Why is Secondhand Drinking in the News Now?

Secondhand Drinking affects nearly 80 million Americans.

Newly published research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (1) estimates roughly 53 million adults experience “secondhand harms” caused by someone else’s drinking. These secondhand harms, now being referred to as secondhand drinking, include being harassed, feeling threatened or afraid, being physically harmed, or having family or marriage difficulties. These kinds of harms occur when a person drinks more alcohol than their liver can metabolize, causing the excess ethyl alcohol chemicals to change normal brain functioning. These brain functioning changes result in drinking behaviors like those just described.

Taking into account the children and others also affected but not included in the study, this figure rises to almost 80 million. These nearly 80 million Americans are the wives, husbands, moms, dads, children, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, grandchildren, boyfriends, girlfriends, and close friends who are affected by secondhand drinking.

While I applaud the fact this kind of study has been done, it only measures the obvious manifestations – namely the drinking behaviors. As horrifying as these are, the problem of secondhand drinking goes far, far deeper. This deeper problem is toxic stress.

Why We Must Prevent Secondhand Drinking – Toxic Stress

Toxic stress is what happens when a person’s fight-or-flight stress response is repeatedly triggered – like that which occurs when repeatedly coping with drinking behaviors. This fight-or-fight stress response is one of the survival instincts built into humans to keeps us safe when threatened with danger.

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When it is triggered, a cascade of stress hormones causes a series of changes in the body to prepare it to fight or run – changes like the tensing of the muscles, increasing the heart rate, and shutting down of the digestive system. These changes enable us to jump out of the path of an oncoming car or experience superhuman strength to lift a fallen beam pinning our child to the ground. The physical act of jumping out of the way or lifting the beam – averting the danger – allows the body to return to normal functioning.  This triggering and resolution is known as positive stress.

But when our fight-or-flight stress response is repeatedly triggered, and we never physically fight or run, the cascade of stress hormones and physical changes “marinate.” They “sit” in body organs and tissues – like the brain, heart, muscles, and stomach. This is when stress becomes toxic.

The physical and emotional health consequences of toxic stress include migraines, stomach problems, muscle aches, sleep difficulties, tension headaches, anxiety, depression, difficulty concentrating, racing heartbeat, and skin problems, to name a few. When children experience toxic stress, it “weakens the architecture of the developing brain, with long-term consequences for learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health,” according to the Center on the Developing Child Harvard University. (2)

Beyond the physical and emotional health toxic stress consequences are the mapped “fight-flight-freeze-appease” stress reactions and coping behaviors a person develops in order to deal with and protect themselves from the drinking behaviors. These, in turn, affect a person’s personal, work, school, social, family, and community interactions in ways that are little understood and too complex to explain in this post.

And it is all of these toxic stress consequences that are the far, far deeper problem.

What Can We Do to Prevent Secondhand Drinking?

We can follow the secondhand smoking model that took the focus off the smoker and instead focused on the physical health consequences to those in the proximity of someone else’s cigarette smoke. Secondhand smoking campaigns gave people the confidence they needed to take a stand against a person’s cigarette smoke – not the smoker – and to do what they needed to do to protect and repair their own health, regardless of whether the smoker ever stopped smoking.

In the case of a secondhand drinking prevention model, we can take the focus off the drinker and instead focus on the toxic-stress consequences to those coping with someone else’s drinking behaviors. With this understanding, people can get the confidence they need to take a stand against drinking behaviors – not the drinker – and to do what they need to do to protect and repair their own health, regardless of whether the drinker changes their drinking pattern or gets help.

By following the model of the secondhand smoking’s public awareness and educational campaigns, we can prevent secondhand drinking. And it’s time. The lives of nearly 80 million Americans depend on it.

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(1) Nayak, Madhabika B., Ph.D., Patterson, Deidre, M.P.h., Wilsnack, Sharon C., Ph.D., Karriker-Jaffe., Katherine J., Ph.D, & Greenfield, Thomas K., Ph.D., “Alcohol’s Secondhand Harms in the United States: New Data on Prevalence and Risk Factors” Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 80(3), 273-281 (2019), DOI https://doi.org/10.15288/jsad.2019.80.273 (accessed 7.2.19).

(2) Center on the Developing Child Harvard University, “Toxic Stress Derails Healthy Development,” https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/toxic-stress-derails-healthy-development/ (accessed 7.2.19).