West Chester Pennsylvania Teen & High School Student Alcohol Awareness & Drug Education, MIP MIC

Pennsylvania DUI, DWI Education Class – Alcohol is the most commonly used substance abuse in the United States: Approximately 17.6 million people, or about one in every 12 people, suffer from alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence along with several million more who have binge drinking patterns that could lead to severe alcohol problems.

In many jurisdictions, a DUI, DWI charge occurs when the driver or operator of a motor vehicle has enough alcohol content in their blood that the driver has lost the use of their “normal mental and physical faculties”. This is defined by many standards as a B.A.C. (blood alcohol concentration) of .08.

According to the Center for Disease Control, every day, 28 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This is one death every 51 minutes. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than

$44 billion.

More than half of all adults have family members who have a history of alcoholism or problem drinking, and more than 7 million children live in a household where at least one parent is dependent on or has abused alcohol on a regular basis.

Alcohol abuse and alcoholism can affect all aspects of a person’s life. Long-term alcohol use can cause serious health complications (heart, liver, and kidney failure just to name a few), can damage emotional stability, finances, career, and impact one’s family, friends and community.

Opiates are now the leading abused drug in the USA. Opiate based pain pills are the single greatest overdose medicines in American. Opiates such as Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin, Morphine, and Loratab are the leading cause of overdose deaths each year. Opiate are surprisingly easy to get. In fact, an estimated 210 million prescriptions for opiates were dispensed in 2010 alone. Frighteningly, prescription opiate drug abusers are far more likely to eventually develop a heroin addiction than a non-opiate abuser, as heroin will offer a similar high at a cheaper price.

Over time, excessive alcohol use, both in the form of heavy drinking or binge drinking, can lead to numerous health problems, chronic diseases, neurological impairments and social problems, including but not limited to:

• • Dementia, stroke and neuropathy ailments
    
    
  • Cardiovascular (Heart) problems, including myocardial infarction (Heart Attack), cardiomyopathy, atrial fibrillation (AFIB) and hypertension
    
    
  • Psychiatric problems, including depression, anxiety, and suicide
    
    
  • Social problems, including unemployment, lost productivity, domestic family problems, domestic violence including child mistreatment, fights and homicide
    
    
  • Unintentional injuries, such as motor-vehicle traffic crashes, falls, drowning, burns and firearm injuries.
    
    
  • Increased risk for many kinds of cancers, including liver, mouth, throat, larynx (voice box), stomach and esophagus
    
    
  • Liver diseases, including fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver
    
    
  • Gastrointestinal problems, including pancreatitis, ulcers and gastritis
    
    
  • Alcohol abuse or dependence on alcohol – alcoholism.