73 Alcohol, the Brain, and Prevention

If you're 13 when you start drinking, you have a 47% chance of having a problem as an adult. If you wait until 21, you still have a 9% chance that you'll have a problem later on. But there's a clear pattern. The longer you can delay onset of use, the more you can protect your brain. Age of first alcohol use is a strong predictor of an alcohol abuse problem later in life. That's a quote from Dr. Marisa Silveri, McLean News, in the article The Essence of Adolescence: Examining Addiction in the Teenage Brain. She's the director of the Neurodevelopmental Lab on Addictions and Mental Health at McLean Hospital, Massachusetts, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Hello and welcome to Top Down Brain Rx Chill Pill Podcast, a podcast that boosts your resilience just by listening.

Resilience is about bouncing back from setbacks by adapting and learning so you can thrive through life's challenges. Your time is precious, so I work to deliver research-backed tools to boost you and your family's resilience. Each of the episodes strive to leave you with an action or meditation prescription that you can apply immediately to your life. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a board-certified physician and mom of two amazing kids, and my purpose is to make the neuroscience of wellness accessible to you and your family's everyday life. Because when I became a mom, I wanted to do everything possible to empower my children with healthy mental and physical habits. This wasn't something that I had growing up, so I had to learn how to create a healthy and happy home life. I'm definitely not aiming for perfection, but I can honestly say that the mind-body skills I learned transformed my family's life. After years of training, I fully transitioned into teaching mind-body medicine. Leaving one of the most prestigious private practices in New York City so I could dedicate my time to creating and teaching the science of resilience. My almost decade-long experience teaching high-performing students of all ages have now led me to the creation of my newest courses, Plan to Soar and Soar Under Pressure. To make these tried and true courses widely accessible, I'm rolling them out with partnering schools, organizations, and online for individuals on MindBodySpace.com. Www.themindfulstudent.com.

A portion of all proceeds go to those students in need. So those are pretty incredible statistics. If you have a 13-year-old who starts drinking, they have 1 out of 2 chances that they'll be problematic drinkers when they become adults. If you start at age 21, you still have 1 out of 10 chance that you're gonna have a problem later in your adult life. The World Health Organization states that alcohol use and abuse among youth under 21 years of age is a significant problem worldwide. Statistics from the US Department of Justice show that almost 11% of all alcoholic beverages consumed in the United States are by children and adolescents. A survey by the CDC showed that almost 40% of all US high school students reported drinking and that about 1 out of 4 binge drink. Meaning that they drink more than 4 drinks in one sitting. So that officially makes alcohol the most widely used and abused substance for American adolescents. Good news is that a survey by Jang et al. showed that there's been some decline in frequency of binge drinking. However, it still continues to be a major problem in preadolescence and young adulthood. And emerging adults are defined as age 18 to 24. And as we know from Dr. Jay Giedd's work on the adolescent brain, the frontal lobe, or the part of the brain involved in judgment, organization, and planning and strategies, those are the areas that are undergoing significant growth during prepubescent and adolescent years. What that means is that that's when the brain has insane amounts of potentials. So basically, that time of life, you can become skilled in so many different areas, and this is really the time to build skills and a solid sense of executive functioning. In Dr. Geidt's interview with Frontline, he says, quote, so if a teen is doing music or sports or academics, those are the cells and connections that will be hardwired. If they're lying on the couch or playing video games or MTV, those are the cells and connections that are going to survive. End quote. So the young adolescent brain is significantly at risk for toxicity, including alcohol toxicity. And since addictions are actually a learned behavior, it's like any other learning process. They can learn becoming addicted harder and faster, making these habits of addiction more difficult to treat when it starts in this young age. To make a sport analogy, imagine a kid learns how to ski at the age of 13, 14, 15, and skis all throughout their high school years. And then compare them to a person who learns to ski in their late 20s or 30s. Skiing is going to be much more natural to the person who learned in their teens. They're going to feel much more comfortable on the slopes than the person who learned in their adulthood. This is the same thing that goes for addictions or other bad habits, because habits again are a learned process. There's research showing that excessive alcohol use is associated with structural and functional brain abnormalities, especially affecting the frontal lobe, which is the area that we know as the executive functioning brain. Neuroscientists, including Dr. Silvestri, use MRS or magnetic resonance spectroscopy. This particular type of MRI study can show neurochemical changes in the brain. It's been noted that alcohol affects N-acetyl aspartate and choline in the frontal lobe regions. Decreased N-acetyl aspartate is likely a signal that there's neuronal loss and that there is a change in brain metabolism. The decrease in the choline, the researchers think that this is likely related to cellular membrane changes and degradation. Dr. Silveri is now currently studying GABA. I'm sure you've all seen GABA on the supermarket shelves. Brain gamma-aminobutyric acid. Is what she studies in relation to alcohol dependence and alcohol bingeing in the emerging adult brain. So we all know that just telling kids what to do doesn't really work. What really does work is education, knowing the facts. I mean, 1 out of 2 people drink in high school, but one— but there's also the other 1 out of 2 who don't. So that's 50%. That's a lot of people who don't drink. And even less people who binge drink. Only 1 out of 4 binge drink. So 3 out of 4 people are not binge drinking. This makes a significant behavioral change because as we all know, peer influence is extremely important in this age group and beyond. So studies have shown that college students overestimate the rate at which their friends and peers drink. This has been called the misperception of the descriptive norm. In other words, having an assumption about other people's behaviors, which in this case is wrong. Multiple studies have shown that this misperception that your peers and other students are drinking a lot on campus actually relates to your own drinking behavior. When students find out that peers are not drinking as much as they think they are, then this can also influence their behavior to drink less. And in fact, even though excessive alcohol use is a significant threat to our young adult population, research supports that most college students actually drink moderately or not at all. So once students know this, that their peers are not actually drinking as much as they think they are, then they tend to drink less as well. However, the research subjects were not problematic drinkers, and they also did not have social anxiety. Aside from the risk of future adult drinking problems and the neurochemical biological changes of the brain responding to alcohol as a toxin in your adolescent and emerging adult years, there are a myriad of other reasons why why drinking can be dangerous, from accidents and injuries, unsafe or unwanted sexual harassment, academic failure, and exacerbation of coexisting mental health conditions like depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, social anxiety, inflammation in general, and its effects on cognitive development, including emotional regulation. So if you're a parent or an educator listening, the best time to introduce your kids to this is not when they start to drink. Rather, it's about teaching them about their brains and bodies way before, as young as possible. And of course, we have to keep reinforcing it because obviously there are social influences that are constantly there. So we need to counteract it with constant healthy reminders as well. There is robust research showing that prevention and education works. Of course, if there's any underlying issues like anxiety or addiction issues, of course, that has to be addressed in addition and alongside the education about their own brains and bodies. When I teach kids in my Top Down Brain programs about their brains and how they change in response to learning They're super interested in this. And so if kids understand what alcohol toxicity means for their brain and also how addictions can be hardwired into their brain at an earlier age, then they might understand that this is a really special time. So if you're a parent listening, teach your kids about their brain. If you're a young adult listening or a teenager listening to this, just remember that this time of your brain development is an unbelievably special time. You literally have a super brain. So start to become more selective about what you want to be a natural thing for you when you grow up to be an adult. And of course, these neurochemical changes are not just for kids.

It's also for adults as well.

We know that alcohol toxicity can have an effect on our brains. So my next episode is with New York Times bestselling author Claire Pooley. She started her famous blog called Mummy Was a Secret Drinker, which turned into her bestselling book, The Sober Diaries. And it's a great interview. So tune in and please share the episode with anyone who's curious about getting sober or anyone who's curious about alcohol and creativity and anyone who's interested in how to have fun while sober. And if you have any questions that you want answered, Email me at podcast@mindbodyspace.com.

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Thank you so much.

And until next time, this is Dr. Juna wishing you and your family wellness.