(Hearst) - Safety advocates say they are worried that heavier drinking linked to Sept. 11 anxieties may make the New Year's holiday a particularly lethal time to be on the road.

"Mental health experts tell us that people are going to use alcohol to try to calm their fears about the world," said Millie I. Webb, 54, of Franklin, Tenn., national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

"Our concern is that these same people will choose to get out on the roadway after drinking We have no control over the terrorists, but there is a terrorist among us that we can stop and that is the drunk driver. This is one crime, unlike terrorism, that is 100 percent preventable."

Highway safety advocates are already on alert because of a nearly 2 percent spike in alcohol-related traffic fatalities last year when alcohol-linked driving deaths rose to 16,653, compared with 15,976 in 1999, according to the National Highway Safety Administration.

The jump in drunk driving fatalities follows a five-year period in which the statistics had leveled off after falling steadily from the 1980s to the mid 1990s.

Auto traffic will be about the same this season as it was last year, according to the American Automobile Association, with some 42 million people hitting the road between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Mental health officials say they are worried that some Americans will respond to stress from the terrorist attacks by medicating themselves with alcohol and other drugs.

"People are looking for an escape," said Mark Weber, director of communications for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which has begun surveying households to measure any behavior changes after Sept. 11.

"People feel helpless. We don't expect the whole country to have a nervous breakdown, but we are trying to be prepared and be aware that there may be problems," Weber said.

According to a survey released last month by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 13 states have detected an increased demand for alcohol and drug treatment since Sept. 11. They were: Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Tennessee. Four cities - Washington, D.C., New York, Phoenix and Houston - also reported a higher demand for substance abuse treatment.

Research shows that exposure to trauma places a person at a four-to-five-times greater risk of substance abuse, and stress is considered to be the leading cause of relapse to drinking, drug and smoking addictions, according to the Columbia University report.

Dr. Michael Blumenfield, a psychiatrist at New York Medical College who serves on the American Psychiatric Association's committee on disasters, said people with a history of drinking under stress are most likely to hit the bottle in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. But people who don't have that history are unlikely to suddenly become heavy drinkers, he said.

"I don't think it is likely that large numbers of people are going to take up drinking," Blumenfield said.

Blumenfield predicted the terrorist attacks might be jolting more people into reevaluating their lives and seeking help for addictions, rather than leading them to increased substance abuse.

A year after the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people, three times as many residents of that city reported increased drinking compared to people in Indianapolis, according to Columbia University. Rescue workers in Oklahoma City also experienced elevated rates of substance abuse, depression and suicide, Columbia University reports.

Copyright 2001 Hearst News Service. All rights reserved.