Mike Harrison took his first drink in his early teens, sneaking off with a can of Schlitz Malt Liquor, the 16-ounce "Tall Boy" with the pull-off tabs that were common in the 1970s.

His last drink, Dec. 30, 2012, was a mixture of orange Gatorade and cheap vodka, a daily concoction he eagerly drank for more than the previous decade.

At home. At work. It didn't matter, Harrison consumed nearly a liter of vodka each day.

But with his last cocktail, something troubling happened. He felt as if an elephant sat on his torso and was restricting his breathing.

The Space Coast Health Foundation recently released data in a study it commissioned that showed the number of people considered "excessive drinkers" in Brevard jumped to 24.4% this year, compared with 14.3% in 2016.(Photo: kmk-vova / Getty Images)

Harrison, now 57, went to the emergency room at Health First's Viera Hospital the next day and doctors there told him he was suffering from acute alcohol-related pancreatitis.

The problem either came from consistently drinking copious amounts of alcohol or an overabundance of protein.

"Sure, I like steak now and then, but it was definitely the drinking," said Harrison, a Melbourne-based sales manager for an auto manufacturer."I was told if I kept drinking, I would die. That was my rock bottom. I had to quit. I wanted to see my daughter grow up and get married, that type of thing. I was very, very lucky."

If Harrison was lucky, then something troubling is happening in Brevard County as data suggests more Space Coast residents are drinking alcohol in what's considered excessive amounts.

The Space Coast Health Foundation (SCHF) recently released data in a study it commissioned called the Community Health Needs Assessment. The data in the assessment indicated the number of people considered "excessive drinkers" in Brevard jumped to 24.4% this year, compared with 14.3% in 2016.

While close to the national rate of people considered excessive drinkers (22.5 percent) its the increase of more than 10% in Bevard over three years thats troubling.

Additional data from the SCHF's Community Health Needs Assessment showed:

South Brevard's excessive drinking rate was 28%; Central Brevard was 22.5%, and North Brevard was 16.3%

Among 18- to 39-year olds, more than 30% consumed excessive amounts of alcohol, followed by 40- to 65-year olds at 23.2%

The level of excessive drinking among lower-income residents was matched to middle-to-high income residents at 24.1%

The SCHF's data, which has an error rate of 4%, is based on extensive interviews of nearly 600 Space Coast residents by the Omaha, Nebraska-based Professional Research Consultants Inc.

Professional Research Consultants conducts health surveys across the United States and has put together assessments for the Space Coast periodically since 2004.

Excessive alcohol use for men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is having five or more drinks in one sitting (or more than two drinks daily on average) or 15 drinks or more during a week. For women, it's four drinks on one occasion (more than one drink a day average) or eight drinks over a week.

It's no doubt a broad definition of "excessive" that some experts note would include about 30 percent of the U.S. population. Still, alcohol abuse is a growing concern and many, like Harrison, think they have a casual relationship with alcohol and don't realize the dangers of excessive drinking often until it's too late.

"People don't always like to fess up with how much they're really drinking," said Dr. Tim Laird, medical director of the Health First Medical Group. "In medical school, half-jokingly, they said 'Whatever people tell you they drink you can kind of double that for a lot of people.'"

Two alcoholic drinks a day for men, and one drink a day for women "is considered the upper limit," Laird said.

"You get above that you start seeing some of the bad long-term consequences," he said.

The list of those consequences is long. They include heart disease and problems with the liver, lungs, pancreasand stomach. And then there is the greater risk of diabetes, high blood pressureand osteoporosis.

Michele Jones, 55, found out the hard way just a few weeks ago.

In August, doctors told the former Satellite Beach resident, who moved to Bloomington, Illinois, two years ago, that she had late-stage cirrhosis of the liver. Cirrhosis takes place when scar tissue often caused by processing excess amounts of ethanol, the main ingredient of alcohol, over a long period of time gradually replaces healthy liver cells so that the organ cant function properly.

Jones drank mostly beer and hard liquor and eventually started sampling the popular growing malt beverage products, like alcohol-infused lemonade and flavored sodas, sold at convenience stores.

Then I fooled myself into drinking just wine, thinking that was more socially acceptable, Jones said. Until I found myself drinking a whole gallon of it or those convenient boxes.

On the behavioral side, the problems are just as daunting.

Abigail "Abby" Jones, a licensedmarriage and family therapist who is the Substance Abuse and Dual Diagnosis Service manager for the Cocoa-headquartered Lifetime Counseling Center,said the rising trend of excessive drinking in Brevard County mirrors what's happening across the United States as Baby Boomers age and phase into retirement.

"We have a lot of people in Brevard County who have aged out of the workforce and are entering retirement," she said. "Statistics have shown there is an increase in alcohol abuse and excessive use once these individuals retire and once they are not within a regular work routine."

Jones added it's not easy for many people to acknowledge they need help, even if they're not self-identified as an alcoholic, because it's seen as a behavior with a simple start-and-stop switch.

More research is showing that excessive drinking and alcohol abuse are medical and behavioral conditions and needto be treated as such.

"Typically, it's considered alcohol abuse when someone is drinking to excess and that drinking is affecting their daily level of functioning in various aspects of their lives," Jones said. "Let's say someone is having missed absences from work or if it's affecting your friendships and your family. That's going to tell you there's a problem with alcohol abuse."

The Community Health Needs Assessment also noted a sizable rise in excessive alcohol use and driving among Space Coast residents. According to the data, 4% of respondents this year admitted to driving after consuming too much alcohol vs. 1.4% in 2016.

For whatever reason North Brevard respondents 13.5% were in that category compared with 1% in Central Brevard and 3.3% in South Brevard.

Without his wake-up call back in 2012, Harrison said he'd still be drinking close to two gallons of vodka each week. He'd buy a 750-milliliter bottle for about $7 and thought nothing of emptying it each day after mixing it with Gatorade.

Besides, he grew up in an environment with heavy drinking.

He recalled his father was an alcoholic who rarely missed the start of 5 p.m. happy hour each day, part of that era's culture.

Harrison's father tended to get mean and difficult after too many drinks, and that's what Harrison had always associated with alcohol abuse. (Harrison's father died of cirrhosis of the liver two months after turning 60.)

Since Harrison never got mean and angry when he drank, he didn't see his drinking as a problem.

His medical emergency changed everything.

Harrison now labels himself a full-blown alcoholic. And though he has never gone through Alcoholics Anonymous, he espouses the "one day at a time" mantra that is the underpinning of the most popular international self-help group.

Ironically and fortunately Harrison says he never had a strong desire to drink alcohol after leaving the hospital in early 2013. The hospital treatment, which included two painful weeks of detoxification, changed his outlook and his taste for alcohol.

These days he might go to a restaurant or sports bar that serves alcohol but the temptation to drink hasn't been an issue for him in nearly seven years.

If the urge were to reintroduce itself, Harrison keeps handy a photo on his phone.

It shows him incapacitated at Viera Hospital soon after his emergency room visit in 2012, shirtless and connected to a series of tubes and monitors and looking as he's nearing death. Also in the photo is a bottle of Skol vodka, the brand he used to drink with his Gatorade.

"It reminds me that I don't drink," Harrison said. "And if I do start drinking again, this is what will happen."

Wayne T. Price is with the Space Coast Health Foundation. For a copy of the SCHF's Community Health Needs Assessment, go towww.SCHFBrevard.orgor contact him 321-241-6604 or Wayne.Price@SCHFBrevard.org

Read or Share this story: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/life/wellness/2019/10/22/alcohol-use-jumps-brevard-county-causing-health-concerns/4026967002/

Here is the original post:
We're consuming more alcohol in Brevard these days, and it's not good for our health - Florida Today