Children of alcoholics

Today is Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Awareness Day. FASD is a disease that does not get much attention in the news. And yet, it is part of the spectrum of problems caused by family alcoholism. In the United States, 40,000 children are born each year with FASD.

A mother killed her 2 year old daughter, 3 nieces, 3 men in another car, and herself when she drove the wrong way down the expressway. She had up to 10 drinks in her system and had recently smoked marijuana.

The following link has the full story: 1010wins.com

Editorial Comment

Alcohol dependence or abuse among fathers living with adolescents (youths aged 12 to 17) may increase the risk of alcohol or illicit substance use among their children according to a new national study.

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.

A metric derived by using multiple screening tools on perinatal alcohol use better predicted childhood behavioral problems than using any single measure of maternal alcohol consumption, such as binge-drinking or weekly alcohol consumption, according to researchers studying fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

Reuters reported Feb. 13 that among a sample of 75 African American mothers and their 4-to 5-year-old offspring, the new tool identified more than 62 percent of the mothers as drinking at risky levels---more than 23 percent higher than those identified using the individual measures.

The new metric "...predicted poorer child performance," said lead study author Lisa M. Chiodo of Wayne State University in Detroit. Specifically, poor child cognition and behavioral concerns were predicted "better than any of the individual measures of maternal consumption or screens for problem drinking alone."

Source: Join Together

This article was compiled for Families in Recovery by Kristina Parker.

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?

Children born to women who have as little as one drink a week during pregnancy are more likely to have symptoms of behavior problems as teens, according to research published this month in the journal Pediatrics.

"If women stop drinking during pregnancy, they can save themselves a lot of heartache later. Being the parent of a child with conduct disorder is really frustrating," Dr. Elizabeth R. Disney of Chase Braxton Health Services in Baltimore, one of the researchers on the study, told Reuters Health.

Additional facts:
- 36% of boys and 10% of girls born to mothers who admitted to moderate drinking had a definite or probable behavioral diagonsis.

- Around 31% of teens born to mothers who admitted to having at least a drink a week while pregnant had conduct disorders versus 21% of kids whose mothers didn't drink.

- For mothers who had been diagnosed with alcoholism, 44% of those who drank while pregnant had kids with conduct disorder versus 20% of mothers with alcoholism who didn't drink during pregnancy.

Following up on the story from yesterday, we have another example of less than perfect information coming from the government. In this case, the Office of National Drug Policy (ONDP) has come out with findings that marijuana causes depression in teens.

A new study suggests that a mother's substance use during pregnancy, especially a combination of substances, may result in a smaller brain for her child. The study observed 35 children 10 to 14 years old whose mothers had used cocaine, drank alcohol, or smoked tobacco or marijuana during pregnancy.