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Study after study has shown that alcohol advertising works too well. Kids who are exposed to alcohol advertisements and who wear alcohol branded clothing are more likely to drink at younger ages and more likely to drink heavily. This is not just for kids. Adults who watch shows or movies where people are drinking tend to consume more alcohol than those who are watching shows with little or no alcohol.

There is a form of tacit consent in advertising - we more easily believe and seek what we experience and see. The same is true in alcoholic families. Children of alcoholics are 4 times more likely to develop their own alcohol issues. This is a complex issue and genetics is a huge part, but there is also an implicit acceptance of alcohol (and the related overconsumption of alcohol) even in families where alcohol is made to be the demon. Again, if we learn what we see repeatedly, then in alcoholic families, the ‘advertising’ unfortunately works too well.

Additional research has come out showing again that any alcohol advertising, regardless of the intended audience, leads more kids to drink. From an article in biomedcentral.com (link goes to a press release)

Alcohol advertising and marketing may lead to underage drinking. A large systematic review of more than 13,000 people, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, suggests that exposure to ads and product placements, even those supposedly not directed at young people, leads to increased alcohol consumption.

The authors recommend that counter-advertising, social marketing techniques and other prevention options such as parenting programmes, price increases and limiting availability may be useful to limit alcohol problems in young people.

I would say that there are two elements minimum that are required to have a meaningful long-term impact on this issue.

First, parents and other family members need to be aware that any exposure to alcohol normalizes consumption, an issue particularly felt in alcoholic homes where consumption is constant. When kids see beer t-shirts on dad or Absolute ads in mom’s magazine, this makes it easier and easier for kids to pick up a bottle themselves far earlier than they otherwise would have.

And second, kids need to hear the counter-message. Alcohol is at the heart of many of society’s major problems. From domestic violence to coronary disease to depression, there are few domains where alcohol’s presence is not felt. Especially in younger, developing minds and bodies, the risks of drinking far outweigh any temporary idea of fun. Alcohol leads to half of all sexual assaults, huge increases in serious physical assault and violence, and 40% of all traffic fatalities. And the list goes on and on.

Kids need to hear the counter-message, but again in alcoholic homes, any real discussion of the counter-message is typically missing. Heck, these are the kids who are witnessing the counter-message first hand. They see the extremes of the pain alcohol abuse and dependence can cause. And the result for these kids – they are at least 4 times more likely than the rest of the population to abuse and become dependent on alcohol themselves.

A huge, community-wide marketing campaign seems like an appealing response. But I would want to do a bit more research first. Some studies have shown that any exposure to alcohol normalizes it – even campaigns meant to counter the problem. So who do we target – the kids or the parents? And do we try and scare people – think of the ‘brain on drugs’ ads? Or do we merely try and teach them? Or do we offer alternative messages, affirming ones, that take the focus off the problems and put it on the solutions instead. I am leaning towards the final option.

I'd be lying if this one didn't get to me. A dad, drunk past thinking, took his two daughters, 15-month-old Santana and three-year-old Kaydence, out into howling -50 degree winds while they were wearing nothing but diapers and t-shirts. He stumbled through the storm, losing his kids out in the snow where they froze to death. He made it to a friends with frostbite and hypothermia.

Alcoholism. A man killed his children, his babies, because he was too drunk to think. Alcoholism.

So many of us who come from alcoholic homes suffer through pain and terror, instability and uncertainty, shame and more shame. These kids, these babies, paid the highest price of all. It does not dimish the rest of our experiences, but it does highlight the risks we as a society seem willing to accept as the price of not taking the disease of alcoholism seriously enough. Santana and Kaydence, mere babies, died because alcoholism flourishes all around and our culture reacts with sadness, anger and pain, but not with the resolve to do the hard work of ensuring this will not happen again.

It is my belief that if we are going to really confront alcoholism's impact on society, we need to do the following:

1. We need universal access to the highest standards of drug, alcohol, and family alcoholism treatment.
2. We need a system-wide approach (including schools, employers, insurance, social service, and government) to help kids brought up by alcoholic parents who are at serious potential risk for neglect, abuse, and yes, even death.
3. We need a broad-based, community-wide dialogue on the role alcohol plays in so many societal ills, including domestic violence, driving accidents, sexual assault, and heart disease to name a few.

It is time to start the hard work of recovery and healing for our whole society. Who's with me?

The Center for the Advancement of Health recently published a study indicating the following:

Although national health guidelines call for physicians to discuss topics such as substance use, safety and nutrition with adolescents, new research suggests that these talks do not occur as often as they should.

“The guidelines say that adolescents should have an annual visit that provides screening and guidance about high-risk health behaviors,” said lead study author Sally Adams, R.N., Ph.D. “If teens can get preventive care to avoid risky behavior, it may impact their health not only in adolescence, but also throughout their lifetime.”

In a word, doctors are not talking to our kids about a range of important topics that they should. At the same time, parents are less likely than ever to talk to their kids about drugs as well. And programs such as DARE and other school based programs are coming under fire, with their long-term effectiveness questioned.

So if doctors, parents, and the schools are failing to teach our kids about drugs and alcohol, who is? You guessed it - they are talking to each other. Kids frequently cite peers as their source for information on drugs and alcohol - especially kids who end up experimenting and using.

For alcoholic families, where communication issues are particularly difficult, and where drug and alcohol messages are mixed ("Do as I say, not as I do"), this is very worrisome. If the parents are falling down on communicating appropriately, it would be nice to think that the family physician or the schools can at least take up some of the slack.

If we are going to end the terrible cycle of abuse and dependence, it seems the most basic starting point is open, honest, and candid discussions with teens on drugs and alcohol. If the adults in their lives don't do it, there are plenty of teens ready to fill the gap.

The 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.

A 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?

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This represents my first blog entry in what will become a regular series of posts, collectively titled Scott's Take. As founder and president of Families in Recovery, I am able to talk to many children of alcoholics along with people who care about us. I will use this space to offer some personal insight and perspective. These are not the views of Families in Recovery, but rather are my own.

This entry is the resumption of the family alcoholism blog. As the president and founder of Families in Recovery, I've been around these issues long enough to have something to say now and then. This blog is the place to do it. The opinions and information here are not representative of Families in Recovery and are mine alone.

So now, on to the blog...

The Family Alcoholism Survey has been online for nearly two months now. Amazingly enough, responses are still coming in. It appears that many of those who responded to the survey have sent it along to others. As more and more people both take the survey, and forward it along, we get increasingly better information to use when planning our programs.

Try this exercise. Read the next paragraph, do the exercise, then read the paragraph following.

The amazing thing about children of alcoholics is that, while this may come as a shock to some, we grow up. And by grow up, I mean we literally get older, reach an age where we are no longer considered children, where we come of age (there are many COAs who feel like grown ups from a very young age, but that is a different tale).