I want to open by saying I know that I have not written in the past few weeks, a combination of spending time with my family over the holidays and trying to stay warm in New Jersey. I will be back to blogging regularly and posting for you all to read. I am proud to say that at the time I am writing this, we have ten patients in our freshly opened New Jersey facility.
The reason I came about my topic for this week is that on my flight back from New Jersey the other day, I read a disturbing article in USA Today. The article dealt with the issue of college drug use and binge drinking being on the rise. Some interesting studies were provided by the National Center on Addiction Substance Abuse. Some of the facts that alarmed me were that 23% of students meet the medical definition for alcohol or drug abuse dependence, which seemed to me astonishingly high. Another was that 43% of all students report drinking in a high risk manner at some points in their college career.
I have a daughter who is a college student and have talked with her and her friends about the topic before. These are people who do not drink or take drugs, but all of them have mentioned dealing with a problem with another student who was abusing drugs or alcohol, or being at a party that got so out of hand that the police were called.
What I have learned about this from hearing what my own kid has to say about it is that it’s gotten worse as the years have passed, and the attitude towards drinking and drugs is a frightening thing. It is the mentality of being invincible, that she explained many of them have. That is what causes the trouble, the thought that no matter how far they go they will be fine, that it is just fun or “not a big deal.” Many of them just think that nothing bad will happen, that they could never become an alcoholic, that it just couldn’t happen to them. What I know to be true though, is that we don’t choose to become addicted.
I guess my opinion is that the key to helping people at this age prevent being in these scary and potentially dangerous situations is simple, talk to them. By having folks like myself on staff to be able to educate these people on the pitfalls of drugging and drinking. I honestly must say though, that more than anything I believe that the parental/family role in all of this is huge. Tell them about your experiences, the things that have happen to you.
It is not that I am saying we will ever stop this problem completely, but I am saying that I believe that it can be made better.
