Anxiety-induced drinking concerns raised

Hearst Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Safety advocates say they are worried that heavier drinking linked to Sept. 11 anxieties may make the New Year’s holiday a particularly lethal time to be on the road.

"Mental health experts tell us that people are going to use alcohol to try to calm their fears about the world," said Millie Webb, 54, of Franklin, Tenn., national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

"Our concern is that these same people will choose to get out on the roadway after drinking. We have no control over the terrorists, but there is a terrorist among us that we can stop and that is the drunk driver. This is one crime, unlike terrorism, that is 100 percent preventable."

Highway safety advocates are already on alert because of a nearly 2 percent spike in alcohol-related traffic fatalities last year when alcohol-linked driving deaths rose to 16,653, compared with 15,976 in 1999, according to the National Highway Safety Administration.

The jump in drunk driving fatalities follows a five-year period in which the statistics had leveled off after falling steadily from the 1980s to the mid-1990s.

Mental health officials say they are worried that some Americans will respond to stress from the terrorist attacks by medicating themselves with alcohol and other drugs.

"People are looking for an escape," said Mark Weber, director of communications for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has begun surveying households to measure any behavior changes after Sept. 11.

"People feel helpless. We don’t expect the whole country to have a nervous breakdown, but we are trying to be prepared and be aware that there may be problems," Weber said.

Research shows that exposure to trauma places a person at a four-to-five-times greater risk of substance abuse, and stress is considered to be the leading cause of relapse to drinking, drug and smoking addictions, according to the Columbia University report.

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