Suicide Facts / About Our Cause / Warning Signs
Signs of Concern
•1. Talking about suicide
•2. Making Statements about feeling hopeless, helpless, or worthless
•3. A deepening depression
•4. Preoccupation with death
•5. Taking unnecessary risks or exhibiting self-destructive behavior
•6. Out of character behavior
•7. A loss of interest in the things one cares about
•8. Visiting or calling people one cares about
•9. Making arrangements; setting one's affairs in order
•10. Giving prized possessions away
Suicide Facts / About Our Cause / Risk Factors
Although there is no such thing as a suicidal type of young person, the statistics on youth suicide do suggest that there are certain behaviors or characteristics that can alert you to a possible elevated risk of suicidal thought. Some of the most common elevated risk factors are listed below. To find out more about elevated risk factors, visit our Parent Resource Program on this website.
- Perfectionist personalities
- Gay and Lesbian youth
- Learning Disabled youth
- Loners
- Youth with Low Self- Esteem
- Depressed Youth
- Students in Serious Trouble
- Abused, Molested or Neglected Youth
- Abusers of Drugs, Alcohol
Suicide Facts / About Our Cause / Facts and Figures
On July 16, 1997, Jason Flatt became a statistic and part of an alarming increase in the nation's youth suicide rate. The facts reveal that a silent epidemic of youth suicide is ravaging our nation and stealing the futures of our young people.
- Suicide ranks as the THIRD leading cause of death for ages 15-24 and FOURTH for ages 10-14.
- Suicide is the SECOND leading cause of death for our college-aged youth, as well as for ages 15 to 19 in many states.
- NHSDA Report / SAMHSA (US Dept. of Health) - In 2000, over ONE Million youth attempted suicide in the U.S. That equates to over 2,700 attempts each day in our nation by youth ages 12 to 17.
Click Here For Full Report - Each week in our nation, we lose approximately 100+ young people to suicide.
- Even though white males make up the majority of completed suicides, from 1980-1995, suicide among black youth ages 10-14 increased 233% and in black youth ages 15-19 suicide rates increased 126%. For black youth in the southern region of the nation, there was an increase of 214%.
- In the past forty years, youth suicide rates have almost tripled. Between 1980 and 1996, suicide rates for ages 10 to 14 increased by over 100%.
- More teenagers and young adults have died of suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia and influenza, and chronic lung disease COMBINED.
- According to the NMHA, four out of five people who attempt suicide have given clear warnings.
Can Your Child be Drinking A Deadly Mix?
A LOOK AT ALCOHOL + ENERGY DRINKS
What happens when you mix the depressant in alcohol and the stimulant in energy drinks? You get "wide-awake drunk". Where once energy drinks was a fad among our youth, it has now become a staple in their life. Energy drinks became a $4.8 billion industry in the US last year. Most energy drinks contain large doses of caffeine, ephedrine, guarana, taurine and ginseng and now, alcohol.
The newest trend of energy drinks is referred to as "speedball in a can". Alcoholic Energy Drinks (AED's) are prepackaged beverages that contain alcohol, caffeine and other stimulants. Turns out, teens and even pre-teens are being allowed to purchase energy drinks containing alcohol. Why? See if you can tell the difference in these cans:
Rock Star 21 has 6% alcohol. Sparks contains 7% alcohol. There are 8 products that contain 200% more of the alcohol found in a typical can of beer. (www.kvu.com) Alabama has no law regarding placement of alcoholic drinks separate from nonalcoholic.
These AED's are often stocked with their nonalcoholic cousins. Without scanners that alert a store clerk to a product containing alcohol, it is left up to her to know the difference between each product her store sales. Because these cans have similar graphics, store clerks as well as consumers are mistaking them for regular energy drinks.
Thirty-one percent of 12-17 year olds and 34% of 18-24 year olds report regular consumption of energy drinks. Producers are focusing not on television and radio but on sporting events, text messaging and internet forums such as Facebook and MySpace to channel their products. Alcohol producers, who spend $4.5 billion marketing their products, have built on the popularity of these drinks by blurring the line between alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. One company's goal: "create brand confusion with nalcoholic versions and provide a cheap alternative to buying both the energy drink and alcohol separately." The
drinks cost up to a dollar less than their counterparts without alcohol. A marketing strategist from "Agwa", a drink that was billed as the first alcoholic energy drink, was quoted: "We cannot bottle cocaine. But certainly people who have tried it have enjoyed amazing effects with it." Another producer states: "Young people want to get a buzz and stay up
all night. We make no pretense that this is a health drink. This is the party market." InFUUZTM (pictured above), states on its website that it is "The Ultimate Party Drink" and boasts "12.5% Alcohol Energy Drink" while young nurses hold up IV bags of the product.
Are teens purchasing these "alcopops" by mistake or on purpose? For those that are already mixing energy drinks with alcohol at local parties, this is a "cheap-quick-fix". For the person simply seeking energy, it's a mistake, placing them in a situation they didn't intend to be. For both, it could be deadly.
What happens when an unassuming person walks into a store, picks up an AED, which is stocked next to fruit juice, gets in his car and drives? It might mean that he experiences two crashes-the inevitable crash that comes after the initial rush from an energy drink and the one that involves his car. Now, what if this is your child?
Three cans (the average amount consumed in one day) of one of the beverages equal five shots of whiskey and contain the caffeine of 15 sodas.
PARENTALK ALERTS
The Alabama Parent Network
tammy.coates@dca.alabama.gov 334.223.0711
The question, then, is why are teens and college students mixing? A web-based survey of more than 4,000 students revealed that of the students who drank in the last 30 days, 24% mixed energy drinks with alcohol in order to "drink more and drink longer". A separate survey showed that 54% of those drinking an energy drink do so to improve the taste of alcohol. Yet, a drinker of a popular brand of AED has this to say about it: "...People aren't knocking back for the flavor. It tastes like carbonated cough syrup, sickly sweet, with a wince-inducing, orange-lemon flavor that takes a few sips to stomach".
We all know that alcohol and youth do not mix. It's illegal for many reasons, one of them being that alcohol is the leading cause of death among youth. Also, research has shown that alcohol consumption, even in modest amounts, can result in permanent brain damage because the brain continues to develop into a person's mid-twenties. In addition, about 70,000 teens are sexually assaulted and more than 600,000 are physically assaulted each year as a result of drinking or being with someone who is; 400,000 students a year have unprotected sex as a result of alcohol consumption, which puts them at high risk for pregnancy, STDs and HIV/AIDS.
Does adding alcohol to energy drinks create more risks than alcohol alone? Marin Institute performed an in-depth study on the effects of mixing energy drinks with alcohol. Public Health and Safety Officials have become alarmed by their findings. Researchers found in this study that "The subjects' performance was significantly worse after ingesting the AED despite their perception of increased alertness and reduced intoxication."
The caffeine, a stimulant, disguises the intoxicating effects of alcohol. Fatigue is the body's way of saying it's had enough to drink. High doses of caffeine mask your body's natural way of alerting you to stop. In other words you get, "wide-awake drunk". But a drunk person is still a drunk person. (marininstitute.org/ alcopops/energy_drink_report.com)
As this suggests, alcohol and energy drinks create a dangerous mix. Two industry giants have already responded to the criticism. Anheuser-Busch and Miller -Coors agreed to remove their products off the market, amounting to an admission that alcoholic energy drinks fuel underage drinking. Yet, the alcoholic industry as a whole fails to alert users to the potential for misjudging one's intoxication and, instead, suggests that the beverages will enhance alertness and energy. They are simply viewed by producers as having great potential for increasing sales and profits. It is predicted that companies will gross $10 billion yearly by 2010. We need to ask the question: do the earnings of these companies pay the price for lives that are lost due to their lack of educating consumers to the side-effects of their product? This accident involved the consumption of a 9% alcohol content energy drink.
One researcher describes it as getting into a car and stepping on the gas pedal and the brake at the same time.
What can you do?
- Know what your kids are doing.
- If they're drinking, get them to stop now.
- Share this article with your children.
- Read the labels on energy drinks carefully.
The Responsible Vendor Dept of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board said that consumers have the most influence on this issue and suggests you ask store managers to stock these items separately and to educate their clerks.
PARENTALK is a publication of The Ala-bama Department of Children's Affairs and The Alabama Parent Network
The Parent Network serves as a state partner on parent leader-ship initiatives and parent education. The goal is to support the varied needs of parents while enhancing their ability to support their children and to connect parents with available resources.
Please tell us what you'd like to see in future issues. Email
Tammy Coates at
tammy.coates @dca.alabama.gov
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THE COMMUNITY OF CONCERN
PARENT INFORMATION MEETING
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Sept. 15, 2009
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800.279.6361 PRIDE SURVEYS HOME | Many small increases, no decreases in adolescent alcohol, tobacco, drug use
The 2009 Pride Survey National Summary of adolescent alcohol and drug use shows small, but significant increases in 30-day prevalence for a number of drug categories, and no significant decreases in 30-day use of any drug category measured in grades 6 through 12. These results are based on surveys completed during the 2008-2009 school year. Most of the increases witnessed were small (less than 1 percent). However, they suggest that decreases in adolescent drug use over the last several years may have come to a halt. Last week the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released results of the 2008 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The 2009 Pride Survey data reflect several of the trends seen in the NSDUH survey, for example increases in ecstasy use and little change in marijuana use among adolescents. However, the Pride Survey data was more recently collected (by at least six months) than the NSDUH data. Here are some of the key findings of the 2009 Pride Survey National Summary: Grades 6-8 (ages 11 to 14) - Increases in 30-prevalence of cigarettes, cigars, any tobacco, beer, marijuana and lifetime prescription drug abuse.
- No significant decreases in 30-day use.
Grades 9-12 (ages 14-18) - Increases in 30-day prevalence of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, any tobacco, beer, wine coolers, liquor, any alcohol, marijuana, inhalants, heroin, ecstasy, OxyContin, meth and any illicit drug.
- No significant decreases in 30-day use.
Grades 6-12 (ages 11 to 18) - Increases in 30-prevalence of cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, cigars, any tobacco, marijuana, ecstasy, OxyContin and lifetime prescription drug abuse.
- No significant decreases in 30-day use.
The 2009 Pride Survey National Summary is based on the responses of 122,243 students selected from 447,532 students who completed the Pride Survey for Grades 6 to 12 during the school year from August 2008 until June 2009. These students, while not drawn through a formal probability sampling process, do represent a broad cross-section of American youth. Results from previous years national summaries have tracked closely with nationwide surveys such as Monitoring the Future. Full Report Multimedia presentation |
Out of the Darkness Community Walk
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WALK TO SAVE LIVES... In the United States, a person dies by suicide every 16 minutes, claiming more than 32,000 lives each year. It is estimated that an attempt is made every minute; with close to one million people attempting suicide annually.
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WALK TO SAVE LIVES... In the United States, a person dies by suicide every 16 minutes, claiming more than 32,000 lives each year. It is estimated that an attempt is made every minute; with close to one million people attempting suicide annually.
By walking in the Out of the Darkness Community Walks to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), you will be walking with thousands of people nationwide to raise money for AFSP's vital research and education programs to prevent suicide and save lives, increase national awareness about depression and suicide, and assist survivors of suicide loss.
WALK TO HONOR A LOVED ONE...Many of our participants walk in memory of a loved one lost to suicide. AFSP provides opportunities for survivors of suicide loss to get involved through a wide variety of educational, outreach, awareness, advocacy and fundraising programs. Each walk site has its own unique remembrance activity in which you can participate to honor a loved one.
WALK TO RAISE AWARENESS... AFSP funds research aimed at improving our understanding of suicide and ways to prevent it as well as educational activities to increase awareness about prevention, warning signs and the psychiatric illnesses that can lead to suicide.
AFSP Homepage Your Privacy | Contact Us © 2009 American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. All rights reserved. Web Design & Web Development by GlobalCloud®
Research Update
Compiled by the Drug Education Council, Inc.
June, 2009
Drinking Frequency Can Predict Bingeing, Study Says
Individuals who drink more than twice a week are more likely to engage in heavy or binge drinking, according to researchers from the University of Montreal and the University of Western Ontario who studied drinking patterns by gender and age group. The researchers drew their conclusions from research on about 11,000 people who were asked about their drinking frequency and consumption as part of the study funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and published online in the journal Addiction. The study found that while infrequent drinkers in Canada rarely consume more than two servings of alcohol at one sitting, individuals who drink three or four times per week are more likely to have five or more drinks per occasion. The association between drinking frequency and quantity was especially strong among young males, the authors said.
Teen Drinkers Face Greater Alcohol Risks As Adults
New research suggests that individuals who begin drinking alcohol as teenagers are more likely than those who start drinking after age 21 to suffer alcohol-related harm as adults. Among more than 34,600 adults, those who began drinking as teenagers, versus age 21 years and older, were more likely to report driving under the influence of alcohol and to have placed themselves in a risky situation after drinking. These findings were reported by Dr. Ralph W. Hingson and Dr. Wenxing Zha, both of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, in the June 2009 journal Pediatrics. Drinking onset at 16 and younger, versus 21 and older appears to double the likelihood of alcohol-related driving or unintentional injuries, as well as the risk for alcohol dependence or abuse, the investigators report.
The study participants were about 45 years old on average in 2001-2002, when they were asked about the age at which they began drinking alcohol. A second interview between 2004 and 2005, asked participants about their subsequent drinking habits and whether or not they had engaged in risky behaviors such as driving, swimming, and operating machinery, while under the influence of alcohol since their first interview. Analyses of the interview findings revealed an association between younger age at drinking onset and increased risk for later alcohol dependence or abuse, driving while under the influence of alcohol, and alcohol-related injuries. The risk for unintentional injuries to themselves and others among those who began drinking as teenagers did not change when the investigators accounted for other injury risk factors and sociodemographic characteristics associated with alcohol use. "Young people were disproportionately likely to be involved in injuries due to alcohol abuse," Hingson said. He and Zha note that one-third of unintentional injuries while under the influence of alcohol occurred among 25-year-old respondents, even though this age group represented a small proportion (7 percent) of the study population. To reduce unintentional alcohol-related injuries, Hingson and Zha call for studies to examine ways to delay or reduce adolescent drinking.
Family Prevention Program Nurtures Genetically "At-Risk" Teens
New research from the University of Georgia suggests that a family-based prevention program helps youth avoid binge drinking and other drug use even if they carry a gene linked to risky behaviors. The study, which was supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, followed a group of 11-year olds from 641 families in rural Georgia, for two-and-a-half years. Study participants who participated in a family-centered prevention program were compared to a group that did not receive interventions. The researchers found that program participants who carried the short allele form of 5-HTTLP -- a form of the gene that is associated with impulsivity, low self control, binge drinking and substance use-were no more likely to engage in risky behaviors than those without the gene who were enrolled in the program. By contrast, adolescents carrying the gene who were not in the program were twice as likely to take part in risky behaviors as those carrying the gene in the prevention program. "The findings underscore that ‘nurture' can influence ‘nature' during adolescence, a pivotal time when delaying the start of alcohol consumption and other risky behaviors can have a significant impact on healthy child development," says NIAAA Acting Director Kenneth R. Warren, Ph. D. "This study is one of the first to combine prevention research with a gene-environment study design." The study was published online in the journal Child Development.
CDC Says Typical Binge Drinker is White, Young, Relatively Affluent Male
A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that binge drinking in most common among whites, men, individuals aged 18-24, and those with an annual income of more than $50,000 annually. CDC researchers studied data on about 63,000 Americans and found that 17.5 percent of whites and 24.3 percent of males were binge drinkers. Of young people between the ages of 18 and 24, 27.4 percent were binge drinkers, and of people between the ages of 24-34, 24.4 percent were binge drinkers. Binge drinking was most common among those with an income of $50,000 or more, but individuals with incomes under $25,000 annually had the highest number of binge-drinking episodes within the past 30 days. Binge drinkers reported an average of four binge episodes a month, the CDC said, consuming an average of 8 drinks per episode. Binge drinkers who were black or American Indian/Alaskan Native averaged the highest number of binge episodes per month. The study authors urged widespread implementation of effective population-based interventions to prevent excessive and binge drinking, such as: maintaining and enforcing the minimum legal drinking age of 21; increasing alcohol taxes; decreasing the number of alcohol outlets in certain areas; and increasing screening and counseling for alcohol abuse. The study was published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Study Says Alcohol Affects Risk of Second Breast Cancer
New research suggests a relationship between alcohol use and increased risk of recurring breast cancer. Previous studies had determined that women with a history of cancer in one breast have an increased risk of developing cancer in the second breast, but the new findings suggest a 30-percent higher risk in those who ever drank alcohol compared to those who did not. Researchers from Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto compared drinking patterns and cigarette smoking among women with a history of cancer in one breast who had (708 women) or had not (1,399 women) developed breast cancer in their second breast. They found no significant increased risk associated with cigarette smoking, but regular alcohol consumption resulted in elevated risk of developing cancer in the second breast. A longer duration of alcohol consumption appeared to increase risk for a second occurrence of breast cancer, as well. The study appeared in the February 2009 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Study Redefines Binge Drinking for Children and Adolescents
A new University of Pittsburgh study calls for redefining the definition of binge drinking for children and adolescents, saying that the current criteria used to assess blood alcohol concentrations (BACs) and binge drinking behaviors is based on adult physiology. The study is published in the June 2009 issue of Pediatrics. Pitt researchers found that updating the current BAC formula to take into account differing body composition and the rates at which children and adolescents eliminate alcohol from their bodies, would redefine how many drinks constitute binge drinking for boys and girls 9 to 17 years of age. The study examined child, adolescent and adult body compositions and alcohol elimination rates from the 1992-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and then used the updated formula to estimate BACs for more than 4,700 kids and teens ages 9 to 17 for alcohol intake levels of one to five standard drinks. Based on the estimations, researchers suggest that binge drinking should be defined as three or more drinks for 9 to 13-year old children; four or more drinks for boys and three or more drinks for girls ages 14 or 15; and five or more drinks for boys and three or more drinks for girls ages 16 or 17. These results also suggest that the definition for heavy drinking should be modified as well.
New Study Finds Link Between Lower Drinking Age and Unplanned Pregnancies
Amid calls to consider reducing the legal drinking age, a new University of Georgia study finds that lower drinking ages increase unplanned pregnancies and pre-term births among young people. The results appear in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Health Economics. The study examined birth records and survey data on alcohol use for the years 1978 to 1988, a period when state minimum drinking age laws were in flux. The researchers found that a drinking age of 18:
•· Increases prenatal alcohol consumption among 18 to 20 year old women by 21 percent
•· Increases the number of births to 18 to 20 year olds by 4.6 percent in white women and 3.9 percent in African-American women
•· Increases the likelihood of women under age 21 having a low-birth-weight baby by 6 percent
•· Increases the likelihood of premature birth by 5 percent in white women under age 18 and by 7 percent in African-American women under age 18
For additional information or research sources for any of these articles, please contact:
Gail Hooper, Director of Research & Evaluation
Drug Education Council, Inc. (251) 478-7855
If you use a cell phone, chances are you're aware of text messaging-brief messages limited to 160 characters that can be sent or received on all modern mobile phones. Texting, also known as SMS for short message service, is on the rise, up from 9.8 billion messages a month in December 2005 to 110.4 billion in December 2008.
A recently released study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that truck drivers who texted were 23 times more at risk of a crash or near crash event than nondistracted driving. As per talking on a cell phone, the same study found no increased risk for truck drivers and 1.3 times the risk for car drivers. There was considerably more risk associated with dialing while driving. The institute's Richard Hanowski acknowledges that the numbers are likely to be different with car drivers. The study also found that texting took a driver's focus away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds -- enough time to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph.
A December 2007 simulator study by Clemson University found that text messaging and using iPods caused drivers to leave their lanes 10 percent more often.
Teens are at risk.
When texting while driving, teens are a high risk group, according to Nielsen Company. "The average U.S. teen now sends or receives an average of 2,899 text messages per month, and, apparently, some of those texts are being sent and read from behind the steering wheel."
A 2007 study conducted by AAA and Seventeen Magazine has been widely misquoted as 46 percent of teens admit to texting while driving. But what the study found is that 61 percent of teens admit to risky driving habits. Forty-six percent of that 61 percent said they text message while driving.
"When I think about many of the possible dangers associated with technology (cyberbullying, sexting, inappropriate material, online and game addiction, identity theft, and the remote chance of being harmed by a predator), nothing strikes me as scarier than texting while driving," says Yvonne Thomas, county Extension coordinator for Autauga County.
"The dangers of texting while driving should be blatantly obvious. Yet, many still do it. I have been guilty of texting while driving. However, as I continue to recognize that I could cause a deadly accident as a result of my poor choices, I have committed to making a personal change," Thomas added.
Not only is Thomas devoted to making this change, but the entire Autauga County Extension office is partnering with the Autauga County Children's Policy Council to educate youth on the possible dangers associated with misused technology.
If you are interested in hosting a program for your teen group, contact Yvonne Thomas at (334) 361-7273 or thomayd@aces.edu.
Sources: New Data from VTTI Provides Insight into Cell Phone Use and Driving Distraction, retrieved January 29, 2010, 
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