Daily HealthBeat Tip

Giving the kid a drinking problem

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I�m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

It�s the holidays, so kids are trying out their new gifts. But some are not so good. What a lot of teen-agers get for the holidays is a lifelong drinking problem.

Experts at HHS� Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration � SAMHSA � say first use of alcohol spikes in December and January.

That spike can turn out to be a shaft. SAMSHA Administrator Charles Curie says teens who start drinking risk big trouble:

"Adults who had first used alcohol before age 15 are more than five times as likely to be dependent on alcohol as adults who first used alcohol at age 21 or older." (11 seconds)

SAMHSA has a new ad campaign directed at parents of teens. It�s called ``Start Talking Before They Start Drinking.�� Curie says kids do listen.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: December 26, 2005

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