Teenage Drinking, Society, And You
Posted: Monday, March 03, 2008
by Michael Kocis
http://www.prescottlmt.com
One of the toughest hurdles facing many teens is the subject of alcohol, I'm not sure if more kids are drinking now than in previous generations, or if they are starting at a younger age ?
I'm sure there are statistics on this somewhere that may possibly show an increase over the years with respect to kids using booze. I've always been rather sceptical about statistics regarding any social behavior, first at their accuracy, and also because I've seen the same numbers used to "prove" a point in either direction. Plus, they only show the problem, they don't solve it.
Having raised a son on a daily basis for a little over 17 years, I too had to "deal" with his discovery of this ancient human behavior. Yes, I phrase it that way because it's not that hard to imagine some caveman dad finding his 16 year old son dangling from a tree with a hangover along with the little cave girl from up the hill, cause they found a whole patch of fermented berries the night before.
Like any "responsible parent" I always liked "accountable parent" better, I knew I had to talk with my boy about drinking. A lecture wasn't going to work, and some blanket statement like, " You shouldn't drink till your 21 son." ( like something magical happens on that day) wasn't going to cut it either, but I knew we needed to talk.
So how was I to approach this ? I decided that rather than me tell him, I wanted him to tell me. It didn't take long for a situation to come up, either it was a T.V. show, commercial, or movie ...I don't exactly remember, but I ask him, "Why do you suppose we do that ?" to which he replied, "Do what ?" (Ahh..the door was open and I was invited in.)
Why do you think humans use alcohol to celebrate things we like? I mean really, why is it they use booze to mark any event ? Your going to have a baby, let have a drink, you got that new job, let's go have a cocktail, Hey everybody, Donna just found out she's not pregnant, drinks are on the house, what do we do at 12:00 every New Years Eve ...pop the champagne, hell, at weddings it's a custom to make a "toast" ( what a nice soft word to mean drink.) ....there's a lot more, but he got the idea.
Now I knew this wasn't going to be a one shot deal and it was going to take a long time of spaced repetition to get my point across, so I was prepared for his initial answers like, " Cause it's fun, or cause it's what we do, or just, cause."
But the seed was planted. I went on to point out a few more strange ideas people have about drinking, like did you ever hear someone say, "I can drink you under the table, or I can put away a whole bottle and still function, or last night we finished off two cases and a pint"
Oh, there's an achievement, forget the fact that all they did was build up a tolerance to alcohol, and now it costs more money to get stupid.
I know, like a lot of people, my son will run into these things in life, I simply wanted to wallpaper his mind with the truth. An alternative way of forming his own opinion.
Can underage drinking ever be stopped ? No ! For that matter, can over aged drinking ever be stopped, I don't think so. Maybe if we combine truthful knowledge while taking some of the glamour away from it, we can, one kid at a time, change some lives.
As a footnote, I got a call from my son last night, he was in his Army barracks with a couple of buddies, they just finished watching a movie and had pizza and beer. Right between telling me about the movie and saying "Goodnight Dad I Love You" he mentioned, " Yep, I ate half of a meat lovers pizza and had two beers, now I'm going to bed"
You know what ? I can live with that.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Who knows what the answer is Michael. I think teenagers have to be dealt with on an individual basis. Open communication between parent and child is key. The very best part of your article is the last paragraph. The part where your son calls to stay in touch and tells you he loves you. Now that's a great kid, and it tells me you must be a pretty good dad.Thank You, a parent can lay down the ground work and pray to God enough of it sticks. My wife and I hope we did a good job teaching our son. I'd like to add that since the time I had written this article, my son got out of the Army.That's great Michael, it must be wonderful to have him back.
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