Ron Krzmarzick has celebrated 21st birthdays with more young adults than he cares to remember.
Here’s how the party often starts: The people celebrating arrive at the Brown County Evaluation Center (or detox) in the back of a police squad car. A gate shuts and locks behind the car before they are taken out and escorted into the building and told to stand still, if they’re able.
They’re “pat-searched” and anything that can be of harm to themselves or others is removed from their pockets and put away. When that’s done, they’re brought through another door that locks behind them before entering an office with concrete block walls.
That’s where the paperwork begins. It’s a process that can take 20 to 30 minutes, and “is sometimes a challenge,” depending on how drunk the person has become.
They’re asked who they are, how much they’ve had to drink and if their family has a history of alcoholism, among other things. A breath test will establish their blood alcohol concentration before they’re led to a bunk in a room, where their blood pressure and other “ vitals” are taken by a staff member. After that, if they fall asleep, someone wakes them up every two hours to take their vitals again.
“What we’re afraid of is they’re going to go into withdrawals, or fall asleep and not wake up,” said Krzmarzick, the facility’s supervisor. Of course, it’s not always someone celebrating a birthday who gets all this attention. It can be anyone who has had too much to drink before getting in trouble with police or being brought to the hospital by a concerned friend or family member.
Everyone taken to New Ulm’s detox, which serves an 11-county area at a cost of $225 per person per day, meets with a licensed counselor sometime after the first 24 hours.
They are offered education about the dangers of high-risk drinking, a little advice and, if necessary, leads on where to get further help with alcohol or mental health problems, if they want it. Their vitals are still being taken, just not as often.
Sometimes, for experienced drinkers, it takes a day or two for that withdrawal process to start, though. If it does, they’re given medication to keep their blood pressure down while they shake and sweat. They usually don’t want to get out of bed because they’re sick, Krzmarzick said. It’s a dangerous time when seizures and strokes are a deadly possibility.
“Alcohol withdrawal is a very dangerous thing, probably more dangerous than any other drug,” said Sharon Rhoades, director of the Evaluation Center, which also includes a juvenile detention center.
She’s been working at the facility for 18 years. When she started, it was rare to see college-age drinkers brought to detox. It was usually regular customers with chronic drinking problems who came through the facility’s series of locking doors.
Although the facility doesn’t keep statistics on age, she said young people are now brought in regularly, especially on weekends. And their blood-alcohol concentration levels are reaching highs that were rare for anyone a decade ago, she said.
“We used to be amazed at a .3, now we’re seeing levels as high as .5,” Rhoades said. “ Those aren’t usually college kids, but the .20s and .30s are very common for them. Many of them can’t believe they’re in a place like this and they don’t ever want to come back. But, for some people, it’s just a story to tell their friends when they get home.”
The path to dangerous drinking for some starts earlier than many people realize, said Michael McGinnis of Addiction Recovery Technologies in Mankato. Part of the reason for that is young people aren’t getting the message about high-risk drinking, or straight facts about alcohol in general, when they need it most, he said.
Between 200 and 300 students from the Mankato and St. Peter school districts are referred to McGinnis each year for counseling for drug and alcohol problems.
He said he sees trends with those students that are backed up by the Minnesota Student Survey, completed every three years by students in grades six, nine and 12. It asks questions about tobacco, alcohol and drug use, among other things.
The surveys show many Minnesota students say they have a vague knowledge about alcohol in sixth grade, but think they know a lot about alcohol by the time they’re freshmen in high school, McGinnis said. By the time they’re high school seniors, they say they know everything they need to know.
It’s not uncommon for students in sixth and seventh grade to get their first opportunities to try alcohol, he said. Those opportunities are often in the summer, when there is the greatest opportunity with the least amount of supervision. Each summer after that, the chances of a child trying alcohol grows.
“It starts out small and builds from there,” McGinnis said. “By the time we get to the ninth- and 10thgrade group, most kids have had some sort of experience. Not all, but they’ve had enough that they’re starting to feel pretty empowered by the thing.
They feel that they understand what they’re doing. Attitudes are already developing around it.”
A small group of people that age is already using alcohol and other drugs regularly. A larger group of kids has an interest and is moving in and out of the circle of regular users. Most kids aren’t using at all, but they form a buffer between themselves and the people who are drinking, McGinnis said.
As they grow older and start becoming more aware of alcohol marketing aimed at adults, drinking becomes more accepted. It’s no coincidence that younger people are drinking more hard liquors now than they have in the past, McGinnis said. It was in 2001 that broadcast television networks lifted a self-imposed ban on hard liquor advertisements.
Overall, it’s a small group that is binge drinking by the time they get to college. But statistics, cited both by McGinnis and Minnesota State University Health Services counselors, show that group is growing.
For some, the binge drinking in college becomes a habit that follows them through the rest of their life.
McGinnis has gathered many statistics during his time helping teens and others with their addictions.
For instance, he cited alcohol research created by Joseph Califano Jr., former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare and founder, president and chairman of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Califano completed a study a few years ago showing that light and moderate drinkers only consume half the alcohol sold each year in the United States. The remaining alcohol is consumed by heavy drinkers, about 20 percent of the of-age drinkers, with help from underage drinkers.
“That 20 percent is drinking a lot of alcohol,” McGinnis said. “It’s way out of sorts with what the average is showing.”
One obvious solution is education, but it can’t be put on the backs of schools, he said. It has to be something more complex than “ just say no” repeated from year to year, he said. It has to be a comprehensive message about high-risk alcohol use that is repeated in school, at home, other places where young people gather and in the media. And the message has to change as the people who are supposed to be hearing it change.
And it has to start in the home and radiate out.
“I would like us to keep this thing relevant,” McGinnis said. “Kids get bored with this subject because they always feel like we’re saying the same thing. And, if we’re saying the same thing in ninth grade that we said in the seventh grade, I don’t blame them for getting bored.
“We need to grow up with them, we need to grow up with their experiences and we need to stay up with what it means to them.”
Businesses also have to be part of the education investment, McGinnis said.
They have to pitch in financially by funding alcohol awareness programs, but they also need to make it clear to parents that time is available to provide help to their children when needed. Most area businesses do that, McGinnis said, but employees often have the perception that time off isn’t available.
“It’s great business right across the board and it builds a healthy community that’s going to be vibrant for young people in the future,” he said. “ There’s no loss here. It’s all win-win as far as I can see.”
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