Demonizing Alcohol To Your Kids Isn't The Answer
Barry Adkins writes at Good Men Project about his son dying of alcohol poisoning the day he moved out on his own, but Adkins takes the wrong approach in advising other parents how they might avoid this, thinking his intuition is enough:
I am not advocating that we go back to the days of prohibition. It didn't work before, it won't work now. I am guessing that at least one person reading this article is asking this question; Barry, do you drink? The answer is yes, typically I will have one beer and I am not talking about one of those huge, 24 oz. beers.I am advocating better educating our children about the dangers of alcohol abuse. Uneducated decisions, made by our children, can lead to tragedy; Educated decisions will lead to a far better outcome. As a society we do a lousy job of discouraging our children from drinking. Television shows and movies glorify binge drinking. They show people getting drunk and having a "good time." They don't bother to show you the bad things that can happen when your child drinks. Your child could get behind the wheel and kill someone or themselves, die from alcohol poisoning, or get a DUI. There could be things like rape or sexual assault--your child could be either victim or assailant. For your precious little girl, unwanted pregnancy and STD's. For that boy you are so proud of, he could be assaulted, or assault someone, or become an unplanned father.
...I am often asked for advice on how to talk to teenagers about the dangers of alcohol abuse. The standard advice is: "talk to your teenager." Great advice, but I suspect for many of us, including me, it turns into an awkward conversation, with your teenager tuning you out. I believe that the easier thing to do, in the beginning, is to have conversations about alcohol with your spouse/adult family member while your teenager is within hearing distance. Teenagers are typically much more likely to want to listen in on a conversation than to be in the middle of it. The car is always a great place for this. Start by talking about a recent news story, and there is no shortage of them, where alcohol led to something bad happening.
Another fairly easy thing to do, is to make a list of the bad things that can happen when you abuse alcohol. Under each bad thing, list someone you know that has suffered the consequences. Everyone knows someone who has been impacted by alcohol abuse! Print it out and post it in places where it will be seen in your house such as, the refrigerator or the bathroom mirror. Update it when you hear new stories.
It's a horrible thing to lose a child, and the guy means well in trying to prevent that happening for others, but his advice is pretty bad.
Kids shrug off the bogeymen presented to them. You give kids a responsible attitude about alcohol by giving them alcohol and showing them drinking responsibly as a normal part of life.
Addiction treatment specialist Stanton Peele wrote in 2008:
Alcohol poisoning incidents are extremely rare, remarkably enough, given the widespread binge drinking that occurs among young Americans in late adolescence, college, and through their mid-twenties.Those fatal drinking events that do occur are most likely to befall young people from abstinent backgrounds who have no experience limiting their drinking when they participate in extreme initiations with other teens or college students.
One point these speakers make is that, the earlier young people begin to drink, the more likely they are to become alcoholic later in life. Perhaps they are harkening to a study led by Wake Forest Medical School researcher Kristie Foley which found that teens whose parents permitted them to attend drinking parties were twice as likely to binge, a finding broadcast around the country.Less publicized was this result from the study: children who drank with their parents were one third as likely to binge outside the home. The difference between young teens sneaking into the woods to become falling-down drunk and kids sitting around the table with their parents drinking small amounts of wine is so obvious you wouldn't think the distintion would need to be drawn, would you?
Here's another mother I spoke to. Although her father, mother, and brother all had serious drinking issues, she drank moderately. Moreover, she made sure to introduce her two children to alcohol at home. When I complimented her for overcoming her own troubled family background with alcohol to create a moderate drinking household, she disclaimed credit.
"It's so obvious that I didn't want them to learn to drink by sneaking drinks around the house like I did or by bingeing when they got to college, I really can't take any credit for doing something so sensible."
I respectfully demurred. This woman, although not from an ethnic background (e.g., Jewish, Italian, Chinese, Greek) that socialized drinking in the home, figured out that this was the best policy on her own. And, apparently, there are other Americans out there like her!
Peele explains further:
The Italians, Jews, Greeks, and other low-alcoholism cultures, on the other hand, teach youngsters to drink at meals and religious celebrations within the family. In these ethnic groups the whole outlook and atmosphere connected with drinking are different--it doesn't carry the emotional baggage that drinking does for groups with a greater susceptibility to alcoholism. In the homes of low-alcoholism ethnic groups, alcohol is usually served at home very early to children, who see drinking occur as an ordinary part of family celebrations. What they don't see occur when people drink is violence and drunkenness....The two sociologists went further and asked Jews about their attitudes toward drinking and alcoholism. They found that Jews as a group are antagonistic to the disease view of alcoholism. Jews think alcoholics drink out of a psychological dependence, and they regard problem drinkers with distaste and avoid them.[16] In other words, groups with higher alcoholism rates, like the Irish and Baptists and Slavs and Scandinavians, already fear alcohol and readily accept that alcoholism is a disease, whereas the Chinese, Jews, and Italians--groups with the lowest alcoholism rates--think of alcoholism as a self-initiated problem that can be controlled. How, we might wonder, have the people with the worst drinking problems taken over in telling the rest of us about the nature of alcoholism and how we should drink?
There is a large genetic component to alchoholism.
Of course if you never take a drink, or do drugs, it is hard to become addicted, but as a counter example of the socialization factor in drinking, I have never seen more responsible parents, and social modelers than the Japanese, and yet their rate of alcoholism, just like the indigienous Americans, is sky high.
I was very casual about alcohol as a parent, letting my children taste wine and beer and other alcholic drinks at home.
They have never seen their parents drunk, because we have never been drunk.
I have one son who is very responsible and drinks only occasionally. My other one is working very hard at ending her life on skid row.
Isab at April 20, 2014 3:59 AM
Very sorry to hear what you have gone through with daughter, Isab.
I do want to say that both Fred Woolverton and Stanton Peele find addiction a way to avoid legitimate pain of an adult life. If not through drinking, those who live this way find another substance -- "addiction-hop," as Woolverton calls it.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/03/12/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Amy Alkon at April 20, 2014 6:15 AM
...I have never seen more responsible parents, and social modelers than the Japanese, and yet their rate of alcoholism, just like the indigienous Americans, is sky high.
Isab, is it men only or both men and women? I would imagine that a business culture that forces long working hours followed by binge drinking with colleagues would drive a lot of the alcoholism in Japan.
Astra at April 20, 2014 6:44 AM
My young adult children (21 and 19) had an opportunity to spend some time in Germany during high school. While they were not of legal age to drink here, they were there, as the age for beer and wine is 16. Most children had been given a drink at home well before that.
My children reported that the rate of binge drinking was significantly less than it was at their high school here in MA. They also thought that it made much more sense to have a drinking age of 16 and a driving age of 18, like Germany, rather than driving at 16 and drinking at 21. I concur, as learning how alcohol affects you before you are getting behind the wheel of a car is much more sensible than figuring out alcohol for the first time when you might be driving.
jeff at April 20, 2014 12:07 PM
In other words, groups with higher alcoholism rates, like the Irish and Baptists and Slavs and Scandinavians, already fear alcohol and readily accept that alcoholism is a disease, whereas the Chinese, Jews, and Italians--groups with the lowest alcoholism rates--think of alcoholism as a self-initiated problem that can be controlled.
Isab: There is a large genetic component to alchoholism.
It may very well be that there is a large genetic component to alcoholism, but that's not inconsistent with the view of the Chinese, Jews and Italians. Alcohol doesn't magically force its way down a person's throat.
JD at April 20, 2014 12:35 PM
One of my best friends in college had (Hungarian) parents who did their best to responsibly introduce alcohol at family gatherings, special occasions, etc. And I can't think of a person who had an unhealthier relationship with alcohol. The first time I got drunk was with her, when she told me that "seven shots of vodka is totally safe! It's eight or more that you have to worry about." My parents had shunned alcohol from the home, so I had no idea. So I was like, "OK, seems like you know what you're doing."
It's hard to say what's best. My parents, I think, certainly weren't in the right for banishing alcohol. And I guess my friend's parents made her feel a little too comfortable with it.
There is a large genetic component to alchoholism.
In fact, this friend's family tree is full of alcoholics. And that surely played a role.
sofar at April 20, 2014 1:39 PM
The brother asks his twin: 'Why are you an alcoholic?'
'Because our father was an alcoholic,' replies the twin, and then asks his brother: 'Why aren't you an alcoholic?'
'Because our father was an alcoholic,' replies the brother.
It's not always about exposure or family drama or the judgment of others.
Best wishes, Isab.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 1:42 PM
When nature is perfectly understood and predictable, we're certain we're not dealing with nature... Human nature most of all.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 1:44 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/20/demonizing_alco.html#comment-4515270">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]Any addiction, at its base, has the avoidance of legitimate adult suffering. The substance is used for escape. It is not about biology. It is about escape.
Amy Alkon
at April 20, 2014 1:45 PM
If must be fun to have such decisive insight.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 1:58 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/20/demonizing_alco.html#comment-4515334">comment from Crid [CridComment at Gmail]It's not mine -- and it's something they see in all their addiction patients.
Amy Alkon
at April 20, 2014 2:12 PM
I mean, I agree with you about demonizing, but that doesn't help people. There isn't much that helps people.
Slamming the door on any thinking about the scourge of addiction, just to hear the satisfying crash of the wood against the jamb, seems kinda rude. We gotta be humble.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 2:22 PM
...I have never seen more responsible parents, and social modelers than the Japanese, and yet their rate of alcoholism, just like the indigienous Americans, is sky high.
Isab, is it men only or both men and women? I would imagine that a business culture that forces long working hours followed by binge drinking with colleagues would drive a lot of the alcoholism in Japan.
Posted by: Astra at April 20, 2014 6:44 AM
It appears to be both. They hide it well, you don't see people lying in the gutters, but it is an open secret.
There is binge drinking, and there is steady drinking, and it isn't just wine and beer. Every convenience store and grocery store has a large selection of different types of beer and wine, and a pretty good selection of hard liquor.
Isab at April 20, 2014 2:47 PM
Very sorry to hear what you have gone through with daughter, Isab.
I do want to say that both Fred Woolverton and Stanton Peele find addiction a way to avoid legitimate pain of an adult life. If not through drinking, those who live this way find another substance -- "addiction-hop," as Woolverton calls it.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon/2012/03/12/advice-goddess-radio-amy-alkon
Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 20, 2014 6:15 AM
I believe this is very true. Most addiction studies indicate, that the drugs are not the problem, it is the people. My daughter has always been a nervous person, and although we have tried Zoloft, i think the drinking is a very social way to calm her neves.
But that doesn't make the tendency any less genetic.
Isab at April 20, 2014 2:52 PM
It's not always about exposure or family drama or the judgment of others.
Best wishes, Isab.
Posted by: Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 1:42 PM
And that story brings up the case of my husband, who watched his mother sit at the table with a coffee cup full of sherry, and sip it all day. She was never falling down drunk, but she was never sober either.
Her father was half Choctaw, and was a full blown alcoholic.
She was dead at 60 from cirrhosis of the liver.
My husband ecided when he was very young never to get started in the drinking game, wise choice for him, but if you start drinking and have the tendency towards it, addiction can occur quite quickly.
I know some people who have managed to pull out of it, and stop, but I fear a larger number just ruin their health, and die twenty or thirty years early.
Isab at April 20, 2014 3:03 PM
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704422204576130074292859048
This looks a little more scientific than what the sociologists say.
Isab at April 20, 2014 3:20 PM
My children reported that the rate of binge drinking was significantly less than it was at their high school here in MA. They also thought that it made much more sense to have a drinking age of 16 and a driving age of 18, like Germany, rather than driving at 16 and drinking at 21. I concur, as learning how alcohol affects you before you are getting behind the wheel of a car is much more sensible than figuring out alcohol for the first time when you might be driving.
Posted by: jeff at April 20, 2014 12:07 PM
This is correct. However,the cost of drivers licenses and of cars in Germany keeps many of the problem drinkers and the young people on public transportation.
Same for Japan. Just because they are not behind the wheel does not mean they are not alcoholics.
Lived in Germany for three years. All their socialization is for naught. the Germans also have a high rate of alcoholism.
Isab at April 20, 2014 3:29 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/20/demonizing_alco.html#comment-4515569">comment from IsabThis looks a little more scientific than what the sociologists say.
Neither Peele nor Woolverton is a sociologist, and actually, it's not.
If you look at what all alcoholics, shopping addicts, drug addicts have in common, Peele and Woolverton are right -- it is using a substance to avoid feeling.
This seems to be why people who quit one substance often hop to another. It is a behavioral response to feelings.
Here: http://www.thefix.com/content/stanton-peele-addiction-inherited-gnes90269
http://www.soberforever.net/addiction-genetics.cfm#.T9quoDAcdeI.twitter
Amy Alkon
at April 20, 2014 3:47 PM
We, your readers, cohere in respectful confidence that if this certainty of yours could improve the lives of strangers in meaningful ways, you're not the sort of person who'd fail to do so.
Meanwhile....
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 4:12 PM
"If you look at what all alcoholics, shopping addicts, drug addicts have in common, Peele and Woolverton are right -- it is using a substance to avoid feeling."
You still don't seem to understand that the reason some people become addicted to alcohol and drugs because they were born with a set of genes that makes them predisposed to addiction.
Just because it is tied up with a whole host of other psychiatric issues, doesn't mean the basis is not largely genetic.
Do you think somehow that "feelings" are a social construct, with no genetic basis?
Why do you seem to recognize that the mere fact of being born a girl or a boy predisposes you to certain behavior, but you want to deny this genetic basis when it comes to alcohol addiction?
Isab at April 20, 2014 4:38 PM
Just because it is tied up with a whole host of other psychiatric issues, doesn't mean the basis is not largely genetic.
I'm skeptical about "largely". How is it that hardcore addicts overcome their addictions? It happens, doesn't it? Often, even.
Adkins takes the wrong approach in advising other parents how they might avoid this
Yeah, no. I don't see how he's demonizing alcohol. His child died, so, naturally, he was in grief and went on walkabout to try to learn and share what he's learning. Seems like a positive, healthy reaction.
I don't have a problem w/ parents teaching kids how to appreciate healthy, responsible or even jolly drinking. Why is it bad advice to urge parents to try to connect w/ their kids about the real hazards of alcohol abuse?
Answers ain't so neat sometimes.
Jason S. at April 20, 2014 5:25 PM
"I'm skeptical about "largely". How is it that hardcore addicts overcome their addictions? It happens, doesn't it? Often, even".
And you are correct. Answers are not neat, but evidence based scientific ones, with the data and the studies to back it up, should get more credence, than social science which is usually guessing backed by anecdote.
Biology is not destiny. It is just has way more influence than social factors. Twin studies have demonstrated this pretty conclusively.
You can never become addicted if you don't ingest substances that your body and mind find addicting.
Right now, I seem to be developing a jones for Matcha but it gives me only a light buzz, less than coffee, and I haven't heard of anyone dying from a green tea overdose.
You can also overcome addictions by getting completely off of a drug, and never taking it again.
I can lock you in a cage, and get you off anything, if you don't die from the withdrawal symptoms.
I have a good friend who managed to quit smoking when he got so sick with pneumonia that he was in the hospital for two weeks. That was enough for him to break the addiction. And he was smart enough not to restart it.
I have also read about prisoners in World War II prison camps who literally died of starvation and disease because their addictions were so strong that they traded their rations for available cigarettes.
Talk to a few ex smokers. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man. A lot of people have successfully quit but some will lapse right back into the habit by being around other smokers.
Alcohol is the same. Perhaps you should read the article in the Wall street journal that I linked to.
If you have no background in science and genetics, it may be tough sledding , because the combinations of genes in the human genome that lead to addictive behaviors is not simple Mendel pea pod genetics. It is hard science, and advanced math.
Isab at April 20, 2014 5:57 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/20/demonizing_alco.html#comment-4515888">comment from IsabI did read the article, and thanks but it was not "tough sledding." Me sounded whole ting out meself.
Me even read articuls with lot a big words on eppygenetics sumtimes.
Amy Alkon
at April 20, 2014 6:00 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/20/demonizing_alco.html#comment-4515891">comment from IsabYou still don't seem to understand that the reason some people become addicted to alcohol and drugs because they were born with a set of genes that makes them predisposed to addiction.
You still don't want to accept that this isn't a done deal. I have predispositions and in fact, had an eating disorder in my 20s. What I did was stop medicating my feelings away with brownies, etc.
Peele gives the example of soldiers coming back from Vietnam with heroin addictions who, in an environment where they had things they valued, were easily able to give up the smack.
Many people get off cigarettes. Again, it's values -- whether you value short-term escape or the future -- and whether you're going to engage in the baby behavior of addiction: receding into a substance so you don't have to feel adult feelings.
Amy Alkon
at April 20, 2014 6:03 PM
> What I did was stop medicating my feelings
> away with brownies, etc.
What on Earth makes you think so?
Why shouldn't we presume that your genetic propensity for addiction was so weak as to be readily overpowered by social cues and the minor inconveniences of indulgence?...
...Except that, y'know, believing that would be less flattering?
Religious people sometimes use this expression, they call it a 'saying', and it goes like this: There but for the Grace of...."
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 6:28 PM
> Answers ain't so neat sometimes.
☑
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 6:30 PM
I read/heard something a few years ago that one AA attendee went around the group after a few meetings and conversationally just asked if they were taking any of the drugs like Depakote, Zoloft or other anxiety disorder drugs. He came out with a guess that about 75% were.
So it could be that some become addicted from social exposure. Then there is another portion that has some sort of brain disorder that causes addiction and the drugs help replace that addiction or cover it up.
Jim P. at April 20, 2014 6:38 PM
I'm with Isab on this one.
My father loves the native people of Mexico. His favorite are the Raramuri.
I've been around them, and culturally they are quite different than the native people of the US. The problem I've seen with the natives of Mexico is......alcoholism. They don't touch drugs for their addictions.
If its about escaping emotional needs I'd expect them to be just as susceptible to the cheap and easily assesible narcotics. But they aren't.
Ppen at April 20, 2014 6:50 PM
I would like to add one more observation.
I became addicted to food when I started taking Seroquel-an anti-psychotic.
I mean I could literally not stop eating. Before that I was pretty much a vegetarian. But I began eating things I never touched before.
Sure I could stop myself by sheer will for a couple of weeks but then I would relapse. Just like an addict.
I stopped taking it and am mostly back to my old healthy eating habits.
I now feel a lot of sympathy for people addicted to food. There are people who are born this way. And I felt a chemical change in my perception of food.
Ppen at April 20, 2014 6:57 PM
> I'd expect them to be just as susceptible
> to the cheap and easily assesible narcotics.
> But they aren't.
For a number of years in the 70's (Ford inauguration though middle-disco) I covered any shortfall their absence may have caused in those particular market segments…
…And then I stopped.
Not through emotional development, but by the sloppy caprice of an erratic Universe. Sometimes we get lucky.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 20, 2014 7:09 PM
You know what we need to get approved by the FDA?
Snortable powdered alcohol.
I can't even imagine how this could become a problem.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 20, 2014 7:43 PM
Actually the BATF is the approving agency. So, no Rx required, I guess.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at April 20, 2014 7:44 PM
Most addicts use to escape something. Very few are purely physical addictions, but they are out there.
I come from a long line of functioning alcoholics, so I dont drink. Never have, not even a wine cooler.
Then I had part of m lung cut out and was put on morphine. I dont think anyone who isnt a addict can ever truly appreciate the lure of getting high. That warm hazy feeling as your brain just shuts off and you cant think, cant FEEL.
Problem is you cant stay, it takes more to get there, and you dont stay as long. Which is why addicts use more
lujlp at April 20, 2014 9:25 PM
Amy, that mockery was really despicable.
Whatever the difficulties you've faced, your experience of the world has been neither more nor less formative than has that of Isab's daughter, or that of any human being.
Saying "science" and "rational" a lot doesn't make this any less true.
Crid [CridComment at Gmail] at April 21, 2014 9:37 AM
"I come from a long line of functioning alcoholics, so I dont drink. Never have, not even a wine cooler."
Me too. Despite my brother and I having the same background alcohol never held any allure to me.
He on the other hand became an alcoholic for a couple of years while out of the service.
Did I want to escape reality? Yes and I remember my father once asked me how having gone through all I did did I never become an alcoholic. My doctor looked up at him and said "well she just was never interested in it."
Simple as that. I was born without any interest in it. No doubt due to my obsessive nature if I was into it I would be doing it right now.
Ppen at April 21, 2014 12:00 PM
While I have no comment one way or the other on addiction (I've seen value to both arguments in my life) the WSJ is a horrible source of scientific news. They are great for financial information but their scientific coverage is completely untrustworthy.
A few years back my father read an interview the WSJ had done with his employer Exxon. He was amazed at what he read. This was cutting edge research that was years beyond anything he knew was happening. When he got into work he asked his boss who was doing this amazing work. His boss looked at him as said "You did."
Ben at April 21, 2014 4:54 PM
Talk to a few ex smokers. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man.
Alcohol is the same. Perhaps you should read the article in the Wall street journal that I linked to.
True. I used to smoke, chew Copenhagen, use drugs and drink. I quit drinking and drugs 6 1/2 years ago and quit tobacco 4 years ago, but a month ago I decided to buy a corn cob pipe and some pipe tobacco so as to have a pipe full after dinner and watch the sun go down on the porch. I soon found myself craving a smoke after each meal and w/ a cup of coffee in the morning, so I decided it wasn't worth it for me.
But the WSJ article is interesting. There is still much to learn about addiction.
I do have to add something anecdotal, though: someone I once knew would complain about being a miserable alcoholic, and that they couldn't stop because their dad was a drunk and their grand father was a drunk and it ran in the Irish genes. That might be true, I guess, but their brother and both sisters and mother weren't alcoholics. RIP.
Jason S. at April 21, 2014 9:03 PM
Also, I do have to say that as far as demonizing goes, methamphetamine is stigmatized far more than alcohol and I'm not sure that it should be.
I have to scratch my head when smart people like Alkon repeat false information about methamphetamine in advice columns to reinforce a stereotype. No, methamphetamine *itself* hasn't been proven to rot your teeth. Yes, heavy addicts can pick at their skin -- but methamphetamine *is* actually prescribed by doctors to people w/ attention problems and weight problems, so it isn't pure evil. Adderall is very similar chemically to methamphetamine, believe it or not. I've used both and they are very similar. And there are A LOT of different types of people who have used methamphetamine -- not just scary hillbillies and gangbangers. I'm not condoning the use or abuse of meth because it *is* very dangerous, just like alcohol.
But methamphetamine is illegal so you don't know what you're getting on the black market and etc.
Thomas Sowell makes a good point about decriminalizing drugs and treating it as a health problem.
Jason S. at April 21, 2014 9:27 PM
"the sun go down on the porch"
And if you've never seen the sun go down on the porch, it isn't as pornographic as it sounds. Lol.
Jason S. at April 21, 2014 11:00 PM
If you are taking any prescripts to alter something genetic like let's say, ADHD - how is that any different from what goes on with alcoholics? What happens when you don't take your meds? What happens when you go without them? What would you do or how would you look in public without them?
I've also often wondered about people who need other people to act a certain way because ones emotions are so dependent on the "right" types of behaviors of other folk. Why are they off the hook too?
How about gender benders? How is it some people are genetically disposed to prefer the same sex. Can they help that?
Life is a mystery. Everyone's got their own shit going on . if you or anyone else on this board thinks they are impervious to the flaws of human nature because it somehow takes on a more socially respectable form - then my take is that such a perspective lacks a hell of a lot of courage.
feebie at April 26, 2014 6:02 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/04/20/demonizing_alco.html#comment-4541526">comment from feebieIf you are taking any prescripts to alter something genetic like let's say, ADHD - how is that any different from what goes on with alcoholics? What happens when you don't take your meds? What happens when you go without them?
I spend a lot of time on Twitter instead of working on my column. (I don't get a hairy chin or anything and go out and chase neighborhood cats.)
And hi, Feebs -- good to see you round these parts.
Amy Alkon
at April 26, 2014 6:17 AM
Hi Amy. Been a busy mama lately. Just lurkin. Hope u are doin well.
feebie at April 27, 2014 6:17 PM
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