Strategies teenagers use to minimise alcohol-related harm
• Aims: To examine strategies of harm minimization employed by teenage drinkers.
• Findings: The teenagers participating in the present study were more concerned about social than health risks. The informants monitored their own level of intoxication, but in order to reduce alcohol consumption they depended upon support from their peers. The informants preferred drinking in the company of well-known and trusted peers, and during drinking episodes they supervised and intervened in each others’ drinking to the extent that they deemed it necessary and possible. In regulating the social context of drinking they relied on their personal experiences more than on formalized knowledge about alcohol and harm, which they had learned from prevention campaigns and educational programmes.
• Conclusions: The study found that teenagers may help each other to minimize alcohol-related harm, and teenage peer groups should thus be considered a resource for health promotion.
Morten Hulvej Jørgensen, Tine Curtis, Pia Haudrup Christensen, Morten Grønbæk (2007) Harm minimization among teenage drinkers: findings from an ethnographic study on teenage alcohol use in a rural Danish community

Source: Addiction 102 (4), 554–559

Viewing videotape of themselves while experiencing delirium tremens could reduce the relapse rate in alcohol-dependent patients
• The aim of this prospective randomized controlled study was to determine whether viewing videotape of themselves while experiencing delirium tremens (DT) reduces the relapse rate in alcohol-dependent patients.
• Findings: The patients with videotape experience had a significantly lower relapse rate after the first month (0% versus 20%), 2 months (13.33% versus 46.67%) and 3 months (26.67% versus 53.33%). Patients with videotape experience had less severe relapses and consumed fewer units of alcohol than controls.
• Conclusions: Videotape exposure in delirium tremens is an original therapeutic method which seems to be effective in reducing relapse risk in patients with alcohol dependence.
Adriana Mihai, Cristian Damsa, Michael Allen, Bertrand Baleydier, Coralie Lazignac, Andreas Heinz (2007) Viewing videotape of themselves while experiencing delirium tremens could reduce the relapse rate in alcohol-dependent patients

Source: Addiction 102 (2), 226–231.