|
Contrary to the consumption of tobacco, the one of alcohol works hard to lower at the young. What are the risks? How to sensitize the teenagers? What to think the emergence of the premix? Greatly implied in struggle against the dangers of the alcohol, the Experts told of it to us more. Q:Before 17 years, the prompt drunkenness are more frequent than the regular consumptions. Are these behaviors for as much deprived of risks? A: The prompt and festive excessive consumption doesn't expose to the same dangers that the regular consumption of alcohol. The loss of control, the violent and impulsive behaviors can prove to be dangerous for the other but also for oneself. Beyond the accidents of the road or sport, the befuddled youngster becomes the ideal victim of brawls, manipulations and physical, moral or sexual violences. Number of non protected sexual intercourse is due to these drunkenness. Finally, the consequences are often important on the school or professional course. These effects are raised when they come with the consumption of other psychotropics (cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy.). The chronic consumption will have on the long term of the various consequences on the organism: cancers, illnesses of the liver and the pancreas, nervous and troubled illnesses of the system psychic, cardiovascular problems. Q: Is the dependence to the alcohol it frequents at the young? A: Few teenagers are truly dependent to the alcohol, even though recently our consultations welcome young adults of hardly 20 years in this case. The consumption of alcohol generally knows a peak of frequency between 15 and 20 years; then the conducts of alcoolisation "normalize" themselves to the entry in the adult age. Some domestic, school or professional constraints are sufficient to put an end to the behaviors to risk with the products psychotropics then (alcohol, cannabis, etc.). But for some irreducible, the consumption lasts and the risks of dependence increase. One knows today that these precocious excesses increase the ulterior evolution risk toward a dependence to the adult age. But attention, the based prevention message on the dependence is double-entendre. Q: According to you, to speak solely of alcoholic dependence would be too reducing. Dr Philippe Batel: He subsists the false idea again that the danger of the alcohol would limit itself to the dependence that it can cause. Thus, some consumers reassure themselves while saying themselves, "I am not dependent, I manage to not to drink during x days." The beautiful business! The picture of Epinal of the mid-tramp drunkard that drinks three liters per day doesn't even concern 1% of the population. The deaths bound to the alcohol are bound mainly to dangerous behaviors with the alcohol: of the accidents of the road, of work, of the suicides (the alcohol is a powerful factor of passage to the act), of the consequences of the arterial hypertension bound to the alcohol, etc. Q: How to sensitize the young to the dangers of the alcohol? Dr Philippe Batel: Some negative experiences very often exist within the groups; of the young that skidded, of the unhappy experiences or the tragic histories. These events are as many strong messages for their equals. Thus, contrary to what one believed a time, the prevention works very well at the young. Under the condition not to adopt a moralizing tone and without denying the existence of risks deliberately taken. When the Minister of the inside declares that "the reduction of the risks, it is no risk", it is more a virtual, demagogic and political positioning that the hold in account of a physiological reality: the teenagers search for, during their maturation toward the adult age, their limits. The use of products psychotropics allows them to feel them and often to find them. To justify it would be dangerous because the risks incurred are often important but to deny it is an aberration. Q: Since some years, one hears to speak a lot of the premix. What do you think of the influence of these drinks at the young? A: The teenagers didn't certainly wait for the emergence of the premix to drink the alcohol. The main reproach makes to these products is that they advance masked. As sugary as of the sodas, their composition and their picture learnedly orchestrated by a targeted marketing don't make the alcohol think. But it is difficult to know the influence of these products on the global consumption of alcohol. According to the numbers of the sales, one can suppose that she is minimal, grace notably to some legislative arrangements that surtaxed them. One would have liked merely that the parliamentarians testify of as much will opposite wine or beers, that contrary to the majority of the premix, are manufactured in France. Q: Since several years, the consumption of alcohol stagnates. Contrary to anti-tobacco struggle, the fight against the dangers of the alcohol marks the step. A: He is also clear that the political engagement is well less clear opposite the alcohol. One could see the weight of the wine-growing lobby lately at the time of the discount in reason of the Evin law. If he is justified that one fights firmly against tobacco or the cannabis, one seems to forget that the first reason of mortality between 14 and 30 years remained the alcohol. Oscillating between hypocrisy and major blindness, the political will of struggle against the dangers of the alcohol is not absolutely at the height of this public health problem. Q: A survey of the French observatory of the drugs and addictions seem to find an interrelationship between the consumption of the adults and the young in some regions (North-Not-Of-Calais, big West South, Brittany.). How to explain this parallel? Dr Philippe Batel: It is difficult to advance an explanation certain of these phenomena. One can advance some hypotheses at most. The first would be the reproduction of adult behaviors, at which the consumption of alcohol is disguised. But one knows that attitudes of opposition also exist: of the children of alcoholic parents who don't consume or very little. The second would be bound to the presence of the same social reasons of an excessive consumption: the aimlessness, unemployment, the school or professional failure. Even though this second explanation has my preference a priori, some finer analyses are necessary to be able to interpret these data. 2009-02-04
|
