This is a Public Service Announcement regarding the movement to mandate annual Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for High School students. This is an advocacy for the awareness of underage drinking and how to educate our youth before they leave high school.
For more information contact:
Claudia Kostich, ATC, LAT
phone: 646-420-9667
email: claudiakostich@mail.adelphi.edu
And here is one for the Long Island Area..
LICYPAA is the acronym for Long Island Committee of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous. We have established LICYPAA to unite all young AA’s of Long Island in the tradition of our founders to bring the message of recovery to the still suffering alcoholic. LICYPAA’s mission is to reach out to alcoholics everywhere, including institutions, schools, and meetings. LICYPAA hosts events to be of service and create unity. LICYPAA was determined to host a the EACYPAA convention in the Spring of 2009. Our members hoped to put together a memorable celebration of recovery, unity, and service. Our intention was that all attendees would return home from the convention better prepared to receive young people who turn to AA for help.
LICYPAA meets the 1st and 3rd Mondays of every month at 8:15pm
South Oaks Chapel
400 Sunrise Hwy Amityville, NY 11701
Below we have posted a list of Young People’s AA Meetings on Long Island, we will try and keep this list as up to date as possible. Please if you know of any revisions, or any meetings that should be added please use the contact form below to send us that information.
This is an awesome group for young people in the New York City area.
About the group:
Since February 2005, NYCYPAA has been doing it’s thang. We’ve adopted AA’s primary purpose: to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. We’re directly responsible to the young AA members of NYC, and any AA member is welcome to join. Our practical goals are derived from AA’s three legacies. We strive to:
If you need help with a drinking problem, feel free to email us. A young AA member will get back to you within 24 hours,
usually sooner. We’re available to answer questions you might have or accompany you to a meeting.
If you need to talk to someone or find a meeting right away, call NY Intergroup at 212-647-1680 (9 am – 2 am)
or Queens Intergroup at 718-520-5021 (24/7)
https://www.stopalcoholabuse.gov/
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2006 directed the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish the Interagency Coordinating Comm
ittee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking and to issue an annual report summarizing all federal agency activities related to preventing underage alcohol use. HHS made Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD) a standing committee to provide ongoing, high-level leadership on this issue and to serve as a mechanism for coordinating federal efforts aimed at preventing and reducing underage drinking.
Fifteen federal agencies are members of ICCPUD; the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency within HHS, serves as the lead agency.
Check out these great videos for talking to your kids! English and Spanish available
English:
Spanish:
The “Discussion Starter” is the newest product for SAMHSA’s “Talk. They Hear You.” This video is set within a community setting showcasing a variety of situations that parents and caregivers could have a conversation about alcohol, and culminating into and school basketball court where 12- to 13-year old boys are playing a Saturday morning game.
The parents (Bill and Diane), arrive after the game is underway, and sit down with other parents in the stands. Each parent is engaged in conversation with other parents, and then engaged in a discussion in the car that leads the parents (Bill and Diane) recognition that they needed to talk with his own son (Tim) and younger daughter (Katie) about alcohol use.
Youth who drink alcohol do not think that it is possible to be an alcoholic at such a young age. Others think that because they do not drink hard liquor, forget what they did or said when drunk, or stumble around that they are not alcoholics. As a high school student, everyday there is peer pressure, difficult relationships, and high risk situations leading to high risk behaviors. Also, approximately 10% of A.A. members are under the age of 30 which is not only alarming but relatable to a nearby age of high school students (Young People and A.A.).
Requiring high school students to attend multiple Alcoholics Anonymous meetings allows them to not only better recall the information and stories they heard but also consider the risky behaviors they are currently making with alcohol. Young adults can benefit greatly from attending multiple A.A. meetings even though there might be an older population in these meetings. The stories and discussions led by the older population, faced with different challenges, can encourage the young adults to not make the same mistakes from alcohol abuse.
Binge drinking is the most common pattern of alcohol consumption among high school youth who drink alcohol and is strongly associated with a wide range of other health risk behaviors.
High school students should be required to attend multiple Alcoholics Anonymous meetings so that they can learn about the high risk behaviors they are currently engaging in and the outcomes that can occur in the near future.
Or in shorter terms known as the YRBSS.. is an American biennial survey of adolescent health risk and health protective behaviors such as smoking, drinking, drug use, diet, and physical activity conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This survey monitors six types of health-risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of death and disability among youth and adults. It includes behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence, sexual behaviors related to unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including HIV infection, alcohol and other drug use, tobacco use, unhealthy dietary behaviors, and inadequate physical activity.
Ok that was a lot…but pretty much this is an important survey that covers all of the risky behavior in youth.
According to the YRBSS survey in 2015, nationwide 63.2% of students had had at least one drink of alcohol on at least 1 day during their life. The prevalence of having ever drunk alcohol was higher among female (65.3%) than male (61.4%) students; higher among black female (57.9%) and Hispanic female (68.6) than black male (51%) and Hispanic male (63.4%) students, respectively; and higher among 9th-grade female (53%) than 9th-grade male (48.9%) students. More so, 10th-12th grade students had a higher prevalence of having ever drunk alcohol compared to 9th grade students.
An even more important survey outcome was discovering that nationwide, 17.7% of students had had five or more drinks of alcohol in a row on at least 1 day during the 30 days before the survey. Also to be noted, 4.3% of students reported that the largest number of drinks that they had had in a row during the 30 days before the survey was 10 or more (YRBSS, 2015). According to the YRBSS (2015), “The prevalence of reporting 10 or more as the largest number of drinks in a row was higher among male (6.1%) than female (2.5%) students; higher among white male (6.6%), black male (3.2%), and Hispanic male (6.5%) than white female (2.4%), black female (1.0%), and Hispanic female (3.6%) student, respectively; and higher among 10th-grade male (6.3%), 11th-grade male (7.3%), and 12th-grade male (8.8%) than 10th-grade female (2.2%), 11th-grade female 2.5%, and 12th-grade female (3.0% students, respectively”.
In summary, as students progress from 9th to 12th grade, they also drink more each year. Also, this survey found results that youth are binge drinking, more so in males.
Mandating Alcoholics Anonymous for High School Students 