Alcohol Awareness Month Published April 23, 2008 By 375th Medical Operations Squadron SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- More and more deaths and disabilities each year in the United States are from substance abuse. Roughly 18 million of these Americans have alcohol problems. More than half of all adults have a family history of alcoholism, and more than 9 million children live with a parent dependent on alcohol and/or illicit drugs. What does all this mean? The cost and consequences of alcoholism and drug dependence place an enormous burden on American society. Alcoholism is the nation's number one health problem that harms family life and threatens public safety. April is Alcohol Awareness Month and research shows that successful prevention and treatment can lead to reductions in traffic fatalities, crime, unwanted pregnancy, child abuse, HIV, cancer and heart disease. Alcoholism is a disease that not only affects the behavioral and physical health of the person drinking but the family as well. Alcohol continues to be the initial drug of choice for adolescents. Significant decline in tobacco use has been shown, yet underage drinking remains at consistently high levels. It has also been discovered that young people who start drinking before the age of 15 are five times more likely to have alcohol problems later in life than those who begin drinking at age 21 or older. In collaboration with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the Surgeon General identifies six goals for the nation to reduce the number of underage drinkers. Those goals are: GOAL 1: Foster changes in American society that facilitate healthy adolescent development and that help prevent and reduce underage drinking. GOAL 2: Engage parents, schools, communities, all levels of government, all social systems that interface with youth, and youth themselves, in a coordinated national effort to prevent and reduce drinking and its consequences. GOAL 3: Promote an understanding of underage alcohol consumption in the context of human development and maturation that takes into account individual adolescent characteristics as well as environmental, ethnic, cultural and gender differences. GOAL 4: Conduct additional research on adolescent alcohol use and its relationship to development. GOAL 5: Work to improve public health surveillance on underage drinking and on population-based risk factors for this behavior. GOAL 6: Work to ensure that policies at all levels are consistent with the national goal of preventing and reducing underage alcohol consumption. The key to successful and effective prevention is knowledge. Protecting adolescents from alcohol use requires an approach that is initiated before puberty and continues throughout adolescent years with support from schools, families, communities, the health care system and the government. Underage alcohol use is not inevitable, and parents and society are not helpless to prevent it. Parents with drinking problems in the home should arrange for a health care visit with their primary care managers. Fore more information, contact the Alcohol and Drug Treatment and Prevention Program at 256-7080. Some information adapted from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence and the Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking 2007.