Alcoholism & Addiction Prevention

There comes a time for each of us when we reflect on our lifestyle and see that it's time for a change. The New Year is the most popular time of year to do this. Start out 2014 by considering whether partying still matches the life you want today.

• Do you consider substance abuse to be your biggest problem?
• Does Your Lifestyle Match Your Values?
• Physical Effects of Alcoholism
• Rehab: How to Know When to Go
• Overcoming Your Fears of Rehab

The more time your teen has for 'hanging out', the greater the odds of trouble. Head-off problems by swapping out some of that free time for time spent engaged in constructive activities. Here are some ideas to get you started.

• The Essential Values of Youth Focused Treatment
• The 5 Reasons Teens Use Drugs or Alcohol
• Adolescent Mental Health: When to Get Help
• Why Teens Rarely Think They Need Help
• Judging the Seriousness of Your Teen’s Drinking

Adolescents are burdened with a still developing brain that’s uniquely at risk to alcohol overexposure - but that still developing brain is also very attracted to experimentation and thrill seeking, it isn’t as affected by the negatives of alcohol (teens don’t get as sleepy when drinking or as hung over after the fact) and it isn’t as capable of higher order decision making. All in all, it’s a bad combination and because of this, parental prevention efforts are very important. Parents who can prevent underage alcohol abuse can prevent developmental brain damage.

• Wet Brain - Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome
• Alcoholic Pancreatitis - Causes and Treatment
• Alcohol and Weight Gain
• Alcohol Abuse and Stomach Pain? It's Probably Gastritis
• 8 Ways To Heal Your Liver After You Quit Drinking

Teens who believe that their teachers and peers at school care about them and want them to succeed are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, less likely to get into trouble with violence or the law and more likely to finish school (with higher grades)! Find out why school connectedness matters and learn what you can do to increase your son or daughter’s feelings of school connectedness.

• College - Dealing with Boozing Roommates
• College Substance Abuse
• Treatment for Students

Parents who send a clear message to their kids about the unacceptability of underage drinking have kids that are less likely to get into trouble with alcohol – but sending a clear message about drinking doesn’t begin and end with a single conversation, rather it takes both word and deed and particularly, the setting of a positive example in your own life. Want your kids to steer clear of underage drinking? Here are 7 ways to send the right message in your home.

• Addiction: When Adult Children Move Back Home
• How Bystanders Can Stop Bullying
• Teaching Children to Reject Violence
• Warning Signs of a Bully Problem
• 10 Tips for Fixing a Broken Parent-Teen Relationship

Kids and teens left unsupervised in the hours between the end of school and dinner are far more likely to get into trouble with drugs and alcohol. Read the research findings that paint a scary picture of the consequences of too much unstructured time.

• Entering Recovery as a Single Parent
• When Your Child Is a Bully
• Relational Bullying
• Are You an Angry Parent?
• Helping Children Cope

Although as the parent of a teen you may wonder how much influence you have, research shows pretty clearly that what you do (or don’t do) has a huge impact on your teen’s health, happiness, and even choices. Learn which parenting styles reduce the odds of drug and alcohol abuse and which styles increase the risks – and learn how parental monitoring can keep your son or daughter safe from the worst of the dangers.

• Mending an Estranged Father-Son Relationship
• Is Your Teen a Narcissist? Learn the Warning Signs
• Recovering Teens: 7 Ways to Improve Communication
• Drug Testing Teens?
• Young Adult ADHD and Substance Abuse

While your teen son or daughter might never consider buying heroin or cocaine from a shady street dealer, they’re more likely than you might think to abuse a pretty similar type of drug, and if they’re like most teens abusing prescription medications – they don’t even have to pay for it…getting high is as easy as opening the family medicine cabinet.

• Fentanyl Addiction
• Adderall Addiction
• A Mother's Prayer. From Sadness, for Love.
• Keeping Teens Safe from Meth
• Risks of Teen Drug Use

While you probably don’t want to see your teen son or daughter drinking alcohol, you may not worry about a few beers as much as you’d worry if you saw evidence of marijuana or even harder drug use. The true risks of those few drinks, however, extends far beyond the risks of alcohol alone – and teens that start drinking at a young age are much more likely to develop alcohol dependency issues as adults. Read on to learn more what increased dangers face those teens who drink alcohol.

• Parents - 8 Secrets to Surviving Teen Addiction
• Conduct Disorder: Abnormally Bad Behavior
• Teen Suicide - Risk Factors & Warning Signs
• Teen Depression
• How Old Are You?

Teens that delay their first experimentation with alcohol until the age of 21 have virtually no risk of ever developing an alcohol abuse problem, but what can parents do to keep these experimentally prone youngsters from trying alcohol? - Researchers say that one of the most important things you can do to keep your children safe is to set a good example in the home and to practice what you preach!

• Moderate Drinking: Heart Health vs. Cancer Risks
• Binge Drinking
• How to Handle a Bully
• Intervention Tip #1 - Avoid Debate
• Parenting an Addict: No Misplaced Guilt!

Although there are no guarantees, teens who grow up exposed to a significant number of protective factors (such as having loving and effective parents, doing well in school etc.) are far less likely to use drugs than teens who grow up exposed to many risk factors (early aggression, having peers who use drugs or alcohol, having a parent with a substance abuse problem or mental illness and others). Fortunately, parents can do a lot to increase the protective factors while decreasing the risk factors!

• Inhalant Addiction
• Therapeutic Wilderness Programs
• 6-Question Teen Substance Abuse Screening Test
• 5 Ways to Stop Your Teen’s Drinking or Drug Use
• Understanding Addiction - What You Need to Know

Heavy drinkers tend to think that other people drink more than they do (myth). If people with such misperceptions get accurate information about how much others in their community are drinking, they are more likely to reduce their overall consumption. Giving people who have incorrect beliefs about a negative behavior accurate information is called social norms marketing – and it is a cheap and effective way to reduce negative behaviors, like binge drinking, across a large population.

• Compare Your Drinking to American Averages
• Teens - How to Know When They Might Start Using Drugs or Alcohol

We think of drug abuse prevention as something provided to children and students yet to experiment, but drug abuse prevention can also assist those people already using; and drug abuse prevention interventions have proven very effective as a method to induce behavioral change in people currently exhibiting excessive drug or alcohol consumption behaviors, but who have not yet developed a dependency or addiction.

• Interventions – Not Only for Addiction
• Christian Intervention
• Early Intervention & Treatment
• Why There is Always Hope
• Preparation for Successful Interventions

The best way to fight drug abuse is to never let it grab a hold in the first place, and the best time to start drug abuse prevention is as soon as kids are old enough to listen and understand.