Go light on holiday spirits

As party season whirls toward Christmas and New Year's Eve, the people stitching the wounds and saving the lives are calling for less holiday cheer and more common sense.

"We see a noticeable spike in trauma in the 14- to 22-year-old age group, where alcohol and drugs are involved," said Marcie Ellis, supervisor of trauma prevention programs at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Carmichael.

Ellis is talking about violent, serious trauma – blood on the pavement, head through the windshield car wrecks and pedestrians cut down as they wander into traffic.

"Drugs and alcohol lead kids to do many things they ordinarily would not do," Ellis said, citing other incidents involving stabbings, beatings and gun crime.

Doctors also are dealing with less violent overdoses and other life-threatening problems that don't even make the list when Ellis looks at her "trauma" statistics.

It is supposed to be a time of joy, but the holiday party can crash to a halt or fade to black.

In November and December, some people are brought in suffering from exposure and hypothermia because they passed out in a park or a backyard, said Dr. Jack Wood, a Mercy San Juan emergency room doctor.

"They may be homeless (people) or teenagers who get so inebriated, they do not know what they are doing."

Complications due to methamphetamine and cocaine use occur, too, but alcohol is the "most common thing."

Dr. Leon Owens, medical director of Mercy San Juan's trauma program deals with the worst cases.

"The vast majority are car crashes," Owens said. "About 70 percent of the drivers are either on drugs, alcohol or both."

Owens is a crusader against drunken driving , spurred on by personal anguish as well as the carnage he sees on a regular basis.

His son, Jacob, 21, died in solo car crash into a tree on Fair Oaks Boulevard while driving drunk in August 2002.

Drunken driving fatalities generally get at least some mention in the local news reports. Car crashes involving critical injuries can occur with no mention at all, even though their victims are crippled for life.

"I have a whole room full of them," Owens said.

He has helped develop a pilot program that attempts to reach repeat drunken drivers soon after they are arrested. At that point, they may listen to counseling and suggestions about drug treatment, Owens said.

He understands the power that alcohol can exert on young men. His family tried counseling, rehabilitation programs and other options for Jacob.

"Alcohol still beats us," Owens said.

Young bodies and brains are especially vulnerable.

"A 14-year-old or a 16-year-old can become addicted to alcohol very easily," Marcie Ellis said.

That fact adds to the dilemma for trauma prevention specialists. They say they hear frequent reports of children drinking or doing drugs in sixth or seventh grade.

Even fairly disciplined teenagers may get into trouble when they go away to college, the experts say.

Ellis said she also is hearing about scary things like "pharm parties."

Teenagers scoop everything they can find out of a medicine cabinet, pile it all on the table and then just start swallowing stuff," she said.

"They can have potentially deadly drug interactions."

Stricter parenting may be the teenagers' best defense against the substance abuse going on around them, Ellis said.

Parents need to model responsible behavior when it comes to drinking or doing drugs. They need to talk openly about use of designated drivers when they go out on the town, Ellis said.

Teenagers should be taught how to say "no," and how to get themselves out of perilous situations even when peer pressure is extreme.

Parents need to know the other parents, she said.

They need to demand specific information from their children about their planned activities.

"Verify that information and wait up for them," Ellis said. "Kiss them, and smell their breath.

"It is too important to worry about making your kids mad. An angry teenager is a living teenager."

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