News aggregatorHalf of College Age Adults Need Help FastAlmost half of college-age adults suffer from mental-health disorders, including addictions, but less than one in four are seeking treatment, according to new research out of Columbia University. Alcohol abuse and dependency was the most common mental-health disorder among college students. Nicotine dependence and personality disorders were most common among non-college students. A heavy burdenFrom evliving.com Dear Amy: Recently, my mother passed away and ever since then my father has been overly critical of everything I do. This is not a new phenomenon, but rather this is something that has been happening ever since I was fourteen. I was a good student in school, rarely gave anyone a problem, and silently put up with disrespect and hurtful comments from other family members all the while seething underneath. OneStory: Escaping AbuseESCAPE CAME around Thanksgiving. Three children huddled upstairs, listening to the ranting of the raging alcoholic who was their father. The words came quickly from their mother: "Pack your things, we’re leaving when he passes out," she promised before returning, alone, to face the fury of the man who had threatened to kill her. Attitudes of Mothers Impact Future DrinkingThe following comes courtesy of Council On Alcoholism and Addiction of the Finger Lakes Mothers who exhibit positive thoughts regarding their children's future alcohol use may help teens avoid drinking -- but mothers' negative thinking could have the opposite result. That's according to a new Iowa State University study. Said lead author Stephanie Madon, an ISU associate professor of psychology, "When mothers overestimated their teens' future use of alcohol, the teens developed the self-view that they were likely to drink alcohol in the future, which ultimately led them to drink more." The study was recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. This research is particularly relevant to children from alcoholic families. Scott's Take: Tough Times Mean Tough TimesThe economy is bad and getting worse. Jobs are being lost. And the financial and familial pressures of the holidays are fast approaching. For most of society, life is feeling tense. For people from alcoholic homes and homes with mental health issues, chances are good that things are getting downright awful. I want to explore the impacts of this potential issue in the Rochester community. More treatment equals better outcomesIn one of those not-so-rare "we really had to research this?" moments, treatment programs around the country are claiming that the standard thirty days is not enough. From Join Together: Scott's Take: Dangers of a Slippery SlopeA writer for the Globe and Mail write the following: This past summer, during a dinner I had with an accomplished family lawyer, a single woman in her early 50s, the conversation covered many subjects - divorce, marriage, men, work, travel, dating and, at one point, alcohol. I wanted to know what she thought of the relationship between women and wine. Yes, I said relationship. "It's huge," she replied. Many of her female clients talk about their use of alcohol during the breakup of their marriage and in the throes of divorce, she said. (I remember joking to my divorce lawyer about "self-medicating with wine" when I was in the worst period of the separation.) My dinner companion went on to say that among her single friends, and for herself, too, alcohol is often a form of companionship in the evenings. Approximately 7% of all adults are dependent on alcohol - alcoholism as it is often referred to. The path to alcoholism is not the same for most people - there are many ways to fall down a mountain. But it always starts with a first drink and then another drink, and there is inevitably one drink too many, one step too many on the slippery slope. For children of alcoholics (COAs), this slope is both steeper and ‘slippier’. The author above describes very accurately how some people cope with loss, with divorce, with the everyday challenges of living. And for most people, they can come back quickly from this edge once the sadness and the grieving runs its course. Far more than in the general population, a tragic number of children of alcoholics don't come back from this edge, but rather descend into their own abuse and dependence. Tread lightly on this slope. As COAs, we often lament that we lost parts of our childhood, that we were denied many of the family perks friends took for granted (no one passed out on the floor for example). Sorry, but this is another place we get the short shrift. We can't screw up like others because we are so much more at risk. If others self medicate for a brief period with wine, odds are good that they will stop after a brief period of time. I should state here that many are at risk of the pain and consequences of abuse, while others do in fact trigger their own alcohol dependence. But for COAs? We self medicate with wine and we are at least 4 times more likely to not come back from the edge. We start ourselves down a path from which many struggle to return. What does this mean? Like most things I talk about, there is a big upside for every downside. If the oblivion of self medication (which, let's face it, is a terribly unhealthy way to cope anyway) is too dangerous for us, what is the alternative? REAL HEALING. We need to learn to walk past the slope and instead start focusing on how to heal ourselves, how to cope and make peace with the circumstances around us which we can't control. We might have to skip the slippery slope altogether, but really, is that such a bad thing?
National Anti-Drug Campaign Not SuccessfulThe National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign's television ads, designed to keep young children and teens away from marijuana, have not only failed in their purpose but may have actually increased teens' risk of trying the drug, a new study concludes. Parity Bill Signed Into LawOne of the biggest hurdles in people getting access to treatment for drug and alcohol dependence has been greatly reduced with the passage of the Wellstone Domenici Mental Health Parity Bill requires all insurance to treat mental health treatment (including addiction) the same as all other biologically based diseases. No more caps on benefits. No more second tier funding. Mother's Attitude Impacts Drinking Choices Later in LifeResearchers say that a child’s future alcohol use may be directly influenced by their mother’s positive or negative expectations about their alcohol consumption. A mother’s expectation that her child would or would not drink altered the child’s sense of self and influenced future behavior. Irony in ReportingA newspaper in Malaysia reported on a girl who lodged a complaint with the police after she was beaten with a piece of wood by her father. Just above the article...an advertisement for 10 free pints of beer. Really. A&E Launches The Recovery ProjectThe A&E Network, home of the critically acclaimed but controversial program Intervention, has announced a new initiative to raise awareness about addiction and recovery that will kick off with a rally on the Brooklyn Bridge on Sept. 27. Binge Drinkers Forget the Bad StuffBinge drinkers tend to forget the negative aspects of getting drunk and focus on the pleasant memories, which may help explain why they continue to drink despite instances where they get sick, black out, or have other problems. Source: Join Together OneStory: "How I Learned to Stop Hating My Mother"WebMD has an article reprinted from Marie Claire and written by Gretchen Voss that tells of one woman's experience learning to forgive her mother. The article starts: It was Christmas of 1999, and my father, two brothers, and I were at a family-counseling session during my mother's second — though not her last — stint in rehab in Florida. My father had found her a few weeks earlier, lying half-dead on the couch, her once-pristine condo looking like a homeless person's final filthy squat, splattered with puke and diarrhea. I guess our tough-love tactic — booting her out of the house in New Jersey to go "deal with herself" near her sister in Florida, plus my father's recent visit on their anniversary to announce that he didn't love her anymore and wanted a separation — was too much for a woman who had always defined tough. When my father scooped her off the couch and rushed her to the hospital that day, the doctor glared at him and asked my mother, "Who did this to you?" What a stupid question, I would have said to the doctor, had I been there. She did this to herself. American Indians More than 3 Times More Likely to Die from AlcoholAlmost 12 percent of the deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives are alcohol-related — more than three times the percentage in the general population, a new federal report says. Source: iht.com Alcoholism linked to later child rearingAlcoholic women are likely to experience delayed child rearing. The same is not true for men. This is according to recent research out of Australia and published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. |
OneStory ProjectWe are capturing the stories of children and others impacted by someone's alcoholism or alcohol addiction. First, check out current entries in the OneStory Project. Then get in touch and learn how to share your story (anonymous is fine). Support us!Please consider making a donation to Families in Recovery. We are a federally recognized 501c3 charitable organization. Donations are tax deductible and will allow us to do our important work. Please note, you do not need to have a Paypal account to make a donation.
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