More teenagers are abstaining from alcohol

Between 2002 and 2018, the real amount of adults aged 18-22 in the U.S. who abstained from alcohol increased from 20% to 28% for all those in college and from about 24% to 30% for anyone not in school, say researchers at the University of Texas and Michigan State University. And alcohol abuse among both groups decreased by half roughly.

However, the scholarly study unearthed that the number of teenagers using marijuana, along with co-using marijuana and alcohol, has increased.

Overall, the mixed findings show more positive than negative trends for alcohol and marijuana use and misuse among this generation, nevertheless the progression bears close monitoring, the researchers say.

The scholarly study, appearing in JAMA Pediatrics Oct. 12, examined how marijuana and alcohol abstinence, use and co-use disorders have changed in 18-to-22-year-olds as a function of college status, using data from the representative survey of 182 nationally,722 adults. Additionally, it viewed prescription drug misuse and use as a function of alcohol and marijuana use, from 2015 to 2018.

The researchers were surprised at the drop in alcohol use and misuse particularly.

“We’re encouraged by the significant decreases in alcohol use disorder — for both college and noncollege students,” said lead author Sean Esteban McCabe, director of the middle for the scholarly study of Drugs, Alcohol, Health insurance and smoking at the U-M School of Nursing.

“The prevalence of alcohol use disorder in both groups in 2018 was roughly 1 / 2 of what it absolutely was in 2002. We’re excited to master about these drops in disordered drinking, as alcohol-related consequences are among the leading reasons for morbidity and mortality for teenagers.”

Co-author Ty Schepis, professor of psychology at Texas State, said “despite increases in marijuana use co-use and disorder of alcohol and marijuana, there is a large amount of hope within our study’s results.”

“Points of concern that deserve more attention would be the rise in co-use of alcohol and marijuana, even as we realize that polysubstance use may have more negative consequences and start to become more difficult to deal with,” he said.

The study also discovered that more than three-fourths of the who had disordered utilization of both alcohol and marijuana reported past-year prescription drug use and illicit drug use, whilst the majority reported prescription drug misuse.

The findings indicate that the substance use landscape has changed in the last 20 years, with increased adults misusing or using many different substances, rather than marijuana or alcohol just.

“As an example, from 2015 to 2018, only 2.5% of teenagers who abstained from both alcohol and marijuana reported misusing prescription medications, while 25.1% of co-users misused prescribed drugs,” Schepis said. “That’s a tenfold difference with potentially dangerous consequences.”

Abusing multiple substances is more harmful than abusing just one substance often.

“Interventions that focus solely using one substance will soon be less effective than interventions that have a more holistic polysubstance use perspective,” McCabe said. “The findings of our study reinforce the complex task medical researchers have of detecting and developing effective interventions to cut back consequences related to polysubstance use, such as for instance co-use of marijuana and alcohol.”

Schools and employers may need more resources to scale interventions to deal with both adults with and with no disorder, including screening and brief interventions for co-use of marijuana and alcohol, McCabe said.

“The discovering that abstinence is increasing among students and teenagers not in college is essential for U.S. universities and colleges to forward consider moving,” he said. “These findings reinforce the value of the requirement to support those adults in recovery and abstinence for other reasons. You will find over 1 million U.S. teenagers in recovery and numerous resources are needed to guide these individuals.”