Prime for Life program promotes wise drinking decisions

For the first time, the station’s Substance Abuse Counseling Center offered Prime for Life, an early prevention course for alcohol abuse instead of only offering treatment programs, for station personnel, June 28-29.

“Prime for Life is a risk reduction program,” said Kate Osborne, the station alcohol abuse prevention specialist. “The first goal of the program is to help each participant in the program reduce risk for any type of alcohol or drug problem. The second goal focuses on self-assessment to help people understand and accept the need to make changes to protect the things most valuable in their lives.”

Three different units are covered in the program: preventing, reflecting and protecting.

“Within each unit there are several different topics that are covered,” said Osborne. “Each topic has depth and applies a research-based approach to lead each individual to a greater understanding of protecting what they value most.”

The course gives participants a better understanding of themselves relating to alcohol use.

“We learned about how family history can play into alcoholism, about tolerance and trigger levels when drinking,” said. Lance Cpl. Samantha Stanko, Marine Aircraft Group 13 intelligence analyst. “I have a better understanding of how to recognize where my level is and what responsible drinking truly means.”

This course differed from previous offerings of the material because the target audience was Marines with no history of alcohol problems.

Stanko summed up the reason the class was given in a simple way, one the facilitators of the course were hoping for.

“For the target audience, Marines without alcohol related incidents, it’s a good, informative class,” said Stanko. “They’ll be better equipped to make wise decisions in the future.”

“Early intervention can be extremely effective in preventing drug and alcohol problems before they become substance abuse or dependence issues,” added Osborne. “If we can encourage someone to re-evaluate how they use alcohol and make low risk choices, the risk for future health or impairment problems is significantly reduced.”

For more information or to find out when the next class is, contact Kate Osborne at 928-269-3079.