Teen Drinking, Homicide, And Suicide

In April of 2013 Mothers Against Drunk Driving released the results of a study compiling data on alcohol-related deaths among Americans who had not reached legal drinking age (21). The study looked at data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Board (NHTSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The MADD researchers found that the overwhelmingly majority of teenage deaths involving alcohol aren't traffic related:

• 9% of deaths of Americans aged 13 to 20 involving alcohol were alcohol poisonings.
• 14% of deaths of Americans aged 13 to 20 were suicides.
• 32% of deaths of Americans aged 13 to 20 were homicides.

It's true that 38% of alcohol-related deaths of American teens and twenty-year-olds involved car crashes, but the clear message from the MADD study is that making sure teens don't drink and drive is not enough. Any mixture of teens, alcohol, and weapons (knives or firearms) is likely to be deadly, and simply drinking more and more without concern for driving sober, because one does not plan to drive, can result in fatal alcohol poisoning.

But how can parents know there is a potential problem?

Here are some important suggestions.

1. Encourage your kids to get physical exercise, to do systematic muscle building.

While you may also have to have the "steroids talk" if your teens get serious about building muscle, it's a demonstrated fact that muscular teens are more likely to survive car crashes of all kinds and also less likely to get into problems with drinking or drugs.

2. If your teen has ever had to go the emergency room (ER) for treatment of an injury, be on the lookout for troubles with alcohol.

Although there is no known causal relationship between being "accident prone" and alcohol deaths, researchers have found a correlation between ER visits and later alcohol deaths.

3. Seek professional intervention, preferably counseling, when your teen uses a combination of intoxicants, such as alcohol and cocaine.

Particularly among White teens, use of a combination of intoxicating drugs frequently precedes a suicide attempt.

4. Road conditions are as important a factor in teenage survival as drinking.

Teens who are not used to driving in rain, in snow, or on one-lane roads can also be at extreme risk to themselves, to their passengers, and to other drivers on the road,.

5. It isn't enough just to set rules about alcohol use.

The tone with which parents communicate to their children about alcohol has a great deal of influence on the outcomes of parental intervention.

Know what your children are up to. Know where they are, and who they are with, even if they find your questions annoying. And keep lines of communication open so you can communicate the reasons for your rules as teens slowly realize the benefits of boundaries.