Alcohol / Drug Council of North Carolina

About ADCNC

Alcohol and other substance abuse addiction is a preventable and treatable chronic disease. Intervention in the lives of people suffering with addiction through the family, education or work place, criminal justice system and community-at-large works, and sustains recovery.Substance abuse treatment and prevention services should be available and accessible in the primary health care system.Insurers should [...]

Letter from the Director Director’s Notes: By Anne Doolen

April is Alcohol Awareness Month in the United States.    And while it remains critically important for us to teach youth and their parents about the need to delay the onset of drinking to protect our children’s developing brains, I would like to talk about the dangers that alcohol presents to adults – especially as we age.

• Alcoholism is a chronic disease.  Like many other health problems it may present differently across a person’s life span.
• A person response to using alcohol changes as they age. Other health problems and the medications taken may dangerously interact with alcohol. This includes over the counter medications and supplements.
• People in long term recovery from alcohol or other substance abuse should feel free to talk frankly with their health care providers about their recovery history, including historic tolerance levels.  They may be uniquely sensitive to new medications that will be prescribed to treat new medical conditions that arise as they get older.
•  There may be times when addictive medications are the only option. Develop a relapse prevention plan that includes your medical providers, family members and your support system.

In November, the federal Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality reported that “the proportion of older adult alcohol admissions as their ONLY substance of abuse decreased from about 87% (1992) to 58% (2009).  However, the number of older adults who reported alcohol in combination with other drugs increased from 12% (1992) to 42% (2009).

I remain extremely passionate about educating the public about the issues of alcohol use in older adults.   I believe that the trends that we are seeing in national data reports point to the need to be open in discussing current and historic  alcohol use with medical providers.  Just as important, we need teach to patients about the fact that alcohol reacts differently in their bodies as they age and develop other health problems.

We need more research on alcohol and aging.  We need to educate the public, especially as “Senior” Baby Boomers begin to enter the health system.  And perhaps most importantly we need to find new ways to reach out and treat  people who just beginning to experience problems with their alcohol use.