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April 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda MONDAY, April 16 (HealthDay News) — Teens undergoing treatment
for alcohol or drug abuse can benefit from the 12-step program used by
groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA),
researchers say.
While these programs are widely available, little research has looked
at how effective they are for teens.
The new study included 127 teen substance abuse-treatment outpatients
(95 males, 32 females, aged 14 to 19) who were assessed when they began
treatment and three, six and 12 months later.
The findings are published online and in the July print issue of the
journal Alcoholism: Clinical Experimental Research.
“We found that about one-quarter to one-third of the youth attended
AA/NA throughout the year-long study period following treatment, and that
more meeting attendance was associated with significantly better substance
use outcomes — particularly attending meetings at least once per week or
more,” John F. Kelly, associate director of the Center for Addiction
Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate professor in
psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said in a journal news release.
“Importantly, youth who also were in contact with an AA or NA sponsor
or who participated verbally during AA/NA meetings had an even better
outcome over and above the positive effects from merely attending,” Kelly
added. “These findings support the common clinical recommendation that
individuals should ‘go to meetings, get a sponsor, and get active.’ This
is the first evidence to support this common clinical recommendation among
young people.”
Doctors, counselors and other health professionals can improve the
chances that teens will attend and participate in AA/NA by encouraging or
making it easy for the teens to attend meetings early in their substance
abuse treatment, Kelly suggested.
“Starting an on-site NA or AA young persons’ meeting is another good
idea. Not all youth will be motivated to attend, but the more severely
substance-involved ones will be more likely to give meetings a try and
these are the ones most likely to benefit,” he added.
“It is also a good idea to facilitate a good match between the
patient’s primary substance, cannabis/other drugs or alcohol, and the
mutual-help organization to which they are being referred, Marijuana
Anonymous, NA or AA. Not doing this can lead to a poor initial match,
which can be difficult to overcome,” Kelly explained in the news
release.
More information
New York Online Access to Health has more about teen substance abuse.
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