April is Alcohol Awareness Month

MOUNDSVILLE - April is Alcohol Awareness Month, and the Marshall County Anti-Drug Coalition would like to educate the community about the impact of alcohol abuse in our community and clear up misconceptions about binge drinking.

Alcohol is the most commonly abused substance, a big reason why substance abuse and its effects cost West Virginia $1.9 billion annually, according to the West Virginia Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities. That’s about $1,000 for every resident of the state, $320 a month for a family of four.

Alcohol abuse also has a human cost. Alcohol is associated with the deaths of 85,000 Americans a year, the third highest among preventable death categories behind smoking and obesity. About 16,000 of those deaths are from drunken driving. Alcohol accounts for one third of annual suicides, more than half of all homicides and domestic violence case and is linked to cancer of the liver, esophagus, throat and larynx, liver cirrhosis, immune system problems, brain damage and heart problems. Up to 40,000 newborns a year are affected by fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, a preventable cause of birth defects that could be stopped if pregnant women stayed away from alcohol. In 2004, the most recent statistic available, Marshall County exceeded the state rate for alcohol use during pregnancy by 45%.

When faced with the issue of alcohol abuse, many people think that they’re not affected. But substance abuse cuts across all demographic groups. Even social drinking can become a serious problem if early warning signs aren’t followed.

The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) lists the warning signs for the possibility of an alcohol problem:

• Do you drink alone when you feel angry or sad?
• Does your drinking ever make you late for work?
• Does your drinking worry your family?
• Do you ever drink after telling yourself you won’t?
• Do you ever forget what you did while drinking?
• Do you ever get headaches or have a hangover after drinking?

Binge drinking is sadly too often in the news, often connected to excesses by high school or college students. Experts say heavy drinking for a man is defined as consuming more than two drinks a day, one drink for a woman. Binge drinking is having five drinks during a single occasion for men, four drinks on a single occasion for women. A drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer or wine cooler, 8 ounces of malt liquor, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor such as gin, rum, vodka or whiskey.

If you would like to get help for someone you know struggling with alcohol abuse, you can visit www.wv.al-anon.alateen.org or call (877) SAMSHA-7 for referrals. Or if you would like more information about talking to your children about substance abuse, you can attend the Marshall County Anti-Drug Coalition’s upcoming forum, “Parent to Parent: A Dialogue on How to Talk to Your Children about Drugs,” which will be held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 30, at the Calvary United Methodist Church, 1601 1st Street, Moundsville.

The Marshall County Anti-Drug Coalition is funded in part by a federal SPF-SIG grant from the West Virginia Governor’s Office and the West Virginia Partnership to Promote Community. The grant is made possible by the State of West Virginia’s receipt of a federal Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF-SIG) from the U.S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. The grant is administered through the Marshall County Family Resource Network.

The Marshall County Family Resource Network is a not-for-profit organization that builds community partnerships to make Marshall County a better place to live and work. The FRN’s key efforts focus on substance abuse prevention, health and wellness, and community development. It has leveraged more than $2.2 million in state and federal grants for Marshall County over the past three years. The FRN can be reached at (304) 845-3300 or on the Web at www.marshallcountyfrn.com.