Dear Doug: does environment help prevent alcoholism?
OCTOBER 2005
Dear Doug: Family Day promotes healthier kids
Dear Doug,
Joseph A. Callifano, Chairman and President of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, writes:
“Eating dinner together as a family is a simple event, but it can make a world of difference for children and teens. [We have found] that the more often children eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs.
“Created in 2001…’Family Day — A Day to Eat Dinner With Your Children’ is…a simple, effective tool to help reduce substance abuse among children and teens and raise healthier children….
“As difficult as it sometimes may be, making time for family dinners is worth the effort.”
Is this true? Can I reduce the odds that my kids will drink and drug simply by eating dinner with them?
Signed, Hopeful
. . . . . .
Dear Hopeful,
While almost everyone believes this (or wants to), as is the case for so many of life’s truisms, cause and effect are not what they seem. A good environment will not prevent the addictive use of alcohol and other drugs once alcoholism has been triggered by what is often the first using episode. If it did, as I discuss in my upcoming book, “Alcoholism Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society’s Most Destructive Disease,” President George W. Bush and his niece Noelle Bush, Florida governor Jeb Bush’s daughter, would never have developed alcoholism. Nor would have Michael Kennedy, son of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy or Michael Skakel, a nephew of Robert F. Kennedy’s widow. William C. Moyers, son of TV journalist Bill Moyers, would not have become a full-blown multi-drug addict requiring 13 stays in rehab to get clean and sober. The available evidence suggests that most if not all of these addicts grew up in the best of families and environments. (From Alcoholism Myths and Realities, Myth # 29: “If he’d had a better upbringing, he wouldn’t be an alcoholic.”)
The reverse, however, is true. A family in which active alcohol or other drug addiction is not present is far more likely to share experiences in healthy ways, including eating dinner together. If the alcoholic family eats together, there may be yelling and screaming at the dinner table, which negates any value there might otherwise be. And if non-alcoholic parents eat with children who have inherited alcoholism from an ancestor, nothing short of never putting alcohol to their mouths (an uncommon circumstance) will prevent alcoholism from developing.
(Source for story idea: Annie’s Mailbox, September 26, 2004. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with celebrating Family Day, which may be of special value to newly recovering alcoholics. It’s the fourth Monday of each September; this year it was September 27.)