Keep our future growing: end underage drinking

  • Published
  • By Compiled from staff reports
  • 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  Each April since 1987, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. has sponsored Alcohol Awareness Month to encourage local communities to focus on alcoholism and alcohol-related issues.

Alcohol Awareness Month began as a way of reaching the American public with information about the disease of alcoholism--that it is a treatable disease and not a moral weakness, and that alcoholics are capable of recovery.

This April, NCADD will be highlighting the important issue of underage drinking, a problem with devastating consequences. Alcohol use by young people is extremely dangerous - both to themselves and to society at large, and is associated with traffic fatalities, violence, unsafe sex, suicide, educational failure and other problem behaviors.

Some key facts:

· Alcohol is the number-one drug of choice for America's young people
· Those who begin drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcoholism than those who begin at age 21
· Each day, 7,000 kids in the United States under the age of 16 take their first drink
· Underage alcohol use costs the nation an estimated $53 billion annually
One part of Alcohol Awareness Month is National Alcohol Screening Day which takes place on the first Thursday of the month. National Alcohol Screening Day is an annual event that provides information about alcohol and health as well as free, anonymous screening for alcohol-use disorders. Event sites are located in community, college, primary health care, military and employment settings.
An integral part of Alcohol Awareness Month has been Alcohol-Free Weekend, which takes place on the first weekend of April. Alcohol-Free Weekend is designed to raise public awareness about the use of alcohol and how it may be affecting individuals, families, and businesses.
During Alcohol-Free Weekend, NCADD extends an open invitation to all Americans to engage in three alcohol-free days. Essentially, it is a community consciousness-raising effort about alcoholism and health-related issues and may serve as a trigger to recovery.