DANGERS OF DEPENDENCY

Alcohol dependencies and related problems are potentially huge in Ventura County, as they are across the nation.

Roughly 10% of Americans age 18 and older are estimated to have some form of alcohol dependency, and “there’s no reason to believe that number in Ventura County is any different,” says Steve Kaplan, director of Ventura County’s Drug and Alcohol Programs.

That accounts for 40,000 adults countywide, not counting the under-18 crowd “where we’ve got some big problems” and for which there are no specific figures, Kaplan says.

Kaplan, whose programs spend $6 million a year in treatment and prevention, cites the difficulty in identifying alcohol problems. Definitions are tricky, and many people cling to the old notion that an alcoholic is a seedy drunk who jumps out of bed in the morning and heads straight for the bourbon. Not so.

“Alcohol is a problem,” he says, “as soon as it interferes with one’s ability to carry out one’s normal obligations up to one’s abilities through the day. It’s not always obvious. It’s quite subjective. In the early stages, there’s tremendous denial of the problem.”

As for eating disorders, few will hazard a guess. The National Institute of Mental Health, which studies anorexia and bulimia, has no estimate on the scope of the problem nationally.

But Kathleen Gates, a Ventura psychologist whose practice includes the treatment of eating disorders, says most clients are women and finds eating disorders “so prevalent (among women) that it’s hard to find anyone without one.”