23rd Psalm for Recovery

23rd Psalm for Recovery.

 

The Lord is my sponsor, I shall not want.

He makes me to go to many meetings.

 

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Alcohol Cable TV Advertising and Teens

Alcohol advertising reaching too many teens on cable TV, researchers say

A new study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, in collaboration with UCLA, has found a striking correlation between teenage viewership and the frequency of alcohol advertising on cable television. The findings show that ads for beer, spirits and "alcopop" aired much more frequently when more teens were watching.

While previous studies have shown that the average adolescent is exposed to well over 200 alcohol ads on television each year, this is the first to demonstrate an association between ad placement and teen cable TV viewership. Cable TV attracts about 95 percent of all nationally televised alcohol ads.

The study will be published in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health and is currently available online by subscription.

"Alcohol advertisers have pledged to avoid audiences made up of more than 30 percent underage viewers — such as children’s programming," said David H. Jernigan, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth and an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "However, many other shows have adolescent appeal. This research suggests that ads are aimed at groups that include a disproportionate number of teens and that the alcohol industry’s voluntary self-monitoring is not working to reduce adolescent exposure to ads."

Using advertising industry data from Nielsen Media Research, researchers examined all 600,000 national cable alcohol ads shown from 2001 through 2006 to audiences with less than 30 percent of viewers between the ages of 12 and 20. Among the findings:

• Audiences with a higher percentage of youth between the ages of 12 and 20 were exposed to a higher frequency of alcohol ads, even after accounting for other factors that might explain ad placement decisions.
• Each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership was associated with a 7-percent increase in beer ads, a 15-percent increase in spirits ads and a 22-percent increase in ads for low-alcohol refreshers/alcopops — flavored alcoholic beverages that taste similar to juice or soda.
• In contrast, wine ads decreased by 8 percent with each 1-percentage-point increase in adolescent viewership; this finding suggests that alcohol advertisers can, in fact, successfully avoid adolescent audiences.

"This study did not examine whether alcohol advertisers are intentionally overexposing adolescents," said lead study author Dr. Paul J. Chung, assistant professor of pediatrics at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA and a senior natural scientist at the RAND Corp. "The alcohol industry has consistently denied actively targeting teens, and our study isn’t designed to test that claim. However, the ultimate effect of their advertising strategies, intentional or not, appears to be greater exposure than might be expected if adults were the sole targets of ads."

For years, alcohol has been the substance of abuse most commonly used by teens in the United States, and the public health consequences of underage drinking are considerable. Numerous studies and national statistics report that adolescents are involved in a significant proportion of the injuries, violence and crime that stem from binge drinking and other forms of alcohol abuse. Moreover, studies have shown that starting to drink as an adolescent has been linked with much greater risks of lifelong problem drinking.

Multiple studies suggest that alcohol ads can have substantial influence on underage drinking attitudes and behaviors.

"It’s difficult to document experimentally," said Chung, who also directs the UCLA–RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion. "But there’s not too much doubt that advertising and marketing affect the behavior of both children and adults. Common sense tells us that if it didn’t work, companies probably wouldn’t be spending so much money on it. So, it’s a lot harder for parents, teachers and clinicians to successfully encourage kids to delay drinking when so many things they’re seeing — on television, on billboards, on movie screens, on the Internet — are telling them otherwise."

• See also;
• Adolescent Children of Alcoholics
• Adults give booze to kids
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Current Social Problems
• Tips for Teens: The Truth About Alcohol

Alcohol Information for Teens: Health Tips About Alcohol and Alcoholism (Teen Health Series) by

Raising a Peer Pressure-Proof Child

Teen Peer Pressure: Raising a Peer Pressure-Proof Child

Learn what kinds of peer pressure teens face, who’s most vulnerable, and how to help your son or daughter resist.

Remember when your teenager took her first steps as a toddler? You hovered behind her — back bent, arms spread — prepared to catch her should she fall. Much as you might like, you can’t shadow your adolescent as you did back then, being there to break her fall when she missteps.

But, say experts, there are steps you can take to support your adolescent in the face of teen peer pressure. Follow them and you’ll rest easier when your teen heads out of the house on a Friday night.

Teen Peer Pressure: What’s Being Pushed?

Here are some findings from recent surveys.

• Smoking. By the time adolescents are just 13, one in five has tried smoking.
• Alcohol use. Two-thirds of teens between the ages of 14 and 17 have tried alcohol. Of teen boys who have tried alcohol, 20% did so by the time they were 12. Episodic, or binge drinking, is also fairly common. Of the adolescents aged 12 to 17, one in four said they’d had five or more drinks consecutively within the past month. Almost a quarter of drinkers aged 16 to 21 admitted to driving after drinking.
• Drug use. Slightly more than 25% of adolescents aged 14 to 17 have used illegal drugs. One-third of young adult marijuana users aged 18 to 21 started using the drug by the time they turned 14.
• Sex. About one in every three kids aged 14 to 15 has had sexual intercourse. Of sexually active teens, almost 30% used no birth control during their last sexual encounter.

Other subjects in this article include;

• Identifying Vulnerable Teens
• Why Teens Fall Prey to Peer Pressure
• Making Your Child Resilient to Teen Peer Pressure

In spite of adolescents’ vulnerability and the strong influence of peers, parents can exert a positive influence on their adolescents’ decision-making processes, offering them ways to combat the effects of peer pressure. Experts explain how. Strategies include;

• Keep communication lines open
• Practice peer pressure scenarios
• Listen to your teen’s perspective
• Keep inviting your kids into your life
• Think beyond punitive responses

This article has some excellent proven strategies and can be found at; Raising Peer Pressure Proof Teens.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Surviving Peer Pressure for Teens by Sara Jane Sluke, Hilary Cherniss, Sara Jane Sluke Hilary Cherniss

Friends, Cliques, and Peer Pressure: Be True to Yourself (Teen Issues) by Christine Wickert Koubek

See also;

• A Problem Shared is a Problem Halved
• Adolescent Children of Alcoholics
• Adults give booze to kids
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Is Your Teen Using Drugs or Drinking?

Little Eyes, Little Ears

Little eyes, little ears; how violence against a mother shapes children as they grow

Children are changed by growing up with violence and abuse at home

Bad sights, sounds and experiences take many forms. A hit or slap is obvious to see. Abusive words and interactions cause invisible bruises.

Change can be sudden or change can be gradual

Violence at home can take the form of one or more traumatic incidents triggering sudden change. Or changes can occur slowly in reaction to the daily dynamics of abusive relationships, shaping a child incrementally as he or she grows.

Change can be visible or change can be inside

Some changes show in a child’s behaviour, such as crying, aggression, or disrespect to women. Violence in the home also changes how children think and feel – about themselves, their families and life in general.

Children are not passive witnesses to noise, tension and violence at home

Little eyes and little ears don’t miss much, soaking in sights and sounds. Child "witnesses" of violence and abuse are overwhelmed by intense feelings and concentrate hard on their own thoughts. They may feel confused and scared and blame themselves.

As they watch or listen, they guess what caused the "fight," imagine what might happen next, and anticipate potential consequences.

Change can be bad and change can be good

By understanding a child’s view, we can nurture positive changes: correct distorted ideas, encourage helpful coping, build good interpersonal skills, and foster management of intense emotions. And we can support mothers as they help their children heal and thrive.

A child who lives with violence is

forever changed, but not forever

"damaged." There’s a lot we can

do to make tomorrow better.

This resource draws together, in one place, information from the best and latest research for professionals and volunteers who help women and children.

Topics addressed include what children might feel, think and do during violent incidents against their mothers, roles they might adopt before, during or after incidents, strategies of coping and survival, and how violence may be experienced by children of different ages, from infancy to adolescence.

The purpose is to examine how violence against a mother can shape a child. By learning how each child as an individual was shaped by experiences in his or her home – and considering important contextual features of family life – we can devise ways to help.

• ‘little eyes , little ears’ how violence against a mother shapes children as they grow, by Alison Cunningham & Linda Baker the © 2007 Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System. Available at web site: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/nc-cn

The Right Touch: A Read-Aloud Story to Help Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (Jody Bergsma Collection) by Sandy Kleven

Leaving an Abusive Relationship

For abused women, leaving is a complex and confusing process

I have seen and heard of this process in many of my clients (men and women) who were partners of alcoholics, addicts, compulsive gamblers or sex addicts.

Additionally, I have seen these stages of leaving in recovering people who have codependent partners who will not change their behaviours. In other words, the codependent behaviour is itself abusive.

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Nothing could be easier than walking out the door, right? According to a new University of Illinois journal article, an abused woman actually goes through a five-step process of leaving that can be complicated at every stage by boundary ambiguity.

"When a woman is disengaging from a relationship, she is often unclear about her family’s boundaries. Is her partner in or out of her life? A woman’s spouse may be physically in the home but psychologically unavailable. He’s not caring for the kids or being a loving partner.

"Or she may have physically left him but still be psychologically connected. She misses him, and for the sake of her children, she’d like for her family to be together again," said Jennifer Hardesty.

"We could see this struggle clearly in the pictures women drew of their families at different points in the process of leaving. It’s a confusing time. The boundaries are ambiguous,"" she said.

"It’s not unlike the experience of having a child leave for college," she noted. "Your child isn’t living at home, but you’re still very connected to them emotionally. Yet, when they come home for visits, they may pay little attention to you while they make the rounds of their friends. It’s always hard to figure out what the new boundaries are as you move into a new stage of life."

Khaw has applied the model to 25 abused women from varied backgrounds, identifying boundary ambiguity within the five stages of the process of leaving.

"In the first two stages, women begin to disconnect emotionally from their relationships. You hear them say things like, I started not to care for him anymore," Khaw said

Stage 3 is often marked by a pileup of abusive episodes and noticeable effects of the violence on their children. "Women make preparations to leave, such as finding a place to stay or secretly saving up money. This stage is important for women as they switch from thinking about leaving to actually doing something about it," she said.

"Then, at Stage 4, when women take action, we see a lot of what we call back and forthing because when women leave, the emotions often come back. They need clarity. They want to be physically and emotionally connected again," said Hardesty.

The last stage, maintenance, is achieved when women have been gone for six months or more. "But even then they may have boundary ambiguity if their ex-spouse won’t let them go. With continued contact through court-ordered child visitation, the potential for ongoing abuse remains as well as continued confusion over the abuser’s role in the woman’s life," she said.

In the past, Khaw and Hardesty have used the model to focus on what individual women are going through. But applying boundary ambiguity to the model gives a more complete picture of the process.

"Leaving a relationship is much more complex than just deciding to change, and it involves more than a woman’s prioritizing her safety. Other actors are involved. The abuser makes decisions that affect a woman’s movement through the stages. And children can be a powerful influence in motivating a woman to get out of a relationship and in pulling her back in," Hardesty said.

It’s important for social work professionals and frustrated family and friends to understand the process of leaving, Hardesty said.

"Often shelter workers focus on safety and tangible needs such as a job and housing. They don’t help women disentangle themselves emotionally. But it’s hard for women to get out of the situation if they haven’t resolved these relationship issues.

"Discouraged friends and family members have to learn to view leaving as a process and realize that there’s little they can say to speed it along. It’s important for them to reinforce the risks the woman is facing by asking such questions as ‘Has he become more abusive? Does he have a gun?’

"When talking to an abused friend or family member, one should always emphasize safety, but for your own sanity, you should realize that leaving is a process and she has to work her way through it herself," she said.

When women do finally achieve both physical and emotional separation, research shows that they experience fewer health problems and less depression, Hardesty said.

From a press release by; Lyndal Bee Lian Khaw, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign doctoral student, and Jennifer Hardesty are co-authors of the paper, which was published in the Journal of Family Theory & Review.