When Your Child Drinks Millions of American teen-agers have a problem with alcohol. If your son or daughter is among them, help is available

By Stanley L. Englebardt

The arrive at the emergency room of “Many adults think that adolescents don’t need Massachusetts General Hospital regularly, or want their intervention, but nothing could be youngsters, 9 to 19, with hallucinations, further from the truth,” says DR. Marie blackouts, tremors, injuries from falls, fights and Armentano of Massachusetts General’s alcohol car crashes, and suicide attempts. “Just a whiff clinic and an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard sometimes,” says one physician there, “and you Medical School. The raucous behavior of know the cause is alcohol.” intoxicated youngsters is a cry for help. At a time when the media are full of Deadly Firsts. Why do young people stories about cocaine, this country’s adolescents start drinking? Researchers at the National are in the midst of an even more pervasive drug Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism epidemic-alcohol. A 1983 Weekly Reader survey attribute it to peer pressure, a belief that drinking of children 9 to 12 showed that almost half is adult, the example set by relatives and family reported peer pressure to drink. Other studies friends, and the easy availability of alcohol. One confirm that children now use alcohol at earlier way or another, adolescents get the message ages than ever before. Last year a Parent that drinking is okay. Resource Institute for Drug Education (PRIDE) If there is a family history of alcoholismstudy of 6155 seventh graders reported that 43 parent, sibling, grandparent, uncle, aunt-the percent were already experimenting with beer chances of problem drinking are considerably and wine and 23 percent with hard liquor. greater. In one survey of adopted children, the According to the National Council on Alcoholism biological sons of alcoholics were over three Inc., 3.3 million drinking teen-agers from 14 to times more likely to be alcoholic than were the 17-nearly 1 in 5-are already showing signs of sons of nonalcoholics-even though there was no developing serious alcohol-related problems. exposure to the alcoholic biological parents after One result: almost 10,000 young people die adoption. Another study concluded that having each year in accidents linked directly to an alcoholic parent is one of the most important imbibing. factors in an adolescent’s early use of liquor. But aren’t a few beers on Saturday night What’s the first step if signs point to more desirable than smoking marijuana or alcohol abuse? “Try to determine the degree of snorting cocaine? “Not if you view the results drinking,” says Dr. Armentano. There is a from where I sit,” says Dr. Harold Rockaway, a difference between “abuse” and “Alcoholism.” psychiatrist and chief of the St. Joseph Hospital Abuse-the most prevalent problem among Alcohol Rehabilitation program in Houston. “The adolescents-is characterized by frequent adolescent alcoholics we’re dealing with are drinking that leads to other problems: the juniorsick. They’re school dropouts. They’re often in high student who starts fighting or staying out all trouble with the law. And they can’t stop without night; the youngster who becomes reclusive, help.” Alcohol, he stresses, can be more cutting off family and friends; the good student physically destructive than the “hardest” of illicit who fails courses. drugs. An adolescent alcoholic, by contrast, Fortunately, there are many ways of may have any or all of these problems with one treating and preventing adolescent alcohol use. thing more: a physical dependency on alcohol.

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Several years ago, a group of recovering Dr. Armentano-plus one-on-one psychotherapy adolescent alcoholics appeared on the Merv can be effective. In the majority of cases, Griffin television show to describe their though, the most effective intervention is in experiences. A baby-faced 17-year-old told of group setting. This can mean school alcoholhis first drunk at age 5 after sneaking education classes, clinic-based groups, or selfchampagne at a family New Year’s Eve Party. help organizations such as AA, which are This started him on secret drinking-which wasn’t increasingly being used by adolescents. discovered until he was a 10-year-old altar boy. Early Intervention. “Although treatment At that time he polished off several bottles of of alcohol abuse and alcoholism is effective,” sacramental wine and threw up during a says Ellen R. Morehouse, head of the White communion service. It took four more years of Plains, N.Y., Student Assistance Services uncontrolled drinking before he landed in (SAS), “it often comes too late to prevent Alcoholics Anonymous. irreparable damage.” A teen-age drunk at the Another teen-ager said she started wheel of a car becomes a lethal weapon; a daily sharing older boys’ booze to be part of the drinker may be on the way to liver disease. crowd. By age 15 she was a quart-a-day drinker, Hence one SAS goal is to prevent alcohol use feeding her habit by bartering sexual favors. among youngsters who haven’t started drinking- One day, after she wretched bile and blood for as well as to provide support for the children of six hours, emergency-clinic doctors diagnosed alcohol parents and to counsel adolescents cirrhosis of the liver-giving her one year to live if already using alcohol. Early in the school year, she didn’t stop drinking. That same day she prevention sessions are designed to help joined AA and has been “clean” since. newcomers adjust, while high-school-senior Working Treatments. “Teen-age groups focus on alternatives to alcohol as a alcoholics aren’t weighed down by all the means of relieving stress. emotional baggage’ carried by adult drinkers,” How do you get kids to attend such says Dr. Rockaway. As a result, they are more sessions? “There’s nothing mandatory about the amenable to psychiatric treatment and usually program,” explains Morehouse, “except for recover faster. In the St. Joseph’s Hospital students caught using alcohol or other drugs on program, the first few weeks of in-patient school grounds.” Nevertheless, local publicity treatment establish certain truisms: the and presentations by student-assistance youngsters are hooked on an addictive drug; counselors attract up to 4000 students a year. they are not alone in this addiction; they can “Occasionally,” says Morehouse, “we function without alcohol. The program includes come across a true alcoholic.” The youngsters AA members who speak the same language and with serious problems are usually referred to provide examples of alcoholics who have their outside agencies for more comprehensive habit under control. Most of these teen-agers treatment. The rest are evaluated and slotted make it back home and to school within four into an appropriate group or individual weeks. counseling sessions. For about 25 percent of teen-agers A survey of nearly 3000 students who referred to the Massachusetts General alcohol participated in the SAS program in 1982-83 clinic, the cause turns out to be depression, an showed a significant drop both in school emotional disorder that afflicts over nine million absenteeism and in the number of students Americans and is grossly underdiagnosed in using alcohol and other drugs. The survey also adolescents. A teen-ager who can’t live up to his showed an effectiveness in preventing students parents’ expectations may use alcohol to cope from becoming involved. This program is now with the pressure; setbacks such as parents’ also used by other schools in New York and in divorce or failing grades may send an 16 additional states. adolescent into a tailspin. A regimen of anti- Recognizing a Killer. Not every depressant medication- “which often is enough adolescent who needs help is willing to confide to stop the drinking, when the drinking is a in adults. So in the Boston suburbs, an symptom rather than the primary problem,” says organization called CASPAR (Cambridge and

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Somerville Program for Alcohol Rehabilitation) year for extensive training as peer leaders. has developed the Alcohol Education Program About half come from alcoholic families; the rest (AEP), with after-school sessions in a facility that have at least observed negative alcohol use. looks like a private residence. Teen-age peer The result is stronger rapport between the leaders are used, and group members are paid leader and group members. $2 an hour to attend. A bribe? “Maybe,” says a AEP’s third target is children from CASPAR counselor, “but the results are worth alcoholic families. The program helps these it.” children understand why a parent drinks, why The program’s first thrust is in grades they are not at fault for the parent’s habit, and two to six, where specially trained teachers how the child can avoid the same trap. conduct 45-minute classes once a week for ten Not long ago, a parent summoned to the weeks. “Although our primary objective is to emergency room of a Connecticut hospital was reach children of alcoholic families,” explains told that his 16-year-old son had been injured in Ruth B. Davis, AEP director, ”the presence of a drunk-driving accident. The parent heaved a youngsters whose parents are not alcoholic sigh of relief. “Well,” he said, “at least he wasn’t removes any onus.” This way, large numbers of using drugs.” But, clearly, alcohol can no longer children receive basic alcohol-prevention be considered as the lesser of two evils. Instead, education at a time when it has maximum we must recognize liquor for what it is: a impact. potentially addictive substance responsible for A second thrust involves youngsters in 10,000 teen-age deaths each year, as well as grades 7 to 12. To get around their reluctance to thousands more lives wrecked in other ways. deal with adults, 12 high-school students from a cross section of backgrounds are selected each

Source: Reader’s Digest, November 1986

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