they listen to, and the Web sites they visit, because staying aware of outside influences helps parents become better equipped, as well.

Phone 866-889-3665
Visions Adolescent Treatment Center

Study: 1 in 5 Young People Drink and Drive

Study: 1 in 5 Young People Drink and Drive

Phone 866-889-3665

December 30, 2004WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than four million people younger under age 21 drove under the influence of drugs or alcohol last year, according to a government report released Wednesday. That's one in five of all Americans aged 16 to 20.

"That's an awful lot of kids if you think about it," said Charlene Lewis, acting director of the Office of Applied Studies at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which produced the report.

The report, based on a large household survey of drug use, found a small drop in driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol between 2002 and 2003. In 2002, 22 percent drove under the influence; last year, it was 20 percent. Just four percent of these young people reported being arrested and booked for driving under the influence in the year before they were interviewed.

The report was released Wednesday in advance of New Year's Eve in hopes of raising consciousness of the issue on a night when the risk of drinking and driving is high, federal officials said. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among young people. The data come from face-to-face interviews in the homes of people ages 12 and up, part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. People were asked to define for themselves what driving "under the influence" of drugs or alcohol means. Young people were most likely to drink alcohol and then drive, with 17 percent admitting this. Fourteen percent said they had driven under the influence of illicit drugs, and eight percent reported driving after consuming a combination of alcohol and drugs.

The rates were highest among people who lived in the Midwest and among those who lived outside of metro areas. Researchers did not have data to compare the 2002-03 rates to earlier years. But a similar survey of teen behavior found that drunken driving fell steadily between 1984 and the early 1990s, as media campaigns pleaded "friends don't let friends drive drunk" and urged partygoers to choose a designated driver.

The rates remained level from 1992 to 1995 before jumping a bit in the late 1990s and then declining a little in 2003, said Lloyd Johnston, principal investigator for the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future survey of students. "It's not nearly as serious a problem as it was in the mid '80s but it's still a serious problem," he said. He said that his survey also found that a substantial number of teens rode in cars where drivers had been drinking, adding to the number of young people at risk.

Johnston added that while teens growing up in the 1980s were exposed to heavy media campaigns against drunken driving, that's not true for today's teens. He warned of "generational forgetting."

"Each generation has to be reeducated about the dangers of any of these behaviors," he said.

“Make sure that every time you talk to your kids about sex, you also talk about drugs and alcohol, and every time you talk to them about drugs and alcohol, you talk to them about sex,” Califano advises. He says kids should learn how the topics are connected, so they are better equipped to deal with challenging situations when they arise.

Experts also suggest keeping an eye on the television shows your children watch, the music they listen to, and the Web sites they visit, because staying aware of outside influences helps parents become better equipped, as well.

Phone 866-889-3665
Visions Adolescent Treatment Center

Teens Report Peer Pressure To Have Sex

Teens Report Peer Pressure To Have Sex

Phone 866-889-3665

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Waiting to have sex is a nice idea, teenagers say, but they believe hardly anyone does it. Many teens, particularly boys, feel pressure to have sex, and they say drugs and alcohol often lead to sex -- often without condoms. The teen survey, released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, paints a comprehensive portrait of youth attitudes about sex and the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Teen pregnancy and birth rates have been falling for a decade -- a trend that other surveys have attributed to a drop in sexual activity and an increased use of condoms and other forms of birth control.

Still, the Kaiser survey spotlights areas of concern: Four in 10 sexually active teenagers have taken a pregnancy test or had a partner who did so. A significant minority of young people -- about one in six -- say having sex without a condom occasionally is not a big deal. And one in five say they have had unprotected sex after drinking or using drugs. Other surveys have found that nearly two in three teens will have had sex by the time they graduate from high school. The Kaiser survey shows that many have intimate relationships before that, with more than half of 15-to-17-year-olds saying they have been with someone in a sexual way. Among teens who have not yet had sex, nearly a third say they have been "intimate" with a partner.

"Changing social norms and cultural expectations as well as delayed marriage means many young people have multiple sexual relationships in their lifetimes and need the information and tools to make healthy decisions and communicate with their partners," the report said.

About one in three teens said they had been in a relationship where they felt things were moving too fast sexually. Separately, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy was releasing its own study Tuesday examining sex among younger teens. It found that about one in five teens report having sex before they turn 15 years old. That report, a compilation of data from earlier surveys, also found that younger teen girls who are sexually experienced were more likely than older teens to say they wish they had waited to have sex.

"Parents, program leaders, school officials, community leaders and others need to recognize that sex and dating are important issues for middle school age youth that cannot be ignored," the campaign said.

The Kaiser survey found that boys face particular pressure to have sex, often from male friends -- in contrast to the typical portrait of boys pressuring girls.

"There are a lot of expectations for boys to be sexually active," said Julia Davis, senior program officer at the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent group that studies health issues.

One in three boys ages 15-17 say they feel pressure to have sex, compared with 23 percent of girls. The pressure to drink alcohol was greater for both boys and girls; pressure to use drugs was about even with pressure to have sex. Overall, 63 percent of all 15-17-year-olds agreed either strongly or somewhat that "waiting to have sex is a nice idea but nobody really does it," with boys 6 percentage points more likely to say so.

The survey also found:

-More than eight in 10 teens say that a lot or some people their age drink or use drugs before having sex. Seven in 10 said their peers don't use condoms when they are drinking or using drugs. -About a quarter said that alcohol or drugs had influenced their decision to do something sexual at least once. -More than half of teens believe oral sex is not as big a deal as sexual intercourse, with boys more likely to believe this. Four in 10 consider oral sex "safer sex," although some diseases can be transmitted this way.

Phone 866-889-3665
Visions Adolescent Treatment Center

Unsupervised Teens Have More Sex

Unsupervised Teens Have More Sex
Phone 866-889-3665
The less after-school supervision teens have, the more likely they are to have sex, new research says. And that sexual activity is likely to happen at the home of one of the teens, claims a new study in the December issue of Pediatrics.Dr. Deborah Cohen, a researcher at the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif., and her colleagues evaluated more than 2,000 students in grades 9 through 12 in six public high schools. They found that 56 percent were home without an adult present at least four hours each day after school.Then they compared supervision with sexual activity and found a strong relationship between the number of unsupervised hours and sexual activity. Those who were unsupervised for at least 30 hours a week, or roughly six hours each weekday, were more likely to be sexually active compared with those left alone for no more than five hours a week. Those who were unsupervised for more than five hours weekly also reported more sexually transmitted diseases.They also found that among those who had intercourse, 91 percent said the last time occurred at their home, their partner's home, or a friend's home -- usually after school.The students who were evaluated were 98 percent black, many from low-income families and more than half from single-parent homes. While the study results may not be applicable to all populations, Cohen says, it "should raise red flags."She adds there were no differences between single parent and two-parent families, further lending credence that it was indeed the lack of supervision, not the family structure, that was associated with the sexual activity.She also points to a report done earlier this year by Child Trends, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group, in which those researchers found that more than half of boys and girls aged 16 to 18 had sex for the first time in their own home or that of their partner's -- presumably when parents were not around, although the researchers didn't ask that question. In the current study, the most surprising finding to Cohen was the amount of unsupervised time. "These are high school kids," she says. "People expect them to be more responsible."While teens are physically more able to take care of themselves than younger children, she says teens would still "be better off if adults were around more."If that's impossible because of work schedules, parents might investigate after-school activities that are supervised, she suggests.The findings of the latest study don't surprise Julia Davis, a senior program officer at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "You can only assume the less time parents spend with the kids, the less opportunity [they have] to talk about sex." Even though teens are uncomfortable talking to their parents about sex, says Davis, citing her own research on teen sexuality, they still look to their parents for guidance.Spending more time with teens will present more opportunities to open that dialogue about sex, Davis says. "Make it clear what your opinion is of being sexually active, what they need to know about protection, risks and consequences," she adds. "The key issue is to communicate to your teen there can be a dialogue. It isn't just one talk, but ongoing dialogue."The dialogue, she adds, must change as your teen's needs change. A 15-year-old, for instance, probably needs very different information than an 18-year-old about to go off to college.
Phone 866-889-3665
Visions Adolescent Treatment Center