<p>We simply know more than we did 35 years ago. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, for example, wasn’t discovered until 1968, wasn’t named until 1973, and there wasn’t a warning about alcohol and pregnancy from the Surgeon General until 1981, and no warning on alcoholic beverages until 1988 (Canada still doesn’t have them.) The first studies about links between early drinking and later alcohol problems and addiction (basically proving that on a population basis, giving your kids “a taste” early is not a good strategy) weren’t published until 1996.The myth of the “safe” young European drinker has only been disproved in the past decade. New studies on the impact of even small amounts of alcohol on the developing teen brain have only come out in the past 5 years. Brain imaging is still really in its infancy. First study on the association of small amounts of drinking and breast cancer wasn’t published in 2002, and the first study indicating that the increased breast cancer risk wasn’t due to co-occurring conditions (i.e. someone smoking as well as drinking) wasn’t published til last week.</p>
<p>If you are relying upon what you were taught, or even on what was known when your child was born, you are way behind the 8-ball.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I am not a teetotaller. I am sure my d. drank wine regularly when living in Italy, and has had a hard liquor drink or two. I am also aware that broadbrush strategies are just that, and that the genetic risks attached to alcohol mean that for some, NO DRINKING - not even a sip – is the right policy, and for others, it will not be. I am also aware that there are 70,000 campus rapes each year, most of them tied to alcohol use and most unreported, and that a major study at Duke University found that 9.9% of students had experienced a black out in the previous month. I also think the 21-year drinking age was and remains among the best public health interventions of the late 20th century, and increasingly resesarch affirms its wisdom.</p>
<p>I don’t recall hearing about cases of alcohol poisoning back in the seventies/eighties like we have these days. I lived in London during my first pregnancy (1987) and my o.b. suggested that I have a glass of wine every afternoon. He scoffed at my concerns about harming the fetus. It was commonplace for pregnant women to drink moderately. Pretty much all the obstetricians shared that opinion. Not recommending it, nor did I follow his suggestion. My baby was and is perfectly healthy. However, many pregnant women did drink. I’m not aware of an abundance of FAS across the pond. No warnings on wine bottles over there!</p>
<p>I also had a pediatrician in england suggest rubbing sherry on a baby’s gums for teething, giving an infant benadryl so they wouldn’t cry on the airplane, sugar water in their bottle, and having a drink during breast feeding to relax the mother. Luckily, things have changed.</p>
<p>And I would agree. We’ve let our D drink with us since she was 16 (small amounts, glass of wine here and there), and she seems to be making the college transition fairly smoothly. Contrast that to one of her high school classmates, from a loving but strict family, never allowed to (knowingly) drink, who ended up in the emergency room getting her stomach pumped after the first week in college. As is true with many things, education and proctored experimentation may win over blind enforced abstinence.</p>
<p>All over the world and obviously for thousands of years, people have been drinking (alcoholic beverages). Are there any cultures out there that just DON’T drink? Not because of taboos or rules, but just because it’s something they don’t bother with. What it is that makes it such an attractive problem for so many people? Is it a genetic thing?</p>
<p>I drank very little in HS, then regret drinking too much in college (mostly those freshman year parties), then cut WAAY back after graduating. At this point I almost never drink because it rarely occurs to me to-- mostly just when friends offer a glass of wine. It’s definitely a “take it or leave it” choice. As a result, I have trouble empathizing with relatives or friends who have trouble cutting back on their alcohol consumption. </p>
<p>Is alcohol really that addictive of a substance?</p>
<p>We went over this fact when sending a group from our HS on a trip to Europe years ago.They could drink with parental permission. I signed the permission slip, as it seemed that drinking in a social setting, esp with a teacher in attendence was a far more emotionally healthy introduction to alcohol than a college beer party as a freshman. But, if I had a family history of alcoholism, I’d think far differently about it. Ideally I think kids should have a first drink, minor sips of wine, in a family setting. But aside from Christmas dinner with friends invited and the rare dinner party, I don’t drink at home. Or much of anywhere else.</p>
<p>ispf72-yes, it’s that addictive a substance! Come join me at work, titrating the IV to keep DTs in control. Sometimes for days on end. Not a pretty picture. You don’t want to be there, you don’t want your kids there. Read what mini wrote above.</p>
<p>great lakes mom’s Europe story reminds me of an incident from high school. Our high school French program took a bunch of students to Toulouse for a sort of exchange program - we did touristy things as a group during the day and lived with host families in the evenings. Midway through the trip it was revealed that several students had drunk alcohol, in violation of school and district policies for field trips, because their unknowing host families had offered it to them. Several people were punished by being confined to the hotel for one of the afternoons that we were in Paris. We all thought it was rather unfair, as nobody had forewarned us that the district drinking rules applied to time with our host families in France and people thought that drinking what their host families offered was okay.</p>
<p>When I was in Switzerland on an internship after my junior year of college, I went to outdoor festivals and was amused by the signs saying that for the protection of youth, you had to be at least 14 to buy beer and ale and at least 16 to buy wine.</p>
<p>Alcohol is an extraordinarily addictive substance, though it is now thought that 50-60% of the risk for alcohol addiction is genetic.</p>
<p>North American Indians didn’t drink alcohol, period, until the Europeans arrived. Then it quickly became deadly. </p>
<p>FAS in Britain and France was rampant. In fact, much of the confirming research about FAS was conducted in France in the 1970s, because of its high prevalence. It was specifically associated with young people drinking. (Still is.) FAS is not associated with the amount drunk - even small amounts can cause the condition if it is ingested at the specific times in the development of the fetus.</p>
<p>Again I bow to mini as he has the research… </p>
<p>As some have said here some introduction to alcohol has helped during college years rather than the total rejection in some households and the binge drinking that comes from being free from mom and dad.</p>
<p>I think the key is talking clearly to your children, not just about the bad, cause that’s all they hear from us and tune us out, but about options they can “use” in college not to overindulge. Most are going to be at social functions where alcohol is involved and rather than saying just say “no”, maybe try things like… drink a water between beers, savor a good beer rather than chug a crappy one, the girls really don’t like drunk boys and the wrong boys “really” like the drunk girls, pace yourself, eat something, avoid sugary fru fru drinks and consider just a bottle of water and saying can’t drink due to medications. and so on…</p>
<p>As parents the absolute NO bounces off alot of kids ears when they are away at school. Try to give them strageties to help reduce the possibility of over indulgence. </p>
<p>From observation alot of kids from very restrictive backgrounds tend to bust a gut overdoing in college. I know that there’s really not a scientific basis for this, but casual observation tends to back up this truism.</p>
<p>Am. Indians had no alcohol? I’m surprised to find any culture that doesn’t have alcohol at all, as before the advent of refrigeration, substances such as grape juice would have rapidly turned to something else–wine or vinegar. I thought they all figured out how that delightful beverage could be obtained (wine, not vinegar.) :)</p>
<p>In fact, I remember reading about S. Am. Indians who made some sort of alcoholic beverage from whatever root they grow a lot of–escapes me now. Some missionary wrote in a book about the drink he learned to like BEFORE he learned how they made it. The women would chew the roots to get fermentation started. :eek:</p>
<p>I just wanted to say I really hate this quote. Take a minute to consider the issues, lady. Saying nothing makes a stronger argument than saying something as mechanical and thoughtless as this.</p>
<p>But I guess to contribute to the discussion I’m another one of those test-babies. A lot’s been said on this thread about playing alcohol off as no-big-deal in the household, and there’s a lot more to be said about that, I believe. We’re immigrants, me and my parents, so they missed the lessons on this specific breed of trained paranoia-- I dont think they ever had any real plot or intention when it came to teaching me to safely use alcohol, they honestly didn’t think it was any kind of a special issue. After my mom heard some study about reduced heart disease and red wine, they’d have a glass of wine every couple days or so at dinner and when I asked to try some (being maybe… 12, 13?) they said, “sure, but you’re not going to like it”. And they were totally right. I hated it. Then I tried beer, and I hated that. Then at bigger social functions when people downed spirits, I said, “oh, no no no”. </p>
<p>Of course that is not to say that my veins have been free of the substance ever since, I don’t mind certain brands of beer now and then and I’m trying hard to develop a taste for wine (for polite company :P), but I guess the main effect of all of this unintentional conditioning was that alcohol never took up any kind of a special place in my heart. When I was 12 and choosing between my glass of juice and some nasty bitter drink, the choice was clear. And alcohol became, in my mind, that thing which isn’t as delicious as juice. But when you’re at a huge social gathering w/ your friends trying alcohol for the first time, you might not allow yourself to dislike it. You’ll make associations with alcohol (it’s fun, it’s social, it’s making you happy) that really alcohol doesn’t deserve. And in your mind it becomes a tool and a toy, not anything like juice.</p>
<p>I mean, whether or not you condone giving alcohol to 12 year olds is irrelevant. Because you’ll probably never talk my parents into thinking that it deserves your attention, much less that it was wrong on some level. And again this is just another anecdote, and maybe has more to do with my personality than how my parents raised me. You decide.</p>
<p>Should parents allow their teens to drink? </p>
<p>I guess it depends on what you mean by “drink.” </p>
<p>Throw a teen party and let them drink because “they’ll be safer at home”? Um, no.</p>
<p>But let them have small amounts of wine on occasion because it’s what adults have with good food? Or a taste of beer on a hot summer’s day? Fine. This is what adults do–drink responsibly.</p>
<p>If they are around adults who don’t drink responsibly, of course, they will probably pick up that bad habit as well. And if they are never allowed any alcohol, I believe it will be more likely to become a forbidden fruit. YMMV.</p>
<p>The ‘just say no’ approach to all underage alcohol consumption does not take into account that there can be responsible parents who teach responsible kids how to drink. The laws are written primarily because there are a lot of irresponsible parents and/or irresponsible kids who might end up learning the wrong habits and causing a lot of harm to themselves and others.</p>
<p>" Most are going to be at social functions where alcohol is involved and rather than saying just say “no”, maybe try things like… drink a water between beers, savor a good beer rather than chug a crappy one, the girls really don’t like drunk boys and the wrong boys “really” like the drunk girls, pace yourself, eat something, avoid sugary fru fru drinks and consider just a bottle of water and saying can’t drink due to medications. and so on…"</p>
<p>These are all things that Pres. McCardell could have taught his students. In fact, there is a program at University of Washington called BASICS (headed by researcher. Dr. Alan Marlatt) that does just that. Instead, McCardell chose to abandon his responsibility as an educator, with the result being that some 16% of Middlebury graduates from his time there (higher for whites and for males) will have serious alcohol problems or become alcoholics at some point in their adult lives, if they aren’t already.</p>
<p>(I saw some new data yesterday on fraternity/sorority drinking at locals where Marlatt is working which would curl your hair.)</p>
<p>A little over half of those who do not drink before getting to college, do not drink when then they get to college. Those who had “restrictive backgrounds” are much, much less likely to become heavy drinkers while in college, though those who do experiment are probably more likely to become sick as a part of the bingeing routine - lack of experience comes into play, coupled with very little tolerance already having been developed.</p>
<p>mini–a quick google indicates that N. American Indians, like S. American Indians, had weak beer-type alcoholic beverages, mainly seasonal & for occasional or ceremonial use. </p>
<p>What they did NOT have was distillation. Not having European technology for mass production and storage of concentrated alcohol, they did not have any way to deal with it when it arrived. Add alcohol to guns and germs as gifts the Old World gave the New.</p>
<p>Oh, they knew how to make alcohol, and as with tobacco, had ceremonial uses. But it wasn’t used by the tribe at large in any tribe of which I’m aware. (I work with tribes in Washington State, and not a single one of the 29 even uses it in ceremonial contexts. However, in the great Mississippi civilizations, now long vanished, evidence suggests they used every mind-altering substance they could find.)</p>
<p>I am struck by the balanced lives of the American Indians. Whether for reasons of nature or nurture, they apparently did not become addicted to tobacco or alcohol before the coming of the Europeans.</p>