Night of Conversation is perfect time to discuss addiction.
Pull up a chair, Mom and Dad. We’d like to give you some info about how to bring your kids to the table for this year’s Night of Conversation: Facing Addiction Over Dinner on Thursday. That’s when you can sit down together to talk about alcohol and drug abuse — and when you’ll discover the remarkable power of the family to help kids confront and deal with these tough subjects. Why should you do it? Because your support is essential for your kids to find the inner strength to resist life-damaging experimentation with addictive substances.
When families sit down together around a dinner table magic happens.
According to a Safeway Foundation report sponsored in part by the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse at Dr. Oz’s Columbia University, frequent family dining is associated with lower rates of teen smoking, drinking, illegal drug use and prescription drug abuse. Compared to teens who eat dinner frequently with their families (five or more family dinners per week), those who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) are:
Three and a half times likelier to have abused prescription drugs.
Three and a half times likelier to have used an illegal drug other than marijuana or prescription drugs.
Three times likelier to have used marijuana.
More than two and a half times likelier to have used tobacco.
One and a half times likelier to have used alcohol.
We can hear you saying: “Whew! Let’s have dinner together, and let’s start with the night of Nov. 15.”
But if you’re not saying that, listen up!
Alcohol is the most widely used and abused substance among youngsters. Among young adults, binge drinking in particular is linked to risky behaviors such as unprotected sex and smoking, injuries, motor vehicle accidents, impaired cognitive functioning, poor academic performance, physical violence and suicide attempts.
Opioid misuse among kids ages 15-19 is a problem: The rate of opioid-related overdose death tripled between 1999 and 2015, from 0.8 to 2.4 per 100,000.
And the Monitoring the Future Study asked more than 46,000 teens about their experience: 13 percent of eighth-graders, 30 percent of 10th-graders and 40 percent of 12th-graders said they used a drug at least once in the past year.
So, how do you pull off the Night of Conversation?
Let your kids know what you are planning; no “gotcha!” moments allowed. Tell them their voice is an important part of the conversation about avoiding alcohol and drug abuse. You want to hear what they have to say about what goes on around them — they don’t have to name names and can make up hypothetical situations — and what they are concerned with. Then just listen; don’t judge or scold or interrupt. This dinnertime conversation is a first step, and you want to keep the door open for future discussions.
Explore your options: The Partnership for Drug-Free Kids offers detailed descriptions of conversations you can have with kids from 2 to 25. (Google the phrase “Prevention tips for every age.”) And, yes, even at age 2, a conversation may be necessary if you have an addict in the family. Children need to sort out bewildering, scary and emotionally hurtful interactions with adults. And at 25, your son or daughter may find it hard to break out of harmful peer groups without help from you.
Download Dr. Oz’s Discussion Guide at https://s.doctoroz.com/ FAOD_NOC.pdf. It’s based on the former Surgeon Gen. Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report, Facing Addiction in America.
Also, explore Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration’s tools for talking about alcohol and download their app that lets you practice the conversation (www.samhsa.gov/underage-drinking/mobile-application).
If your child is experiencing problems with drugs or alcohol:
Call the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids Toll-Free Helpline at 855-DRUG-FREE.
To find a substance-abuse treatment center call SAMHSA’s Treatment Referral Line at 800662-HELP (4357).
Q: I know that air pollution and rising temperatures put us at a higher risk for asthma and heart disease, but is it true that there’s also a heightened risk for mental health problems? Jerome Q., Bronx, New York
A: Yes, rising temperatures and air pollution ramp up the risks to your mental health and well-being.
Physically, rising temps put you at greater risk for diseases transmitted by ticks and mosquitoes, respiratory problems, heart disease and stroke, Type 2 diabetes and bacterial infections from contaminated water. That’s a big dent in physical health and emotional well-being. But that’s not all.
The incidence of depression, anxiety and other mental health issues is increased by rising temperatures, according to a new study. Researchers at Arizona State University looked at daily meteorological data coupled with information from nearly 2 million Americans from 2002-2012, and found that living in hotter temperatures worsens mental health; multiyear warming and exposure to hurricanes (and overall increased precipitation) is also linked to worsening emotional well-being. In fact, warming of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit over five years is associated with a 2 percent increase in the prevalence of mental health issues. Hurricane Katrina, for example, was associated with a 4 percent increase in mental health problems. Women and low-income Americans are especially affected.
So how can you protect yourself and your family from the effects of something you can’t do anything about on a national level right now? Well, you can control much in your local environment, and you can protect your health by following these tips:
1. Get regular checkups. If you or your children develop shortness of breath (bad air will do that), it could be from asthma, which can be effectively treated if caught early. In adults, it also might signal cardiovascular disease, which can be controlled with early intervention.
2. Eat between seven and nine servings of fruits and vegetables daily, and say “no” to processed foods, added sugars and red meats. A healthy immune system, stress management and a nurtured gut biome help maintain a healthy body and mind.
3. Exercise regularly — 60 minutes most days. Getting your activity in a tree-filled park offers cleaner air and is naturally destressing. It’s ever more important, mentally and physically, to go to such places to get your 10,000 daily steps.
Q: My brother was on a waitlist for a liver transplant and was lucky to receive one. But the donor was an opioid overdose victim. He seems OK so far, but isn’t getting a liver from someone who overdosed a big risk? Scott M., Orlando, Florida
A: It may not be as risky as you think. Yes, there is a disease risk associated with this organ donation pool, but they are tested for HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases, and there’s some very reassuring new research on the safety of this.
Just recently, the medical director at the University of Utah Heart Transplant Program researched heart and lung transplantations and found that after one year (when complications are most likely to show up), there was no difference in the survival rates of people who received heart and lungs from cadavers of opioid overdose victims and those who received them from donors who died from blunt force trauma.
This bodes well for transplantation of other organs from people who have OD’d. When someone dies from an opioid overdose, the lungs and heart are the organs initially affected by the loss of oxygen. If they’re still healthy enough to be transplanted then, say the researchers, they expect that liver and kidney transplants from people who’ve OD’d also will be safe.
More than 13 percent of all organs transplanted in the U.S. now come from people who died of a drug overdose, up from about 1 percent in 2000. And there’s been a tenfold (some reports say twenty-fourfold) increase in available donor organs. That’s important news for the 11,000 people who die every year while waiting for an organ transplant.