Wisconsin proposes creating the next generation of damaged adults because profit trumps health

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R - Burlington), became the voice of reason by not throwing in with special interests' Nov. 8 attempt to lower Wisconsin's drinking age, effectively killing the proposal's future. (JournalSentinel article.) Alcohol is a toxin and known carcinogen. Instead of encouraging more people to drink by lowering the drinking age to 19, Wisconsin might want to focus on educating more kids about this drug.

The suggestions by the bill's sponsors that lowering the age to legally use this drug will save money is nearly as absurd as the concept that drinking a toxin 'in moderation' somehow has health benefits. At legal age 21, alcohol use – all alcohol use, not just drinking and driving or the disease of alcoholism – costs the economy $250 billion a year, mostly in lost productivity. That's enough to buy every man, woman, and child in the U.S. a 55-inch, HDTV for Christmas… every year. Increasing the number of legal drinkers is going to reduce the cost? A fine piece of fiction.

Of greater importance is the health impact. Increasing the drinking age was never about highway money or reducing drinking and driving, although they are lovely benefits. There are health consequences for developing brains. Cognitive damage in a developing brain lasts well past the hangover. Drinking in any amount reduces brain myelin, impairs cognitive and behavior control, and physically alter brain structure. This. Toxin. Changes. DNA. Lowering the drinking age will ultimately lead to impairments in brain function in adulthood. Since the brain's frontal lobes develop into the mid-20's, if we want to reduce social costs associated with drinking, raising the age of legal use would be more practical.

Brain damage is so significant it overshadows the cancer risk of a known carcinogen. The concern is especially acute for women drinkers of the only dietary link to an increased risk of breast cancer. The younger a woman starts, the higher the risk. Breast tissue is developing at age 21... again a case for increasing the drinking age rather than lowering it.

The public and political appetite (FYI: Beverage alcohol is among the top-spenders in elections) for raising the drinking age isn't there. And it isn't practical. What's practical is beginning alcohol education at earlier grades in the same fashion we start tobacco education. At it's simplest, it starts will calling alcohol a drug.

With that in mind, shame on the sponsors for suggesting the fictional cost savings from lowering the drinking age would be used for drug treatment. Treatment of the same drug you're peddling? Or were you only suggesting that to ride the coattails of the public interest in the opioid topic when you're fully aware that the accountability for actually spending the money for treatment doesn't exist?

Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books.  Click Alcopocalypse for the author’s 2017 Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper. Image by  Peter Lecko, used with permission.

Image by Andrew Jalbert, used with permission.

Health reporter launching third alcoholism recovery book at San Francisco's REEL Recovery Film Festival

The stigma of alcoholism is what keeps many alcoholics from seeking help for their disease. The controversial subject is captured in Adding Fire to the Fuel, the third recovery-oriented book by award-winning author Scott Stevens. Stevens is debuting the book June 13 at Book Passage in San Francisco's Ferry Building on the famed Embarcadero as part of the REEL Recovery Film Festival. Stevens spoke at a symposium to launch the festival in 2014, and is rolling out the new book at what he calls “the right time for the recovery movement, in conjunction with two of the nation's most meaningful organizations dedicated to reducing stigma.”

Much of what is known about the disease of alcoholism connects it to flaws in genes which control metabolism of alcohol as well as the brain's risk/reward biochemistry. “It's a disease. Same kind of chronic, progressive, incurable-but-treatable, primary and fatal classification as cancer or diabetes. When we handle people with those other diseases with empathy, and dish out distaste to alcoholics or recovering ones, we create a social and economic problem that's passed its tipping point.”

The new book, available at all retailers following the California launch, looks at the stigma around alcoholism and alcoholism recovery as a $226 billion annual problem hiding in plain sight. “The story of alcohol and America's affair with it keeps it from being recognized as the problem. Instead, people with the disease of alcoholism are considered the problem. 'Alcoholic' is a pejorative today. That's ripe for change,” says the author.

The third-leading cause of preventable death and illness stays under the radar because of good advertising and bad stigma, according to Stevens. “Its purveyors are proclaimed as charitable kings. Those who use it and discover alcohol has health and social consequences, are labeled as villains, kill-joys, weak, weird, or morally off. What that stigma does to keep people from getting help also keeps the discussion of what alcohol does to you behind the wishful-thinking-driven chatter about what it does for you. The tipping point has passed. The status quo: No longer sustainable or acceptable.”

Adding Fire to the Fuel examines:

• How families and communities feed public and self-stigma even while the stigma holds them back;
• How stigma has become a barrier to many who want help;
• How to hang on to sobriety in a pro-alcohol world;
• And how PANonymous alcoholics will reduce stigma more than all the protests combined.

Writers In Treatment presents the REEL Recovery Film Festival at sites around the U.S. The multi-day event is a celebration of film, the arts, writing and creativity, showcasing filmmakers who make honest films about addiction, alcoholism, behavioral disorders, treatment and recovery. Stevens will speak at the film fest again this year, following the premier of Jay Silverman's Girl on the Edge, and a session with Kitty Dukakis. Alcohol watchdog group, Alcohol Justice, is a presenting sponsor of the film festival in northern California and is instrumental in the book launch for Adding Fire to the Fuel (ISBN: 978-1-63192-906-9). Stevens says of both organizations, “It's an honor to be involved with two of the groups so influential in tearing down stigma and portraying alcohol accurately. We all endorse the fact that sobriety is a better thing to have than to lack.”

He adds, “There's an impressive recovery atmosphere in northern California that is as robust as you find in Arizona, Florida, Texas and other locales. It's a great place for a recovering alcoholic like me to debut a book like this one.” The independent author launched Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud at Milwaukee's largest independent bookseller, Boswell Books, in 2013.

The preliminary roundup for REEL Recovery includes: 

Thursday, June 11, 2015 New People Cinema – San Francisco 7-9 p.m. Girl On the Edge (2014) (S.F. Premiere) with Jay Silverman – Director, Taylor Spreitler – Actress, Mackenzie Phillips – Actress,

Friday, June 12, 2015 Smith Rafael Film Center – San Rafael 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. Kids Are Dying (2014) (Director’s Cut – World Premiere) Michael DeLeon – Producer/Director, and New People Cinema – San Francisco 6-8 p.m. An American Epidemic (2015) (West Coast Premiere) Michael DeLeon – Producer/Director and 8-10 p.m. The Wisdom to Know the Difference (2014) (S.F. Premiere) Daniel Baldwin – Writer/Producer/Director.

Saturday, June 13, 2015 Book Passage Book Store – Ferry Building, San Francisco 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Adding Fire to the Fuel – Book Launch - Author Event Scott Stevens 

New People Cinema – San Francisco 2-3:45 p.m. Stories of Alcohol Justice - Eason Ramson (2014) (0:23:25) Eason Ramson talks about his life and professional football career that ended when he spiraled into substance abuse, crime, and prison, 6-8 p.m. Anonymous People (2103)  Intimate Conversation: Kitty Dukakis & Jan Wahl – Women in Recovery, and 8:30–10 p.m. Chasing the Muse – Stone Cold Sober A Candid Conversation About Creativity and Recovery Jan Wahl – TV Personality/Film Reviewer - Moderator, Scott Stevens – Author, Elizabeth Edwards – Singer/Musician, John O. Whittaker, Jr. – Actor

Sunday, June 14, 2015 Smith Rafael Film Center and New People Cinema: Robin Williams Tribute with Michael Pritchard and Comedians Into Recovery featuring Michael Pritchard – MC, Mark Ludholm, Johnny Steele and Barry Diamond.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stevens is a noted journalist on alcoholism and a founding influencer of the world's largest medical portal, HealthTap.com. His books on the disease include 2010's What the Early Worm Gets and 2012's Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, which earned finalist honors in the Indie Book Awards and USA Best Books Awards in 2013. For more information on the new book, please visit www.alcohologist.com and for information on the film festival, please visit www.filmfestsfbay.org.