The Relationship Between Parent and Student Religious Coping and College Alcohol Use

The present study examined social support and alcohol norms as mediators of the relationship between religious coping and college drinking (e.g., frequency and heavy drinking).

The sample consisted of college students (n = 129) and their parents (n = 113). Religious coping (parent and student) was associated with less frequent alcohol use and less heavy drinking. Using a path model to test direct and indirect effects, the mediators were entered simultaneously and allowed to correlate with each other.

 Alcohol norms mediated the relationship between religious coping and drinking outcomes. Social support was not a significant mediator. Broader protective implications of religious coping are discussed.

           

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Request Reprint E-Mail:  harrellz@msu.edu

What is the burden of alcohol-related injuries in an inner city emergency department?

The annual cost to the NHS of alcohol-related injury and illness is estimated to be £2.7 billion. Alcohol-related violence has become a concerning public health issue. This study set out to establish the burden of alcohol-related violence in an inner city UK emergency department (ED). 
                               

This single centre study was undertaken in the ED of the Bristol Royal Infirmary. This department serves an inner city population. An independent researcher administered a questionnaire to every patient who attended during the study period. A questionnaire was also administered to the treating clinician to ascertain the diagnosis, and whether the patient's attendance was related to alcohol use.

 

14% (n=111) of participants felt that their attendance at the ED was related to alcohol. 11% of all injured patients felt it was due to alcohol consumption. 3% of patients attended with an alcohol-related illness. The treating clinicians reported that 21% of all patients in this study attended with a problem either directly or indirectly attributable to alcohol. 

                               

The number of attendances attributable to alcohol-related injury and illness was at least 14% of all patients. One third of patients presenting with an alcohol-related illness or injury required admission to hospital. If these figures are extrapolated, the number of patients presenting with alcohol-related injury is in excess of 7000 attendances to the Bristol Royal Infirmary annually, or nearly 2 million ED patients every year in England and Wales, resulting in 640 000 admissions.

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Request Reprint E-Mail:    rebecca.hoskins@uhbristol.nhs.uk

News Release - Unhealthy drinking widespread around the world, CAMH study shows

 

A new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that alcohol is now the third leading cause of the global burden of disease and injury, despite the fact most adults worldwide abstain from drinking.

 

This research, part of the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study, was published in this month’s issue of the journal Addiction. It also found that Canadians drink more than 50 per cent above the global average.

 

“Alcohol consumption has been found to cause more than 200 different diseases and injuries,” said Kevin Shield, the lead author of the study. “These include not only well-known outcomes of drinking such as liver cirrhosis or traffic accidents, but also several types of cancer, such as female breast cancer.”

The study reports the amount and patterns of alcohol consumption by country for 2005, and calculates estimates for these figures for 2010. It reveals vast differences by geographical region in the numbers of people who consume alcohol, the amount they drink, and general patterns of drinking. Some other findings:

• Drinkers in Europe and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa are the world’s heaviest consumers of alcohol, on average.
• People in Eastern Europe and Southern Sub-Saharan Africa consumed alcohol in the unhealthiest manner, as they frequently consumed large quantities, drank to intoxication, engaged in prolonged binges, and consumed alcohol mainly outside of meals.
• People in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia consumed the least amount of alcohol.
• North Americans in general, and Canadians in particular drink more than 50 per cent above the global average, and show a more detrimental drinking pattern than most EU countries, with more bingeing. > > > >  Read More

Longitudinal associations between attitudes towards binge drinking and alcohol-free drinks, and binge drinking behavior in adolescence

Alcohol attitudes are often considered an important predecessor of drinking behavior, although the literature is equivocal. Lately, attention has turned to enhancing positive cognitions on alcoholic-free drinks to discourage heavy drinking. 

The current study was the first to longitudinally examine associations between attitudes towards binge drinking and alcohol-free drinks and binge drinking behavior in a cross-lagged path model in Mplus. 

Participants were 293 adolescents (131 boys, M_age = 16.1 years) who filled in two online questionnaires with a six-month interval. Binge drinking behavior and attitudes towards binge drinking and alcohol-free drinks were all significantly correlated at both waves. The multivariate model, however, showed that only higher levels of binge drinking at T1 were prospectively related to more positive binge drinking attitudes at T2, and not vice versa. Analyses were controlled for sex, educational level, and age. 

Findings discard the Theory of Planned Behavior, but rather seem consistent with the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, i.e., adolescents may adapt their cognitions to their behavior. 

More longitudinal research with several time points and over a longer period of time is needed to further examine the development of attitudes and drinking behavior.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:  m.kleinjan@pwo.ru.nl

Alcohol- or drug-use disorders and motor vehicle accident mortality: A retrospective cohort study

 

A large body of research has linked alcohol consumption and motor vehicle accidents (MVAs), but far fewer studies have estimated the risk of MVA fatality among drug users.

Our study addresses this gap. We identified cohorts of individuals hospitalized in California from 1990 to 2005 with ICD-9 diagnoses of methamphetamine- (n = 74,170), alcohol- (n = 592,406), opioids- (n = 68,066), cannabis- (n = 47,048), cocaine- (n = 48,949), or polydrug-related disorders (n = 411,175), and these groups were followed for up to 16 years. Age-, sex-, and race-adjusted standardized mortality rates (SMRs) for deaths due to MVAs were generated in relation to the California general population.

Standardized MVA mortality ratios were elevated across all drug cohorts: alcohol (4.5, 95% CI, 4.1–4.9), cocaine (3.8, 95% CI, 2.3–5.3), opioids (2.8, 95% CI, 2.1–3.5), methamphetamine (2.6, 95% CI, 2–3.1), cannabis (2.3, 95% CI, 1.5–3.2) and polydrug (2.6, 95% CI, 2.4–2.9).

Males and females had similar MVA SMRs.

Our large, population-based study found elevated risk of MVA mortality across all cohorts of individuals with alcohol- or drug-use disorders.

Given that illicit drug users are often unaware of or misperceive the impacts of drug use on safe driving, it may be important for health-service or public-health interventions to address such biases and improve road safety


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Request Reprint E-Mail:    Russ.Callaghan@UNBC.ca

Effects of admission and treatment strategies of DWI courts on offender outcomes

 

The purpose of this study is to classify DWI courts on the basis of the mix of difficult cases participating in the court (casemix severity) and the amount of involvement between the court and participant (service intensity). Using our classification typology, we assessed how casemix severity and service intensity are  associated with program outcomes. We expected that holding other factors constant, greater service intensity would improve program outcomes while a relatively severe casemix would result in worse program outcomes.

The study used data from 8 DWI courts, 7 from Michigan and 1 from North Carolina. Using a 2-way classification system based on court casemix severity and program intensity, we selected participants in 1 of the courts, and alternatively 2 courts as reference groups. Reference group courts had relatively severe casemixes and high service intensity. We used propensity score matching to match participants in the other courts to participants in the reference group court programs. Program outcome measures were the probabilities of participants’: failing to complete the court's program; increasing educational attainment; participants improving employment from time of program enrollment; and re-arrest.

For most outcomes, our main finding was that higher service intensity is associated with better outcomes for court participants, as anticipated, but a court's casemix severity was unrelated to study outcomes.

Our results imply that devoting more resources to increasing duration of treatment is productive in terms of better outcomes, irrespective of the mix of participants in the court's program.

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Request Reprnt E-Mail:  fsloan@duke.edu

Validation of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire (DMQ) in older adults

 

Drinking motives have been established as an important construct in the prediction of alcohol use and drinking problems among younger adults, but there is little understanding about the drinking motivations of older adults. Although emerging evidence shows the importance of studying older adults' own reasoning for their alcohol consumption, measures that have been used to assess such reasons lack psychometric assessment.

This study aims to validate the three-dimensional structure of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire (DMQ) in older adults and to investigate the relationships between drinking motives and alcohol use.

A sample of community dwelling older adults (N = 370) completed self-report measures assessing drinking behavior and motives for drinking. Using confirmatory factor analysis, the results supported a three-factor model of drinking motives. Multi-group analysis of invariance showed support for configural and metric invariance, and partial support was met for scalar invariance.

Social motivations for drinking were the most frequently endorsed, followed by enhancement, and coping motives. Males reported more frequent drinking for each of the three motives. Social motives were consistently related to drinking behaviors and coping had a direct relationship to drinking problems.

Overall, the study shows that the DMQ has promise as a measure for use with older adults.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:  kim.gilson@gmail.com

Global alcohol exposure estimates by country, territory and region for 2005—a contribution to the Comparative Risk Assessment for the 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study

This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of life-time abstainers, former drinkers and current drinkers, adult per-capita consumption of alcohol and pattern of drinking scores, by country and Global Burden of Disease region for 2005, and to forecast these indicators for 2010.

Statistical modelling based on survey data and routine statistics.

A total of 241 countries and territories.

Per-capita consumption data were obtained with the help of the World Health Organization's Global Information System on Alcohol and Health. Drinking status data were obtained from Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study, the STEPwise approach to Surveillance study, the World Health Survey/Multi-Country Study and other surveys. Consumption and drinking status data were triangulated to estimate alcohol consumption across multiple categories.

In 2005 adult per-capita annual consumption of alcohol was 6.1 litres, with 1.7 litres stemming from unrecorded consumption; 17.1 litres of alcohol were consumed per drinker, 45.8% of all adults were life-time abstainers, 13.6% were former drinkers and 40.6% were current drinkers. Life-time abstention was most prevalent in North Africa/Middle East and South Asia. Eastern Europe and Southern sub-Saharan Africa had the most detrimental pattern of drinking scores, while drinkers in Europe (Eastern and Central) and sub-Saharan Africa (Southern and West) consumed the most alcohol.

Just over 40% of the world's adult population consumes alcohol and the average consumption per drinker is 17.1 litres per year. However, the prevalence of abstention, level of alcohol consumption and patterns of drinking vary widely across regions of the world.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:    Kevin.Shield@utoronto.ca

Depressive symptoms are a vulnerability factor for heavy episodic drinking: A short-term, four-wave longitudinal study of undergraduate women

Heavy episodic drinking is increasingly common among undergraduate women. Cross-sectional research suggests that depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking are related. Nonetheless, surprisingly little is known about whether depressive symptoms are an antecedent of heavy episodic drinking, a consequence of heavy episodic drinking, or both. Such knowledge is essential to the accurate conceptualization of heavy episodic drinking, depressive symptoms, and their interrelations. 

In the present short-term longitudinal study, depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking were proposed to reciprocally influence each other over time, with depressive symptoms predicting changes in heavy episodic drinking over 1 week and vice versa. This reciprocal relations model was tested in 200 undergraduate women using a 4-wave, 4-week longitudinal design. Structural equation modeling was used to conduct cross-lagged analyses testing reciprocal relations between depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking.

Consistent with hypotheses, both depressive symptoms and heavy episodic drinking were temporally stable, and depressive symptoms predicted changes in heavy episodic drinking over 1 week.

Contrary to hypotheses, heavy episodic drinking did not predict changes in depressive symptoms over 1 week. 

Results are consistent with a vulnerability model suggesting depressive symptoms leave undergraduate women vulnerable to heavy episodic drinking. For undergraduate women who are struggling with feelings of sadness, worthlessness, and hopelessness, heavy episodic drinking may provide a temporary yet maladaptive means of avoiding or alleviating depressive symptoms.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:      sherry.stewart@dal.ca    

NKAIN1–SERINC2 is a functional, replicable and genome-wide significant risk gene region specific for alcohol dependence in subjects of European descent

We aimed to identify novel, functional, replicable and genome-wide significant risk regions specific for alcohol dependence using genome-wide association studies (GWASs).

A discovery sample (1409 European-American cases with alcohol dependence and 1518 European-American controls) and a replication sample (6438 European-Australian family subjects with 1645 alcohol dependent probands) underwent association analysis. Nineteen other cohorts with 11 different neuropsychiatric disorders served as contrast groups. Additional eight samples underwent expression quantitative locus (eQTL) analysis.

A genome-wide significant risk gene region (NKAIN1–SERINC2) was identified in a meta-analysis of the discovery and replication samples. This region was enriched with 74 risk SNPs (unimputed); half of them had significant cis-acting regulatory effects. The distributions of −log(p) values for the SNP-disease associations or SNP-expression associations in this region were consistent throughout eight independent samples. Furthermore, imputing across the NKAIN1–SERINC2 region, we found that among all 795 SNPs in the discovery sample, 471 SNPs were nominally associated with alcohol dependence (1.7 × 10⁻⁷ ≤ p ≤ 0.047); 53 survived region- and cohort-wide correction for multiple testing; 92 SNPs were replicated in the replication sample (0.002 ≤ p ≤ 0.050). This region was neither significantly associated with alcohol dependence in African-Americans, nor with other non-alcoholism diseases. Finally, transcript expression of genes in NKAIN1–SERINC2 was significantly (p < 3.4 × 10⁻⁷) associated with expression of numerous genes in the neurotransmitter systems or metabolic pathways previously associated with alcohol dependence.

NKAIN1–SERINC2 may harbor a causal variant(s) for alcohol dependence. It may contribute to the disease risk by way of neurotransmitter systems or metabolic pathways.

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Request Reprint E-Mail:  Lingjun.Zuo@yale.edu

Prevalence and Patterns of Polysubstance Use in a Nationally Representative Sample of 10th Graders in the United States

The current study examines the prevalence and demographic correlates of self-reported substance use and identifies subgroups of polysubstance users among a cohort of United States 10th-grade students.

A nationally representative school-based cohort of United States 10th-grade students completed the NEXT Generation Health Study baseline survey in spring 2010 (N = 2,524).

Past-year use of marijuana was most common among illicit drugs (26%), followed by misuse of medication (9%) and use of other illicit drugs (8%). During the past month, alcohol use was reported by more than one third (35%), binge drinking by 27%, and cigarette smoking by 19%. Results further show that substance use varied somewhat by demographic characteristics. Results from the latent class analysis of polysubstance use indicated a four-class solution as the best-fitting model; class 1 (59%) included the nonuser group; class 2 (23%) comprised the predominant alcohol user group; class 3 (11%) formed the predominant marijuana user group; and class 4 (8%) was characterized as the predominant polysubstance user group. Somatic and depressive symptoms varied significantly by class membership, with predominant polysubstance users reporting elevated levels of somatic and depressive symptoms.

The findings from this national study of 10th-grade students indicate high rates of substance and polysubstance use. The high level of depressive and somatic symptoms among polysubstance users indicates the need for mental health screening and referral.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:   kconway@nida.nih.gov

Ethanol and dietary unsaturated fat (corn oil/linoleic acid enriched) cause intestinal inflammation and impaired intestinal barrier defense in mice chronically fed alcohol

Alcohol and dietary fat both play an important role in alcohol-mediated multi-organ pathology, including gut and liver. In the present study we hypothesized that the combination of alcohol and dietary unsaturated fat (USF) would result in intestinal inflammatory stress and mucus layer alterations, thus contributing to disruption of intestinal barrier integrity. 

C57BL/6N mice were fed Lieber-DeCarli liquid diets containing EtOH and enriched in USF (corn oil/linoleic acid) or SF (medium chain triglycerides: beef tallow) for 8 weeks. Intestinal histology, morphometry, markers of inflammation, as well as levels of mucus protective factors were evaluated. 

Alcohol and dietary USF triggered an intestinal pro-inflammatory response, characterized by increase in Tnf-α, MCP1, and MPO activity. Further, alcohol and dietary USF, but not SF, resulted in alterations of the intestinal mucus layer, characterized by decreased expression of Muc2 in the ileum. 

A strong correlation was observed between down-regulation of the antimicrobial factor Cramp and increased Tnf-α mRNA. Therefore, dietary unsaturated fat (corn oil/LA enriched) is a significant contributing factor to EtOH-mediated intestinal inflammatory response and mucus layer alterations in rodents.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:  I0kirp01@louisville.edu

Evaluating the Effects of the Introduction of Off-Sale Alcohol Outlets on Violent Crime

To examine the effects on violence of a policy change that ended prohibition of off-sale alcohol outlets in Lubbock, Texas. \

Time-series analysis of violent crime data from police records comparing the periods before and after the policy change. 

The effect of the policy change on both total violent crime and aggregated assault was small and did not approach statistical significance. 

Increased availability of alcohol through off-sale premises may not influence the type of violence reported to the police in Lubbock, Texas.                


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Request Reprint E-Mail:  gorman@srph.tamhsc.edu

Mouse model of chronic and binge ethanol feeding (the NIAAA model)

Chronic alcohol consumption is a leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide, leading to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently, the most widely used model for alcoholic liver injury is ad libitum feeding with the Lieber-DeCarli liquid diet containing ethanol for 4–6 weeks; however, this model, without the addition of a secondary insult, only induces mild steatosis, slight elevation of serum alanine transaminase (ALT) and little or no inflammation.

Here we describe a simple mouse model of alcoholic liver injury by chronic ethanol feeding (10-d ad libitum oral feeding with the Lieber-DeCarli ethanol liquid diet) plus a single binge ethanol feeding. 

This protocol for chronic-plus-single-binge ethanol feeding synergistically induces liver injury, inflammation and fatty liver, which mimics acute-on-chronic alcoholic liver injury in patients. This feeding protocol can also be extended to chronic feeding for longer periods of time up to 8 weeks plus single or multiple binges. 

Chronic-binge ethanol feeding leads to high blood alcohol levels; thus, this simple model will be very useful for the study of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and of other organs damaged by alcohol consumption.


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Use of record-linkage to handle non-response and improve alcohol consumption estimates in health survey data: a study protocol

Reliable estimates of health-related behaviours, such as levels of alcohol consumption in the population, are required to formulate and evaluate policies. National surveys provide such data; validity depends on generalisability, but this is threatened by declining response levels. Attempts to address bias arising from non-response are typically limited to survey weights based on sociodemographic characteristics, which do not capture differential health and related behaviours within categories. This project aims to explore and address non-response bias in health surveys with a focus on alcohol consumption.

 

The Scottish Health Surveys (SHeS) aim to provide estimates representative of the Scottish population living in private households. Survey data of consenting participants (92% of the achieved sample) have been record-linked to routine hospital admission (Scottish Morbidity Records (SMR)) and mortality (from National Records of Scotland (NRS)) data for surveys conducted in 1995, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2009 and 2010 (total adult sample size around 40 000), with maximum follow-up of 16 years. Also available are census information and SMR/NRS data for the general population. Comparisons of alcohol-related mortality and hospital admission rates in the linked SHeS-SMR/NRS with those in the general population will be made. Survey data will be augmented by quantification of differences to refine alcohol consumption estimates through the application of multiple imputation or inverse probability weighting. The resulting corrected estimates of population alcohol consumption will enable superior policy evaluation. An advanced weighting procedure will be developed for wider use.

Ethics approval for SHeS has been given by the National Health Service (NHS) Multi-Centre Research Ethics Committee and use of linked data has been approved by the Privacy Advisory Committee to the Board of NHS National Services Scotland and Registrar General. Funding has been granted by the MRC. The outputs will include four or five public health and statistical methodological international journal and conference paper.

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MeCP2 regulates ethanol sensitivity and intake

We have investigated the expression of chromatin-regulating genes in the prefrontal cortex and in the shell subdivision of the nucleus accumbens during protracted withdrawal in mice with increased ethanol drinking after chronic intermittent ethanol (CIE) vapor exposure and in mice with a history of non-dependent drinking. 

We observed that the methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (MeCP2) was one of the few chromatin-regulating genes to be differentially regulated by a history of dependence. As MeCP2 has the potential of acting as a broad gene regulator, we investigated sensitivity to ethanol and ethanol drinking in MeCP2^308/Y mice, which harbor a truncated MeCP2 allele but have a milder phenotype than MeCP2 null mice. 

We observed that MeCP2^308/Y mice were more sensitive to ethanol's stimulatory and sedative effects than wild-type (WT) mice, drank less ethanol in a limited access 2 bottle choice paradigm and did not show increased drinking after induction of dependence with exposure to CIE vapors.

Alcohol metabolism did not differ in MeCP2^308/Y and WT mice. Additionally, MeCP2^308/Y mice did not differ from WT mice in ethanol preference in a 24-hour paradigm nor in their intake of graded solutions of saccharin or quinine, suggesting that the MeCP2^308/Y mutation did not alter taste function. 

Lastly, using the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis algorithm, we found a significant overlap in the genes regulated by alcohol and by MeCP2. Together, these results suggest that MeCP2 contributes to the regulation of ethanol sensitivity and drinking.


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Request Reprint E-Mail:   psanna@scripps.edu

Alcohol News - 9/2013

Reuters (Sweden) - In globalizing Sweden, state still big brother over drinking

Few CEOS would welcome news of a fall in sales. But Magdalena Gerger, head of Sweden's retail alcohol monopoly that is one of the world's biggest single buyers of wine, is one of them.

Read more

Iceland Review (Iceland) - Alcohol Sales up for First Time Since Crash

Alcohol sales in 2012 at Iceland’s state-owned liquor store Vínbúðin are up for the first time since the economic crisis in 2008. Sales, which totaled 18.5 million liters, increased by 0.54 percent compared to 2011 but were still 9 percent lower than in 2008.

Read more

YLE Uutiset (Finland) - EU approves Finnish drug aimed at curtailing alcohol abuse

The European Commission has given the green light for the sale of a medication intended to quench the urge for alcoholics to drink. The drug, Selincro, is produced by the Turku-based Biotie Therapies and marketed by the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck.

Read more

VTI (Sweden) - Joint action against alcohol and drugs in traffic (SMADIT) – An interview study with suspected drunk drivers

SMADIT, Joint action against alcohol and drugs in traffic, is a method that is intended to reduce the number of repeated drunk driving offences.

Read more

Addiction - Alcohol—a universal preventive agent? A critical analysis

In observational studies, moderate drinking is associated with a reduced risk of more than twenty different diseases and health problems. However, it would be premature to conclude that there is a causal relationship.

Read more

The Conversation (Australia) - My drinking, your problem: alcohol hurts non-drinkers too

Drinking a lot of alcohol is bad for the drinker’s health, both in the short and in the long run. But drinking often affects others adversely, too. This is well recognised for drink driving, and once the size of the problem was established, policies were put in place that successfully drove down rates of drink-driving deaths and injuries.

Read more

Science Omega (UK) - Children in UK are more exposed to alcohol promotion than adults

Experts are calling for a complete ban on alcohol-related advertising and sponsorship in the United Kingdom after a study revealed that British children are more exposed to promotional campaigns than their parents.

Read more

Daily Mail - The truth behind 'beer goggles' - scientists claim our sexual desire is simply the last part of the brain to be hit by alcohol

It has always been said a few stiff drinks make the plainest face more inviting - but ‘beer goggles’ do not make us think people are more attractive than they are, experts have claimed.

Read more

Go Jamaica (Bermuda) - Bermuda children experimenting with alcohol and drugs – survey

A new survey has found that children as young as seven have experimented with drugs and alcohol in Bermuda.

Read more

The Herald (Canada) - Unhealthy drinking widespread around the world, CAMH study shows

A new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that alcohol is now the third leading cause of the global burden of disease and injury, despite the fact most adults worldwide abstain from drinking.

Read more

CBS News (UK) - Study shows Brits underreport alcohol consumption by up to 60 percent

A British survey showed that the average man and woman underreported their weekly drinking consumption by as much as 60 percent.

Read more

Times of India (India) - 'Depressed youths often surrender to drugs, alcohol'

In the next two years, Bangalore will become the suicide capital of India, said Dr Ashok Pai, psychiatrist and director of Manasa Foundation (Shimoga).

Read more

Reuters - Alcohol counseling may aid domestic abuse therapy

For heavy drinkers in treatment for domestic violence problems, an extra therapy session targeting alcohol abuse may help to speed overall improvement in violent behavior, according to a new study.

Read more

Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) - Hospital slams AHA for 'denial' of alcohol problems

A BIG Sydney hospital has accused the Australian Hotels Association of misleading the public and mocking emergency staff by persistently denying the severity of alcohol-fuelled violence.

Read more

WFAA - 'It's a poison': Trend of inhaling alcohol vapors alarms doctors

Instead of doing shots for a quick buzz, people are inhaling their liquor to get high while also curbing their calorie intake.

Read more

The Age (Australia/UK) - Australian experts back British call for ad ban to curb alcohol harm

A complete ban on all alcohol advertising and sponsorship, a minimum price of 75¢ per unit of alcohol, requiring one-third of each alcohol label to be given to health warnings, and increasing taxes are some of the recommendations from the report, ''Health First: an evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK''.

Read more

Times-Standard - Mothers' alcohol use linked to infant deaths

About one in six sudden infant deaths may be linked to their mothers' heavy alcohol use during or soon after pregnancy, according to a new study from Australia.

Read more

Herald Scotland (Scotland) - Demand for more radical action on cheap alcohol

THE Scottish Government has been urged to go further in its crackdown on cheap alcohol, by a group of health organisations demanding a radical strategy from Westminster and all the devolved administrations.

Read more

Irish Times (Ireland) - Minister warns over alcohol abuse

Minister of State for Health Alex White has said changes are required at community level if Ireland is to tackle alcohol abuse.

Read more

BBC News (UK) - Alcohol abuse's hidden world

The answer, on one level, is simple - you get drunk. But the science reveals a complicated series of reactions that lie behind drinking - between chemicals and neurons, genes and environment, people and society.

Read more

TheParliament.com (EU) - New report calls for 'positive' message on alcohol use

A new report has called for a radical shake up in alcohol advertising to combat a 'rising' number of underage drinkers. The report, published on Monday, questions the effectiveness of "focusing" on "negative" messages in prevention programmes.

Read more

Vancouver Sun (Canada) - Worldwide cost of drinking alcohol during pregnancy could be far higher than expected

The true number of children exposed to alcohol before birth is so poorly understood that the World Health Organization has launched an international study to count them.

Read more

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2009 Discharges from Substance Abuse Treatment Services

This report presents results from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for discharges aged 12 and older from substance abuse treatment in 2009.

The report provides information on treatment completion, length of stay in treatment, and demographic and substance abuse characteristics of discharges from alcohol or drug treatment in facilities that reported to individual State administrative data systems.

Data are presented for specific service types rather than for treatment episodes, which can involve treatment in multiple service types.


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Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) 2000 - 2010

This report presents national-level data from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) for admissions in 2010 and trend data for 2000 to 2010. The report provides information on the demographic and substance abuse characteristics of admissions to treatment aged 12 and older for abuse of alcohol and/or drugs in facilities that report to individual State administrative data systems.

For 2010, 1,820,737 substance abuse treatment admissions aged 12 and older were reported to TEDS by 48 States and Puerto Rico. (Georgia, Mississippi, and the District of Columbia had submitted no data or incomplete data for 2010 by October 10, 2011, and are excluded from this report.)

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Impact of system-level changes and training on alcohol screening and brief intervention in a family medicine residency clinic: a pilot study

Although screening and brief intervention (SBI) are effective in reducing unhealthy alcohol use, major challenges exist in implementing clinician-delivered SBI in primary care settings. This 2006--2007 pilot study describes the impact of systems changes and booster trainings designed to increase SBI rates in a family medicine residency clinic which annually screened adults with a self-administered AUDIT-C questionnaire and used paper prompts to encourage physician interventions for patients with positive scree

Investigators added the Single Alcohol Screening Question (SASQ) to nursing vital signs forms, added a checkbox for documenting brief interventions to the clinicians' outpatient encounter form, and conducted one-hour nurse and clinician booster trainings. Impact was measured using chart reviews conducted before implementing systems changes, then six weeks and six months post

Results: At all three time points screening rates using AUDIT-C plus SASQ exceeded 90%, however AUDIT-C screening decreased to 85% after 6 months (p=.025). Identification of unhealthy alcohol users increased from 4% to 22.9% at six weeks and 18.8% at six months (p=.002) using both screens. Nursing vital signs screening using the SASQ reached 71.4% six weeks after implementation but decreased to 45.5% at six months. Changes in clinician brief intervention rates did not achieve statistical significance.

This is the second study reporting sustained primary care alcohol screening rates of more than 90%. Screening patients with SASQ and/or AUDIT-C identified a higher percentage of patients with unhealthy alcohol use. Dissemination of effective strategies for identifying unhealthy alcohol users should continue, while future research should focus on identifying more effective strategies for increasing intervention rates.

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Technical Assistance (TA) Impact Fact Sheets

The FASD Center for Excellence is proud to announce the release of the first Fact Sheet in a new series of Technical Assistance (TA) Impact Fact Sheets designed to help State agencies and direct service programs enhance their capacity to prevent and address FASD.

The Preventing and Addressing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) in Your State Fact Sheet provides basic steps for developing State-level capacity to address FASD.

This free, downloadable document compiles key lessons learned from actual programs and States nationwide that have successfully expanded and sustained their ability to address FASD. Their input was essential to ensure that the Impact series reflects the real issues, challenges, and benefits of this process.

To access this TA Impact Fact Sheet, visit our "Fact Sheets and Brochures" page or our "Training, TA, and Conference/Event Speaking" page.

Alcohol abuse's hidden world

What happens when you drink alcohol?

The answer, on one level, is simple - you get drunk. But the science reveals a complicated series of reactions that lie behind drinking - between chemicals and neurons, genes and environment, people and society. Understanding these factors is important. Alcohol is implicated in 47% of violent crime in the UK and is estimated to cost the economy some £21bn a year.

The Today programme asked Sally Marlow, a researcher in alcohol addiction at King's College London, to look at the challenge of tackling alcohol abuse - and how it can best be understood - she's spent time in the north east of England.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Friday 1 March 2013.

A Behavioral Genetic Investigation of Weekend Drinking Among an Adult Sample

This study examined common and unique genetic and environmental influences on weekend drinking and weekday drinking reported by US male and female adult participants (mean age = 43.9). 

Data from 96 monozygotic and 82 dizygotic twin pairs were used to estimate bivariate biometric models of daily levels of weekend and weekday drinking volume. Weekend and weekday drinking volume scores were calculated from end-of-day reports of drinking across eight days. 

As expected, more drinking occurred during weekends. Biometric models provided evidence of significant additive genetic and nonshared environmental influences on both weekend and weekday drinking. Shared environmental influences were nonsignificant. Genetic influences accounted for a greater proportion of drinking variance during weekdays than weekends (0.36 compared to 0.17). 

However, these apparent differences in heritability—proportion of total variance accounted for by genetic variance—were due to increased nonshared environmental influences on weekend days, rather than greater genetic influences. 

The study's limitations are noted.

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Experts Call for UK Wide Tough Action on Alcohol Pricing

More than 70 health organisations (PDF) from across the UK have backed a new independent alcohol strategy calling for the UK Government to prioritise Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP), amongst a set of key policies aimed at curbing the nation's drink problem.

Published today by the University of Stirling the report, Health First: An evidence-based alcohol strategy for the UK (PDF) sets out for the first time a series of no-nonsense recommendations to tackle the harm caused by excess drinking across the UK.

The strategy was developed by a group of experts independent from government and the alcohol industry under the auspices of the Alcohol Health Alliance. There was unanimous agreement from the 70 organisations that a 50p minimum price per unit of alcohol sold should be the priority.

The group urges the UK government to adopt the measure to avoid England, Northern Ireland and Wales being left behind Scotland, which has already passed legislation for a minimum unit price of 50p per unit.   > > > >  Read More