Michelob targets teens on Instagram: Self-regulation's epic fail

In the process of running an ad on social media platforms, a business is able to target ads by any combination of  'interests' or location or age or gender. This ad above was delivered to a high school senior, Sunday, Oct. 8, in his Instagram feed. His user profile indicates he is seventeen. The browser history shows ZERO visits to alcohol profiles or pages.

Anheuser-Busch Companies, maker of Michelob Ultra, is one of several alcohol manufacturers capitalizing on the perfect storm of the untamed Wild West of social media combined with an industry permitted to police itself.

Although alcohol is a legal substance for adults age 21 or older, it is the leading drug used by underage American youth. The drug is one of the three leading risk factors for global disease burden according to study appearing in Lancet in 2012.  In adolescents in particular, alcohol use increases the likelihood of injury, addiction and death, and of course the risky behaviors teens are known to find tempting... but it also damages a brain that isn't fully developed until their 20's.  

Exposure to alcohol marketing has been identified as one factor that may lead to underage alcohol consumption. While nobody really needs a 'longitudinal study' to come to that conclusion, one was done and the hard numbers appeared in Addiction in Oct. 2016. A previous Alcohologist.com article noted that the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Georgetown University (CAMY) has found that youth in the United States were 96 times more likely per capita to see an ad promoting alcohol than an industry ad discouraging underage drinking.

No clear rules, no independent review of content

Industry watchdog, California-based AlcoholJustice, keeps tabs on the sketchy practices engaged by the alcohol makers and the ad agencies pimping them. "Alcohol ads are ubiquitous on public transit, billboards, sports stadiums, and digital media. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter offer inexpensive, virtually unregulated promotional platforms to alcohol producers and marketers, who encourage youth to build relationships with their brands."

Alcohol ads are shown to a somewhat gullible, very impressionable, and ultimately naive audience that isn't even old enough to purchase, possess. or consume the drug because there's a 'bro code' in the alcohol industry: Their ad policies are voluntary and self-regulated. As a result, teens are going to get served the ads because the fox is supervising the chicken coop. 

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) has guidelines defining everything from blogs and social networks to video sharing sites and micro blogging services as 'advertising.' As such, "any use of social media by industry members is subject to the same limitations, requirements and restrictions as any other form of advertising previously has been, among other guidelines...

... ads must be limited to an audience where at least 70 percent are of drinking age. 

It's a guideline, remember. And it's self-policed. 

Where does the 70 percent figure come from? The overall census of the U.S. says 70 percent of us are 21 or older. The census of social media platforms doesn't mate up well with the overall population however. Pew Research (click on their link to the complete .pdf report) shows 72 percent of its users are under age 18. 

Of the 500,000 advertisers on Instagram, you wouldn't count on seeing a business that has a self-imposed rule of not advertising to minors

By the way, Instagram only appeals to four percent of adults over 65 years of age. As for American teenagers, in a Piper Jaffray semi-annual Taking Stock With Teens survey, 32 percent described Instagram as their most important social network, second only to Snapchat. Statista shows the share of teenagers in the United States who were Instagram users as of March 2015, sorted by gender and age group. During that period of time, 64 percent of female U.S. teens aged 15 to 17 years used the social networking app. 

Advertising a label or a company to establish brand identity is what companies do. In the uber-competitive beverage industry, brand loyalty is everything. It would appear the alcohol makers are attempting to establish their brand with would-be users of their beverage when they're old enough. Which all seems odd when we're talking about a toxic, carcinogenic drug rather than Kool-Aid.

We do more to curtail junk-food advertising aimed at young people than we do to prevent them from soaking in alcohol ads. “There’s very strong evidence that underage drinkers are not only exposed to the advertising, but they also assimilate the messages,” says James D. Sargent, MD. “That process moves them forward in their drinking behavior.” Sargent is the study author of a Jan. 2016 report in JAMA linking the ads kids see and what they do with the information. He’s professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. And he’s summarized the same message a dozen other reports have stated since 1996.

"Underage drinking harms teens, their families and their communities,” adds Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Tom Frieden. "Exposing teens to alcohol advertising undermines what parents and other concerned adults are doing to raise healthy kids.”

If OxyContin was advertised to teens on social media, the FTC, mainstream media, and the Attorneys General of 50 states would be on drug maker Purdue Pharma like a hobo on a ham sandwich. A deadlier teen drug is promoted on teens' favorite app and everyone takes a nap.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has overall oversight of advertising and has been conducting a study for more than a year on alcohol-beverage companies’ use of online advertising, with the results yet to be released. FTC will focus on age verification – a subject the TTB guidelines on social media do not address.

Like the Michelob Ultra sponsored post shown above, kids are being delivered ads where they live: Instagram and other popular platforms that are saturated with adolescent users. They'll get Ultra right alongside the selfies, Selena Gomez posts, and the snap of the pizza slice a friend is about to down. Self-regulation.  It works until it doesn't. Just ask the financial services industry.

Don't just fix the shocks, fill the potholes.

Even the addiction recovery professional and paraprofessionals nap on such front-end, front-line issues. Things like this advertising issue on Instagram are barely on the radar of recovery advocates, be they treatment centers or interventionists. They're overburdened as it is with treating the ill and have little time or disposable assets to address prevention. Aside from the massive economic and public health concern America's insatiable appetite for alcohol creates (see related video), no alcoholic ever became alcoholic without taking the first drink. Period.

Certainly not everyone who drinks becomes alcoholic, but a report from the National Institutes for Health definitively links teen use with higher alcoholism risk later in life. In a nerdy analysis, it would seem a recovery advocate would be sacrificing job security by supporting prevention efforts. Not true. There will always be drug users and those genetically predisposed to the disease of addiction. Recovery advocacy is crucial... prevention is essential. It's like being part mechanic, part street crew: You put new shocks on cars that have run through potholes  and sooner rather than later you just fix the stupid potholes. Instagram's Michelob ad...that's a pothole.

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For more reading on alcohol advertising, see 

Alcohol advertising in sports blasted for 'grooming child drinkers,' bans becoming popular internationally

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.

Drugging, drinking, and grasping at straw

The real power drugs hold is how they make the user accept magical thinking as real

In the 16th century, Sir Thomas More originated the idiom ‘grasping at straws’.  In actuality, the lawyer, philosopher, and Roman Catholic saint was referring to straw – cattle bedding – and that a drowning man will grasp at anything floating, even straw, to try to stay afloat (paraphrasing). It’s a perfect idiom 483 years later to illuminate how drug use is rationalized by the user and by American society.

Any drug use. Any time.

Every rational man and woman knows the risk of addiction – and death – from using opiates and opioids, for example. There is a well-documented history of addiction and death from this class of drug, dating to it’s first cultivation and use 3,400 years BCE. Why is it still around? Because people will use it. That’s why.

One of the first affects of any mind-altering drug is that it convinces the user it is somehow safe and the consequences are for the other guys. Magical thinking. Like a drowning man believing a single stalk of dried grass in an ocean will buoy him and float him to safety. Once the drug of choice takes over that human, the magical thinking gives way entirely to chemical dependence.

Even when the drug use doesn’t escalate to dependence – or I should say ‘especially’ when it doesn’t – magical thinking trumps intellect every and any time a person is under the influence.

A recovery pioneer and modern-day anti-alcohol trailblazer in the 1970’s, Father Martin, put it succinctly in his Chalk Talk. He said the human mind works best when it operates as Intellect over Emotion, or I/E. Add a mind-altering drug, any of them, and the equation flips to Emotion over Intellect, E/I. That’s a good explanation to why we say and do incredibly stupid stuff while impaired. Your grandmother was right when she said, “That’s not your Rhodes Scholar Grandpa, it’s the booze talking,” right after he declared he was going to shave the cat.

We do dumb stuff, and believe dumb stuff

A lot of recovery professionals, especially in court-ordered programs, see the aftermath of the dumb stuff followed by some more magical thinking. Every single person charged with DUI or other drug-related crime believes in magic. He or she will be sentenced lightly because of their unique situation, or get off on a technicality, or the evidence will be lost because it happened to his ‘guy’ ‘a couple years ago’ and the ‘law is muddy on this issue.’

When a drug tells the same brain it’s poisoning that the stuff isn’t so dumb, we do the dumb stuff. Including rationalizing the use of the drug. Two common examples are the well-funded oversimplifications of marijuana benefits, and the widespread acceptance of alcohol risks.

A medical user of marijuana dislikes the getting stoned part. Just like a medical user of Oxycontin doesn’t care for the high. When a recreational pot smoker wants to rationalize use, however, out comes the Emotion. Drinkers… well, there isn’t medical use and there aren’t any health benefits. It’s all about the buzz.

Send life rafts, not more straw

They’ll trot out the ‘medical benefits’ to support their continued consumption of a drug… when the medical benefits are far from their reason for smoking dope. They’ll roll out the frequently misquoted safety argument in favor of the drug. It sounds like ‘nobody ever died from smoking weed’.  True, nobody overdosed on weed, put the drug is linked to more deaths and health consequences than can be dismissed as coincidence. They’ll spout the long history of smoking herb, embraced by cultures vastly older than ours. Drowning… grasping at any fleck of straw that will keep them afloat.

The scientific evidence on alcohol as a toxin and carcinogen is even more concrete than the evidence of health damage from marijuana use. The drug can change DNA! It begins damaging otherwise healthy tissue from sip one. It’s so poisonous that if the liver had pain nerve endings, none of us would take sip two. Very scientifically sound and highly intellectual. However, even moderate use of the drug alcohol flips the I/E equation to E/I.

The grasping for straw sounds something like: ‘It’s legal’… ‘It relaxes me’… ‘Moderation is safe, the ad said so’… ‘It’s good for the heart’.  That last point has been discredited for more than a decade, by the way.  Rationalizations… buoying a drug-altered brain modified to E/I by the same drug that’s killing it. When someone is drowning, they want to believe in the straw. What if you drift to them a life raft of factsinstead? We have to deliver them back safely to the boat off which they jumped. That boat  – society and social behavior  – may not be Utopia (Sir More’s more famous work), but it beats drowning.

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 Kevin Carden, used with permission.

Photo by Dusan Petrovic, used with permission.

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Resurrected: Five addiction recovery tips from the original millennial

It isn’t out of reach to consider recovery from addiction as a sort of ‘rebirth’ or ‘resurrection’ of life within the man or woman challenged by substance abuse. No, we didn’t die. Some of us came gruesomely close – a lot closer than most acknowledge – as a result of dependence on chemicals human tissues don’t favor much.

Each Spring, Christians around the world commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth around 33 A.D. The man was executed in the Roman tradition of the time: Crucifixion. Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead three days later when the tomb was found empty. He then ascended into heaven 40 days after being put to death. By all historical accounts, he (He) really lived and really was put to a gruesome death.

Whether you fancy yourself to be a non-believer or just choose to believe something else, the Biblical story of Jesus’s resurrection carries a few lessons about the metaphoric resurrection addicts in recovery experience.

Don’t be afraid to come back

Jesus was slain. Martyred. The man’s body was nailed to a cross and pierced. The Romans at the time were a brutal cast of characters and this was their method of public infliction of pain for those who dared cross Rome, and creating stigma by terrorizing and shaming those who would ever think to run afoul of Caesar. Those crucified are nailed or roped to an elevated cross beam and left for dead. In reality, they died agonizing deaths from bleeding out, exhaustion, suffocation, exposure, or any combination of the four. The Romans did this for centuries. They got it from the Greeks: Alexander the Great humiliated his conquests with public crucifixions 300 years before Jesus lived.

When the Romans did it in Jerusalem it was because the Romans had the city within their empire. They lived there. Jesus came back to the same land where people KILLED him.

When we come back from our addictions, home awaits. Regardless of what transpired or who we hurt. Go back. You have a new life. Live it where you want.

Be humble

Look, nobody is going to build a shrine to any of us just because we got sober or got off the pipe. Recovery doesn’t work that way.

Jesus wasn’t revered and shrines weren’t built in his honor because he came back from the dead either. He embodied humility. Most martyrs throughout history are known for decent, humble lives of service, not for miracles. The lesson of Jesus life was simple: Although revered as the Son of God, he washed the feet of peasants and common folk. He helped others out of a willingness to do so, not for reward. Jesus saw a need and filled it without consideration of money or notoriety.

Be prepared to prove yourself

One great Biblical account of Jesus and his rising from the dead in the Christian New Testament is his encounter with one of his followers. His friend Thomas was notably absent when the resurrected Jesus first appeared to other followers. Thomas – throughout history known as Doubting Thomas – would not believe Jesus was for real unless he got to probe the crucifixion wounds. He needed proof.

There are people who will require proof from you of your sobriety or abstinence. Some people will require years of it. Some people will never be satisfied with your recovery no matter what evidence you present. Nobody says you have to prove them wrong. It’s not their lives you’re living, it is your new one. However, the worst possible scenario for your new life, is to prove the doubters right.

Even if you relapse, you’ve proven only that you have a chronic, relapsing, progressive, fatal disease. Go back to bullet point one. Face them another day.

Be visible

The main reason Jesus’s followers believed in the resurrection is that they saw Him alive after He was dead. Jesus hung around for 40 days after his come back. He presented Himself alive on a number of different occasions to His followers. This firsthand evidence is a powerful argument for the believers in Christ. It’s going to be a part of people believing in you once again once you’re done with your drug of choice.

Take your time in recovery. There isn’t a need to rush back out to every social event. However, the hard work of rebuilding your life means nothing if you don’t leave your living room.

In my third book, I wrote about becoming a PANonymous alcoholic: One who doesn’t hide the disease and is visible in recovery. It helps others to see that recovery is possible. And it helps reduce the ridiculous public stigma attached to addiction that all in its grip are forever hopeless degenerates.

Know when to leave

Jesus was visible for more than a month after dying. So isn’t it conceivable that He could’ve just gone back to what he was doing? Or stayed and lived a resurrected life indefinitely? Theologians will argue that because there is a huge worldwide following and an addiction recovery article mentioning him two millennia later, Jesus in fact lives today. Converting you to that mindset isn’t the point. The point is that Jesus knew when to leave.

You don’t need to show up for every event to which you’re invited. You never have to stay. Nobody has to participate in every argument brought to your doorstep. In fact, the greatest gift we learn from our walking away from a drug that once controlled us is that we can walk away. From anything.

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 Kevin Carden, used with permission.

How others' alcohol use became your business: The Toxin-omics

Drinking is 'The American Way,' 'How We Roll,' 'Harmless Fun,' or just 'None of Your Damn Business.' Just ask a drinker. He or she doesn't even need to have the disease of alcoholism: You attempt to get between a person and the beverage of choice and you'll hear defense. The defense is offensive when you know the economics of the toxin and drug alcohol.

The economic impact of drinking – casual drinking and alcoholic use – tallies an eye-popping $250 billion every single year in the U.S. By way of comparison, smoking costs the economy $173 billion… all other drugs combined cost the economy $130 billion. A 2011 study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute determined the cost of all cancer care in the U.S. totaled $124.5 billion in 2010 … half as large as the alcohol toll. How big is the we-don't-have-a-problem alcohol problem, by the numbers?

• That's enough to buy a 48 inch HDTV for every man, woman and child in the U.S. And an X-Box. Every year.
• Two-hundred-fifty billion dollars is the same as the annual expenditure on fashion and apparel in the entire U.S.
• The Treasury in 2008 bailed out the banks with a $250 billion “investment” that created critical echoing still heard in the 2016 Presidential campaign and brought hundreds of 99 Percenters camping in Wall Street. That was just a one year expense.
• For the ubersmart Keynesian economists out there, $250 billion is a NEGATIVE GDP (gross domestic product) value of $74 billion. (For those of us less-smart: Alcohol shrinks the economy the way it shrinks libido.)
• For the 216 world economies tracked in the CIA World Factbook, $250 billion is bigger than the 40th largest economy on the planet, and bigger than the output of the bottom one-third of countries COMBINED. 

The costs are in healthcare, lost productivity, legal and corrections costs. Alcoholism is part of the total, but $250 billion is driven by all drinking, even social or moderate use. The CDC readily admits the $250 billion is on the low side, too. The researchers believe that the study still underestimates the cost of excessive drinking because information on alcohol is often underreported or unavailable, and the study did not include other costs, such as pain and suffering due to alcohol-related injuries and diseases.

Alcohol revenue does not cover alcohol economic damage
The monetary consequences are something everyone shares: Drinkers and non-drinkers alike. The numbers get complicated, because the drug Americans enjoy and defend so vigorously, also costs the most in health and hard dollars. Each drink consumed has a median cost of $2.05 in economic harm (lost productivity, health care costs, property damage and criminal justice system expenses). That's according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). So the drinker pays for that in alcohol tax, right? No. The median paid in tax per drink is less than a nickel a drink. The Tax Policy Center estimates that state and local taxes on alcoholic beverages bring in about $6 billion in revenue nationwide. The overall economic benefit from the manufacture and distribution is less than a quarter per drink.

Industry watchdog, Alcohol Justice, suggests closing the gap between tax revenue and the economic damage, which may also reduce use. According to Alcohol Justice's Charge for Harm Campaign, "Big Alcohol produces, sells, and promotes products that cause harm and incur costs - to both government and its citizens. Appropriately taxing alcohol at state and federal levels will help reduce related harm and provide needed funds. We support state and federal increases in alcohol taxes and fees."
Even if drinkers bore the full $2.05, everyone else still pays in lost productivity. Show up late, never, hungover or just without your A-game and someone has to step in or step up. It doesn't always happen that way. Which costs the company. So the company charges more for its goods or services. Lost productivity, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is more than 70 percent of the $250 billion annual cost of alcohol use in the United States. Every shopper pays… no matter if we shop Walmart or Macy's.

This is the part of the revenue formula pro-alcohol forces leave out of the dialogue when pushing for more beverage licenses, longer hours of service, and absurd ideas like selling alcohol at college sports venues. With greater access to alcohol, the revenue does go up in a bar, store, or restaurant. But so does the economic damage. And never the twain shall meet.

Need a hospital bed? Wait. And pay more.
Here's another way to look at the economic harm. There is an alcohol-related hospital admission every 30 seconds and, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) 20-40 percent of general use (non-specialty) hospital beds are used to tend to alcohol-related complications. Heroin addicts aren't breaking the healthcare system. Aging Baby Boomers aren't pushing it past capacity. Alcohol use is drowning it.

Health care costs related to alcohol use are not limited to the drinker. There are unintended – and sober – victims in traffic crashes you've no doubt heard about from the impaired driving activists, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). However, children of alcoholics who are admitted to the hospital average 62 percent more hospital days and 29 percent longer stays according to the Children of Alcoholics Foundation.

Nested inside of every major cause of death in the U.S. is the fact that alcohol use is a contributing factor to each of those causes of death or hospitalization. Alcohol is a carcinogen, for example. It is the second-leading cause of oral cancers and is the only dietary connection ever made to an increased risk of breast cancer. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) estimated the price of cancer care for one year of life increased to $207,000 in 2013.

Heart disease, not cirrhosis, is the leading killer related to drinking. Annually, about one in every six U.S. healthcare dollars is spent on cardiovascular disease. By 2030, annual direct medical costs associated with cardiovascular diseases are projected to rise to more than $818 billion, while lost productivity costs could exceed $275 billion. What is the preventative measure hiding in plain sight? Stopping drinking. About 1 in 3 adults—or approximately 86 million people—have at least one type of cardiovascular disease, which means many more Americans could die from what is often preventable through lifestyle changes or managing medical conditions. There are 1.5 million heart attacks and strokes in the U.S. annually. One in five strokes is alcohol-related. One dollar spent on alcohol education (e.g. abstinence) saves $4 in healthcare costs down the road. (Plus $7 in criminal justice system costs for good measure.)

Bottom line: We ALL pay
The healtcare cost equation under mandated insurance means part of every insurance policy premium is gobbled up to care for alcohol-related problems. An insured person doesn't have an account from which he or she dips. Insurance premiums are pooled. You can be a non-drinker… your own premium will be lower because of your relationship with alcohol… but your premium will still reflect the experience of the insurance pool. With insurance mandatory, and 67 to 70 percent of adults using alcohol in the past year, there is a majority of your insurance dollar used to mitigate the expense of drinking.

Binge drinking alone – four or more drinks per occasion for a woman and five or more drinks for a man – accounts for more than 75 percent of costs related to excessive alcohol use in all states, just under $171 billion. Binge drinking is reported by about 18 percent of adults in America. (Wager that the self-reported binge drinking number is MUCH higher, people aren't typically honest about their answer to the non-of-your-damn-business question.) According to the CDC. binge drinkers and their families paid less than half of the costs associated with high alcohol use (41.5 percent) while federal, state and local governments paid about 42 percent, or more than $94 billion, of the costs.

The government doesn't have a separate checkbook funded by drinkers or beverage companies to pay for this: It uses your checkbook.

Visit www.alcohologist.com for more on the health and economic costs of drinking a toxin and known carcinogen. And order The A-Files: Alcohol A-Z for what alcohol does TO you, not FOR you. I Can't See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way is now available in paperback.

Yahoo! I heard another internet alcohol & health lie!

A ridiculous, and dangerous, piece of fiction emerges from cherry-picking observational studies. In that pursuit, anyone can find support for smoking, alcohol use, or use of any other drug. However, the evidence-based science demonstrates ZERO health benefit to even moderate use of a toxin and known carcinogen. (READ THE DELICIOUS PIECE OF FACT-MANUFACTURING YAHOO! UK IS PEDDLING)

Aside from the fact that daily drinking is one of several indicators of the disease of alcoholism, there is no health benefit to drinking any amount, at any age, for either gender. Spend 52 min. with The A-Filesif you want to find out what this drug does TO you, instead of this fiction of what it does FOR you.

For example, Women... this is the ONLY dietary factor shown to increase risk of breast cancer. Each drink daily (10g of alcohol) increases risk by 11 percent. More than four a day brings the same risk as smoking a pack of cigs a day. It's the #2 cause of oral cancers. Was cancer intentionally left from this article? Probably... because alcohol causes eight types of cancer. “The relationship between alcohol and cancer is not widely appreciated by the public and remains underemphasized even by physicians. When it comes to cancer, there is no safe level of alcohol consumption.” American Journal of Public Health Feb. 2014

The heart health myth was discredited more than a decade ago. It causes pre-diabetes, a precursor to type 2… it doesn’t reduce the risk as observational studies claim. Additionally, one in five strokes is alcohol-related. The risk of stroke is both long-term and short-term. In fact, stroke risk increases instantly and remains elevated for two hours after consuming alcohol. There are also consequences for liver, brain, pancreas. More than 60 diseases are caused by even "moderate" use of alcohol and it is the third-leading cause of preventable death and illness in the U.S. and U.K.. This dandy dietary tip just could kill someone.

The immune system is sacked by even moderate use: That's basic bioscience, not the junk science in this pro-alcohol piece. Sex problems linger even a year after complete abstinence (http://www.examiner.com/article/sex-problems-last-a-year-after-heavy-drinking-stops-according-to-new-study) and an older 2007 study -- evidence-based -- notes a falloff in sex drive with regular moderate use. And life expectancy? Jeez. The CDC notes a reduction of life expectancy 18 months (moderate use) to 20 years (heavy use).

Get evidence-based facts before succombing to Yahoo!'s dangerous and irresponsible article.

The entire 26 episode HD The A-Files: Alcohol A-Z series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

Selling care: Patient brokering in addiction treatment

Ambulance-chasing. Society generally looks on with disgust at the attorney who markets directly to the accident victim in the hours after the ink on the police blotter dries. The practice isn't illegal, but it brings up the subject of ethics. A similar practice has smoldered silently in the addiction care business for the last decade and will be leading to more scrutiny – and crackdown – over the second half of 2016.

Treatment centers provide a service (detox, intensive outpatient, inpatient, partial hospitalization, or some combination of elements) for a fee, which is charged to the client or the client's insurer. It's America. Lawyers charge a fee in a time of need. Mutual fund companies charge a fee to manage the retirement money upon which you'll develop a need. Lawyers are regulated. Fund companies and their sales reps are regulated and supervised. The practice is largely unregulated in the treatment industry.

The ambulance chaser in the addiction care business solicits business in 12-step meetings and detox facilities and even emergency rooms. There are reputable recovery coaches and other addiction paraprofessionals in the service of those struggling with substance abuse who also attend to those venues and offer suggestions. When they are paid by a treatment entity to deliver those struggling heads to the facility's beds is the point in which the practice becomes predatory.

Take for example, Alcoholic Joe. Joe turns up in the emergency department, unconscious due to acute intoxication. (e.g., he's beyond drunk) A responsive ER staff will inquire about what he's had, how much, and how frequently. Maybe even a social worker or staff associate will address the possibility that Joe has a substance use disorder and suggest courses of action beyond the hospital's capability. Other resources may be given to Joe, if he inquires. He takes it to heart (or his wife does) and Joe goes to a 12-step meeting.

So far, so good. When Joe bumps into a counselor, a self-styled recovery guru or a fellow at the meeting, the conversation sometimes turns to treatment. If the person steering the conversation toward a facility is getting paid $1,000 or $5,000 a head to steer Joe toward that facility – and never discloses he or she is on the dole – is where the industry is getting its latest black eye.

It's not unfamiliar territory for the healthcare biz. Rewind the tape back to the early 90's when physicians were accepting elaborate junkets from pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers. The public bristled when the kickback exposed that the patient might not be getting the best medication or device for his condition, just possibly the medication or device offered by the company with the sweetest “conference” destination. In the early 2000's a similar practice in the mutual fund business was discontinued when fund companies were found to have influence over brokers who might not be offering the most suitable investment for the client, just the funds that landed on the “preferred list” because of the extras offered the broker or brokerage firm.

As the opioid epidemic continues to grow within the shadow of the alcohol pandemic, more treatment centers are opening. Which can only be considered a good thing if they are treating the patient and not the one who provided the patient. As start-up facilities – and some established ones – struggle to keep cashflow manageable, a pay-per-client (heads-in-beds) can be an attractive alternative to shelling out for a marketer's salary and benefits. A captive marketer is going to work for one facility or group of facilities. He or she may not have a component of their compensation based on the census of the facility (e.g. percentage of beds filled at a given time). But they are, in theory, still driven by getting the right fit between the client and the facility. Many even network with other centers' marketing staff and refer business to the right fit based on the cost, insurance and most importantly the client's needs. When a consultant makes a referral without accountability to the facility or for the outcome of the treatment for that client, but for what it appears to be the financial gain of a $5,000 payday over a $1,000 payday, the treatment industry's self-policing has a weakness.

There is no inference that every per-client marketer or treatment facility that employs the tactic is sketchy. As with any enterprise, there are scrupulous and unscrupulous sales people. This industry is no exception even though it is commonly referred to as a helping profession which comes in contact with families and clients during a real and human and emotionally charged crisis.

In the early part of this decade, healthcare officials as well as federal agencies have had the practice show up on their radars. In some cases, the fit between the client and facility or program was so poor, litigation ensued. In extreme cases, people have relapsed and/or died while in the care of a program. Not that the relapse is uncommon with the disease of addiction to alcohol or other drugs… it's not a welcome outcome in or shortly after treatment.

For now, the status quo is under greatest scrutiny in California and Florida, two treatment industry hotbeds. However the status quo remains as a practice that is not illegal – like ambulance chasing – just potentially unethical until greater oversight and guidance is provided. For the time being, it pays to ask a question if and how a person is being compensated for making a recommendation of one facility over another.

The entire 26 episode HD The A-Files: Alcohol A-Z series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: ZERO Health Benefit

(See online video and article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' ran throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. The final segment, Episode Z, elaborates on the fact there are zero documented, evidence-based health benefits tied to the consumption of alcohol. Since 2010, there have been numerous articles on alcohologist.com challenging the junk science people were willing to believe regarding health benefits related to alcohol use.

There are zero health benefits. Not from wine, not from moderate drinking. There is no evidence that drinking a toxin will make you prettier, healthier, funnier, smarter, immune to disease, improve your sex life or extend your years on the planet. Even the notion that alcohol improves quality of life isn't realistic. Four things to consider when reading a study promoting alcohol.

1) Many of the studies compared ‘moderate’ drinkers with ‘current’ abstainers. These abstainers could be people who had, for example, stopped drinking alcohol because of poor health, the disease of alcoholism, legal issues or common sense. When a 2016 study from the University of Victoria adjusted for these sorts of abstainer biases, only 13 of the 87 studies didn’t bias the abstainer comparison group, and none of these 13 showed any health benefit associated with moderate alcohol consumption anyway.

2.) In 2013, the journal Addiction ran a critical analysis of observational studies vs. evidence-based ones, concluding, “For almost all the diseases, we do not know of any plausible biological mechanism explaining a preventive role for alcohol. Alcohol's possible ability to prevent diseases should probably not be considered as an established fact. The absence of definite knowledge leaves plenty of room for wishful thinking, which we observe frequently on this topic.”

3.) Common sense does not support the notion that a drug that causes a disease can also help prevent the same disease. Alcohol increases blood pressure in the lab and is claimed to protect the heart in pro-alcohol studies. Alcohol use is a documented carcinogen, but pro-alcohol studies claim some prophylactic effect. Alcohol use visibly shrinks the brain in MRIs and cadaver studies, but pro-alcohol studies claim it helps stave off dementia.

Fourth, and not the least, is to ask 'does this study pass the smell test?' What would cause a reputable physician or scientist to expend the time and resources – and risk reputation – to look for a health benefit of consuming a toxin and known carcinogen? Health or otherwise, what causes problems, is one.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Younger Strokes

(See the video and online article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode Y looks at strokes, especially those at younger ages than anticipated. Strokes, and strokes at earlier ages, have been linked to alcohol misuse in a study by the University of California at San Francisco. "When a young person has a stroke, it is probably much more likely that the cause of their stroke is something other than traditional risk factors," according to one of the lead researchers in the 2013 study reported in the journal Stroke.

The UCSF researchers identified long-term changes in the heart as a result of alcohol abuse or the disease of alcoholism may put younger users at higher-than-average risk earlier in life.

Stroke disables more people in the United States than breast cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every year close to a million people have a stroke – either ischemic or hemorrhagic. A study of 2007 data found that almost five percent of people who had a stroke that year were between ages 18 and 44.

"Substance abuse is common in young adults experiencing a stroke,” according to the research team. "Patients aged younger than 55 years who experience a stroke should be routinely screened and counseled regarding substance abuse. One in five of strokes involves drinking.”

The study does not offer evidence that patients' drug or alcohol use directly caused their strokes. It's possible, for example, that people who drink also see their doctors less often.

A separate study in the journal Stroke in Jan. 2015 found that people who average more than two drinks a day have a 34 percent higher risk of stroke compared to those whose daily average amounts to less than half a drink. Midlife heavy drinkers were likely to have a stroke five years earlier in life, regardless of genetic and lifestyle factors. The stroke risk in those two studies, of course, is long term, but there's immediate danger as well. According to a 2010 Canadian study, one drink instantly doubles stroke risk. Two hours following that drink, the stroke risk remains 1.6 times higher than someone who isn't drinking. When it comes to stroke risk, drinking is like walking out into the road, waiting for the truck to hit.

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: X and Y Chromosomes

(see video and online article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode X is on the X and Y Chromosome (gender) differences in the way we handle alcohol. If you start from the perspective that alcohol damages tissues regardless of gender, you're on the right track. Drinking over the long term is more likely to damage a woman’s health than a man’s, even if the woman has been drinking less alcohol or for a shorter length of time. First and foremost, women have a greater concern for breast cancer. Alcohol is the only documented dietary connection to an increased breast cancer risk.

Second, in 2011, the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor studied alcohol, sleep and genders. According to the lab readings, compared to men, the women slept nearly 20 minutes less and awoke more often for longer periods when they drank. Sleep is underrated in its regenerative value and how it sets up overall health.

Third, women generally are smaller, so the same amount of alcohol will be more impairing – and more damaging. But even if a man and woman are the same weight, the woman is at greater risk because they have less of the enzyme that helps break down alcohol in the body. Fourth, pound for pound, women have less water in their bodies and water is what dilutes alcohol in the bloodstream. Men are 61 percent water, women 52 percent. And that also means alcohol metabolizes slower in women, lingering longer to do more damage. This means, fifth, women are more likely than men to develop alcoholic hepatitis or die from cirrhosis, sixth, that women are more vulnerable than men to alcohol-induced brain damage, and seventh, women are more susceptible to alcohol-related heart disease. Eighth, drinking increases a woman’s risk of becoming a victim of violence and sexual assault. Lastly, there are obvious risks to an unborn child from drinking.

Drinking and drinking problems have increased in every generation of women born after World War II, according to Columbia University. Women in their early 20s are most at risk, but affluent, fit women over 50 may be particularly prone to heavy drinking, according to a 2015 study published in the medical journal BMJ. In one, single health statement, men and women are created exactly equal: Sobriety is better to have than to lack.

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles
Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Weight Control

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode W looks at weight control, fat loss and the futility of dieting while drinking.

A third of men and nearly one in five women drank on a daily basis. Twenty percent of men and eight percent of women consumed more than 300 calories in alcohol per day. That's from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a study looking not at alcoholism, but a separate American pandemic, obesity. Pilsener or lager beer usually comes in at around 148 calories in 12 ounces. Drinking light beer, offers about a third fewer. Dry wine contains fewer calories than sweet: 106 calories for five ounces of dry wine and champagnes… double it for sweeter wines. If you drink a glass of wine before dinner, another glass with dinner and one for dessert, that’s more than 400 calories in addition to the meal. Liquor calories depend on the proof for whiskey, tequila, gin, rum and vodka. Eighty proof contains 97 calories per shot. One hundred proof has 124 calories. How you mix the hard liquors will add calories faster. A whiskey sour will have 122 calories and a gin and tonic has 171 calories, a pina colada, 262 calories, and a large margarita can have as many as 400 calories.

The body uses as fuel macronutrients stored from the things you eat. Macronutrients are carbohydrates, fat and protein. Pure alcohol has none of those. It's calorie dense, at seven calories per gram but has no nutrient value. The macronutrients in alcoholic beverages come from what carries the alcohol or the mixer used. These carbs do not get burned and no stored body fat is going to get burned until the body first gets rid of the toxin, alcohol.

Alcohol is the first fuel to get burned in other words. Fat burning is postponed for alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike because fat won't burn when there's alcohol in the body.
Adele. Zack Galifinakis. Megan Fox. Three celebrities who in recent months dropped weight, all three crediting a zero-alcohol diet for the pounds lost. Doesn't matter if they're alcoholic or not, and I would suppose not. They wanted to look and feel better. And who doesn't?

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com