|
||
Need Help? | Contact Us | Home |
About Us Addiction Information Services Prevention Programs Resources Advocacy Special Events Get Involved The Key Newsletter Employment/ Internships |
by Daniel K. Duncan, NCADA's Director of Community Services. A recent Post-Dispatch story carried the headline "Mom: Drunk, killer, victim." It told of a baby who died of alcohol poisoning late in the autumn of 2006, less than half an hour after she was born to a severely alcoholic mother. The story outlined a tragedy; its very title indicated the many dimensions inherent in situations in which alcohol and other kinds of drug abuse and addiction play a role. It is not necessary to defend or to condemn the young mother in the story in order to wonder whether anything might have prevented this tragedy. The truth, of course, is that tragedies involving substance abuse are daily occurrences. But although there probably is no way to eliminate them entirely, there is little doubt that we could minimize the number of such terrible incidents - if we really were willing to take on the issue. Instead, we seem to be mired in complacency when it comes to substance abuse. Aside from taking punitive, after-the-fact measures that largely are ineffective at solving underlying problems, relatively little else is being offered to address an issue that costs society hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives every year. Consider, for example, substance-abuse prevention. Attempts to prevent alcohol and drug abuse began in earnest only about 25 years ago. In that quarter-century, we have learned a great deal about which techniques work and which ones don't, but lack of funding and apathy have left our efforts stagnating. Yes, we continue to support the DARE program - Drug Abuse Resistance Education - and yes, we continue to provide a limited, shotgun approach to prevention programs in some schools for some kids. But from a broader perspective, what we're doing collectively amounts to precious little. We know, for example, that teaching children a wide variety of coping skills - including how to recognize and resist peer pressure - reduces substance abuse, as well as other high-risk behaviors. So why haven't we insisted that these elements be added to our traditional education programs? Is it a matter of funding? Is it uncertainty about whether this should be the responsibility of parents or schools? Probably both. Yet prevention is nothing if not cost-effective, and the most effective learning occurs when parents and schools are working in concert. Likewise, we've seen advances in treatments for addiction, particularly in our understanding of how mood-altering drugs affect the brain during the formative years to create a chronic disease we call addiction. We understand better than ever that such illnesses have wide-ranging biological, psychological and social effects. Multi-disciplinary treatments that recognize and draw upon all these areas and the spiritual dimension, along with therapies and medication, will be more successful, especially with early intervention. Unfortunately, the insurance industry's managed-care approach to mental health - which specializes in denying or limiting care in all but the most advanced cases of illness, and even then, coverage is fraught with barriers Families don't have to be torn apart by tragedy, and babies don't have to die. But these things will continue to happen until people demand change and our medical community, elected officials and insurance industry pay attention to scientific advances and respond accordingly. |
||