Support from Middle School Teachers May Reduce Early Use of Alcohol, Study Suggests

By Join Together Staff

Emotional support from middle school teachers may reduce the risk their students will engage in early use of alcohol and other illicit substances, a new study suggests.

The study included 521 middle school students in Seattle. Students who felt more emotional support from teachers reported a delay in starting to use alcohol and other illicit substances, PsychCentral reports. The students defined teacher support as feeling close to a teacher, or being able to talk about their problems with a teacher.

Middle school students who had higher levels of separation anxiety from their parents were also less likely to start using alcohol early, the study found.

“Our results were surprising,” lead researcher Dr. Carolyn McCarty, of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, said in a news release. “We have known that middle school teachers are important in the lives of young people, but this is the first data-driven study which shows that teacher support is associated with lower levels of early alcohol use.”

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Blackouts from College Binge Drinking Lead to Costly Emergency Room Visits

By Join Together Staff 

Blackouts that result from binge drinking among college students cost the average large university about a half million dollars per year, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin note in Health Affairs that 50 percent of college students who drink report alcohol-induced blackouts. They studied emergency department visits among college students at five universities over two years, and found about one in eight were associated with blackout drinking. Blackout-related injuries ranged from broken bones to head and brain injuries that required CT scans. They estimated that on a large university campus with more than 40,000 students, blackout-associated emergency department visit costs would range from $469,000 to $546,000 per year, MSNBC reports.

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Rat Study Finds Adolescent Brain More Prone to Depression, Addiction

By TRACI PEDERSEN Associate News Editor

From a study of rats, University of Pittsburgh researchers conclude that teens face a greater risk of suffering from depression and addiction than adults.

The researchers compared the brain activity of adolescent and adult rats as they worked on a task in which they anticipated a reward.  Brain cell activity increased in the adolescent rats’ brains in an unusual area: the dorsal striatum (DS) — a region generally associated with habit formation, decision-making, and motivated learning. On the other hand, the adult rats’ DS areas were not triggered by an anticipated reward.

“The brain region traditionally associated with reward and motivation, called the nucleus accumbens, was activated similarly in adults and adolescents,” said study leader Bita Moghaddam, Ph.D., co-author of the paper and a professor of neuroscience in Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

“But the unique sensitivity of adolescent DS to reward anticipation indicates that, in this age group, reward can tap directly into a brain region that is critical for learning and habit formation.”

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High Rates of Childhood Trauma Found in Adult Alcoholics

By Join Together Staff

A new study finds a high rate of childhood trauma in adult alcoholic inpatients. The researchers suggest childhood trauma should be considered when developing prevention and treatment strategies for adults with alcoholism.

While a history of physical, sexual or emotional abuse in childhood is a known risk factor for alcohol dependence, the new study shows how strong the association can be, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The study, conducted by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, included 196 men and women who were treated as inpatients for alcohol dependence. Overall, 55 percent had a history of childhood trauma. The prevalence of emotional abuse was 21 percent; physical abuse, 31 percent; sexual abuse, 24 percent; emotional neglect, 20 percent; and physical neglect, 20 percent.

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Children Ages 10 to 12 Ambivalent About Smoking and Drinking, Suggests Study

By Join Together Staff

Children ages 10 to 12 feel ambivalent about smoking and drinking, suggests a new study. They have both positive and negative associations with alcohol and cigarettes at this age, according to PsychCentral.

Lead researcher Dr. Roisin O’Connor of Concordia University in Canada says the results indicate the “tween” years are an important time to prevent substance abuse. “We need to be concerned when kids are ambivalent because this is when they may be more easily swayed by social influences,” she said in a news release.

The study included about 400 children, who participated in a computer-based test that required them to place pictures of cigarettes and alcohol with positive or negative words. Dr. O’Connor found that while children initially thought cigarettes and alcohol were bad, they were easily able to start thinking of them as good when they were asked to place them with positive words.

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Commentary: Getting Smart on Juvenile Offending and Substance Use Issues – The Role of the Prosecutor

By Susan Broderick

While experimenting with drugs and alcohol was once considered a rite of passage into early adulthood, the average age of onset of alcohol or other substance use of adolescents entering addiction treatment is now below the age of 13ⁱ. Of equal concern is a 2011 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) which revealed that 31.5 percent of adolescent admissions first used their primary substance at age 11 or younger and that among these admissions, the principal source of referral was the justice systemⁱⁱ. 

The reality is that kids are starting to use drugs and alcohol younger and while their brains are still developing. This dramatically increases the likelihood of addiction and/or involvement in the juvenile justice system. While using substances at any age can lead to addiction, the earlier a person begins to use, the greater the potential for addictionⁱⁱⁱ. Research has confirmed that substance use has been shown to maintain offending behavior with what has been described as a “drug-crime cycle^vi.”

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Spring break is the biggest peak for students' alcohol abuse

By SUSAN HEMMINGWAY — Herald Health Correspondent

According to research at the Alcohol and Substance Use Research Institute at the University of South Florida, alcohol use by college students follows seasonal patterns.

Consumption peaks during holidays, such as Thanksgiving and New Year's, with the biggest peak of all being spring break week.

"Spring break is a holiday defined by drinking," said Richard Reich, a researcher at the institute and assistant professor of psychology at USF Sarasota-Manatee.

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Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/13/3934379/underage-drinking-a-problem-during.html?utm_source=Join+Together+Daily&utm_campaign=18e27a9798-JT_Daily_News_Medically_Prescribed&utm_medium=email#storylink=cpy

Alcohol in Movies May Influence Teens’ Drinking Habits, Study Suggests

By Join Together Staff

The amount of drinking children and teens see in movies may influence their own drinking habits, suggests a new study conducted in six European nations.

Researchers gave surveys to more than 16,000 students, ages 10 to 19, in Germany, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Scotland. They were asked to check off which of 50 movies that were popular in their country they had seen. For each movie, the researchers counted how many times characters were shown drinking alcohol, according to Reuters. At least 86 percent of the movies had at least one drinking scene.

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Should Alcohol Product Placement Be Banned in Hollywood?

BY JOSLYNGRAY

A new study shows that children and teens may be more influenced by what they see in movies than by what they’re taught by parents, a new study shows. The study, conducted by researchers at Dartmouth Medical School, was published on the British Medical Journal’s BMJ Open site this week. The study may warrant considering placing restrictions on alcohol placement in movies.

The study found that children who watch movies with drinking scenes are more than twice as likely to try alcohol, and the rate actually tripled for teens who moved on to binge drinking, as compared to children who watch relatively few movies.

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Keeping Alcohol in the Spotlight: 6 Facts

By: Deni Carise, Ph.D., Chief Clinical Officer, Phoenix House
In the wake of Whitney Houston’s tragic death, many people have talked about the late singer’s problems with cocaine—and how drugs affects the brain. When it later surfaced that prescription drugs mixed with alcohol may have led to Whitney’s demise, people also talked about the dangers of painkiller abuse.  But what about the dangers of excessive drinking, which is equally life-threatening?  As Frank Bruni wisely pointed out in The New York Times, alcohol is directly linked to about 80,000 deaths a year—yet far too often, its dangers “recede from focus.” 

So, let’s bring the destructive powers of alcohol into sharp focus.  Here are the facts:

1. Alcohol is indeed a drug.  What’s more, it’s a drug that carries especially high risks for adolescents, whose brains are still developing.

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