Addiction potential

By nature, my wife and I are risk-averse people. Our investment strategy is just a few baby steps short of hiding our money under the mattress. We have never tried marijuana, though to some extent this is because we were out of college and already married when its popularity surged across this country’s campuses. We do drink alcohol, which was so ubiquitous when we were teenagers that it seemed innocuous.

Given my personality, you can understand why I have trouble understanding why anyone would ever try heroin or any opiate. I realize that many of the young addicts don’t follow the news closely enough to realize the risks. But the epidemic of addiction is so entrenched here in rural Maine that they must have known someone who has died of an overdose.

However, when I step away from who I am, I can accept the reality that most young people are not as risk averse as my wife and I are. I also realize that not everyone who takes the risk and tries cocaine or heroin becomes addicted. I have always wondered if there was some personality profile that could identify those at risk, especially when they were young enough to be rescued by an intervention.

A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times describes a program that attempts to do just that (“The 4 Traits That Put Kids at Risk for Addiction,” by Maia Szalavitz, Sept. 29, 2016). The program is called Preventure and is the result of some work by Patricia Conrod, a psychiatry professor at the University of Montreal. It has been tried in Britain, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands with some success in reducing binge drinking. In other studies, it reduced symptoms of depression, panic attacks, and impulsive behavior.

The program begins with testing middle school students and focuses on the traits of hopelessness, sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, and anxiety sensitivity. Hopeless is not a surprising choice given that many of the areas of this country with highest rates of opiate addiction are economically depressed. And it is easy to see why impulsivity and sensation-seeking are related to addiction potential. Anxiety-sensitivity is a less intuitive choice.

With the results of this testing in hand, the program administrators wait several months before approaching the outliers. The next step offers two 90-minute workshops to the entire school with the stated goal of showing how the students can channel their personalities toward success. Although the workshops are advertised as being open to everyone but limited in number of attendees, only the students identified as being at the highest risk are actually selected. It is hoped that this deception will avoid having the participants feel that they have been labeled. However, if a student asks about the selection process, he is given an honest answer. The workshops are targeted to the students’ specific emotional and behavioral vulnerabilities, and teaches cognitive behavioral techniques on how they can be managed.

While I think the deceptive selection process is a clever to wrinkle to avoid labeling, I wonder how long the ruse will survive should the program become more universally adopted. With increased popularity and publicity, every parent and most of the children in a school will realize why the test is being administered and what being selected for the workshop means. There is the threat that being identified as at risk for addiction will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and a trigger for depression.

Preventure sounds like a program worth watching. If larger series and long-term outcomes continue to be favorable, it will remain to be seen whether labeling is a hazard worth worrying about.

Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Email him at [email protected].

By nature, my wife and I are risk-averse people. Our investment strategy is just a few baby steps short of hiding our money under the mattress. We have never tried marijuana, though to some extent this is because we were out of college and already married when its popularity surged across this country’s campuses. We do drink alcohol, which was so ubiquitous when we were teenagers that it seemed innocuous.

Given my personality, you can understand why I have trouble understanding why anyone would ever try heroin or any opiate. I realize that many of the young addicts don’t follow the news closely enough to realize the risks. But the epidemic of addiction is so entrenched here in rural Maine that they must have known someone who has died of an overdose.

However, when I step away from who I am, I can accept the reality that most young people are not as risk averse as my wife and I are. I also realize that not everyone who takes the risk and tries cocaine or heroin becomes addicted. I have always wondered if there was some personality profile that could identify those at risk, especially when they were young enough to be rescued by an intervention.

A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times describes a program that attempts to do just that (“The 4 Traits That Put Kids at Risk for Addiction,” by Maia Szalavitz, Sept. 29, 2016). The program is called Preventure and is the result of some work by Patricia Conrod, a psychiatry professor at the University of Montreal. It has been tried in Britain, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands with some success in reducing binge drinking. In other studies, it reduced symptoms of depression, panic attacks, and impulsive behavior.

The program begins with testing middle school students and focuses on the traits of hopelessness, sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, and anxiety sensitivity. Hopeless is not a surprising choice given that many of the areas of this country with highest rates of opiate addiction are economically depressed. And it is easy to see why impulsivity and sensation-seeking are related to addiction potential. Anxiety-sensitivity is a less intuitive choice.

With the results of this testing in hand, the program administrators wait several months before approaching the outliers. The next step offers two 90-minute workshops to the entire school with the stated goal of showing how the students can channel their personalities toward success. Although the workshops are advertised as being open to everyone but limited in number of attendees, only the students identified as being at the highest risk are actually selected. It is hoped that this deception will avoid having the participants feel that they have been labeled. However, if a student asks about the selection process, he is given an honest answer. The workshops are targeted to the students’ specific emotional and behavioral vulnerabilities, and teaches cognitive behavioral techniques on how they can be managed.

While I think the deceptive selection process is a clever to wrinkle to avoid labeling, I wonder how long the ruse will survive should the program become more universally adopted. With increased popularity and publicity, every parent and most of the children in a school will realize why the test is being administered and what being selected for the workshop means. There is the threat that being identified as at risk for addiction will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and a trigger for depression.

Preventure sounds like a program worth watching. If larger series and long-term outcomes continue to be favorable, it will remain to be seen whether labeling is a hazard worth worrying about.

Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Email him at [email protected].

By nature, my wife and I are risk-averse people. Our investment strategy is just a few baby steps short of hiding our money under the mattress. We have never tried marijuana, though to some extent this is because we were out of college and already married when its popularity surged across this country’s campuses. We do drink alcohol, which was so ubiquitous when we were teenagers that it seemed innocuous.

Given my personality, you can understand why I have trouble understanding why anyone would ever try heroin or any opiate. I realize that many of the young addicts don’t follow the news closely enough to realize the risks. But the epidemic of addiction is so entrenched here in rural Maine that they must have known someone who has died of an overdose.

However, when I step away from who I am, I can accept the reality that most young people are not as risk averse as my wife and I are. I also realize that not everyone who takes the risk and tries cocaine or heroin becomes addicted. I have always wondered if there was some personality profile that could identify those at risk, especially when they were young enough to be rescued by an intervention.

A recent op-ed piece in the New York Times describes a program that attempts to do just that (“The 4 Traits That Put Kids at Risk for Addiction,” by Maia Szalavitz, Sept. 29, 2016). The program is called Preventure and is the result of some work by Patricia Conrod, a psychiatry professor at the University of Montreal. It has been tried in Britain, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands with some success in reducing binge drinking. In other studies, it reduced symptoms of depression, panic attacks, and impulsive behavior.

The program begins with testing middle school students and focuses on the traits of hopelessness, sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, and anxiety sensitivity. Hopeless is not a surprising choice given that many of the areas of this country with highest rates of opiate addiction are economically depressed. And it is easy to see why impulsivity and sensation-seeking are related to addiction potential. Anxiety-sensitivity is a less intuitive choice.

With the results of this testing in hand, the program administrators wait several months before approaching the outliers. The next step offers two 90-minute workshops to the entire school with the stated goal of showing how the students can channel their personalities toward success. Although the workshops are advertised as being open to everyone but limited in number of attendees, only the students identified as being at the highest risk are actually selected. It is hoped that this deception will avoid having the participants feel that they have been labeled. However, if a student asks about the selection process, he is given an honest answer. The workshops are targeted to the students’ specific emotional and behavioral vulnerabilities, and teaches cognitive behavioral techniques on how they can be managed.

While I think the deceptive selection process is a clever to wrinkle to avoid labeling, I wonder how long the ruse will survive should the program become more universally adopted. With increased popularity and publicity, every parent and most of the children in a school will realize why the test is being administered and what being selected for the workshop means. There is the threat that being identified as at risk for addiction will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and a trigger for depression.

Preventure sounds like a program worth watching. If larger series and long-term outcomes continue to be favorable, it will remain to be seen whether labeling is a hazard worth worrying about.

Dr. Wilkoff practiced primary care pediatrics in Brunswick, Maine, for nearly 40 years. He has authored several books on behavioral pediatrics including “How to Say No to Your Toddler.” Email him at [email protected].