<p>Unfortunately, I think that underage drinking does is a huge problem. All the times, there are students getting killed because they are drunk.</p>
<p>I do not think huge drinking parties is the way “it is.” I just want to mention this. I am 17, and I have drank before in around two occasions both in very safe environments within the last year. I do regret it, not because I got caught or anything, but because it went against my morals. My parents are very, very strict and very conservative. They would probably die of suprise if they ever found out. I would say the majority of people have taken one sip of alcohol before they graduate high school. As unfortunae as it is, I believe that to be true! I went from someone who thinks if you do drugs you should be locked up…to someone that has drank. Crazy world!</p>
<p>Momneedsadvice: No, I don’t have my head in the sand. I am aware of the drinking (look back at my earlier post on this thread), and your numbers don’t surprise me. I am not saying that drinking is rare. What I am saying is that kids who do not drink are not all that rare. I am looking at your numbers and thinking- well that’s 30% who have never consumed alcohol and 52% who have not reported binge drinking. </p>
<p>I am trying to counter the notion that the non-drinkers are a few outliers and that social drinking in high school is necessary for a good social life. There are plenty of happy, well-adjusted non-drinkers out there who do not feel the need to go along with the alcohol excess. </p>
<p>DD is also a sophomore and she has also parted ways with some middle school friends because they got involved in alcohol and more. Theys are still friends at a distance but they no longer party together. But she does have a core of non-drinking friends she is tight with and they seem to have a blast without the ETOH.</p>
<p>Drinking is very common. Despite everyone’s horrified thoughts here, kids getting in trouble for that drinking is not particularly common - at least where I come from. Maybe it’s a cultural difference, and the 2 year difference in drinking age is significant (19 in Ontario vs. 21 in America), but kids where I come drink lots and often, and rarely does it result in problems.</p>
<p>Actually, rates for alcoholism and significant alcohol problems, liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, and a host of other problems related to drinking are higher in Ontario than in most of the United States, and alcohol use OFTEN results in problems.</p>
<p>"According to the Journal of Adolescent Health, teenagers who report drinking alcohol with their parents are less likely than others to have either consumed alcohol or abused it in recent weeks according to a nation-wide study of over 6,200 teenagers in 242 communities across the U.S.</p>
<p>Drinking alcohol with parents “may help teach them responsible drinking habits or extinguish some of the ‘novelty’ or ‘excitement’ of drinking” according to senior researcher Dr. Kristie Long Foley of the School of Medicine at Wake Forest University. Dr. Foley describes drinking with parents as a “protective” behavior."</p>
<p>I suggest you get a copy of the study, rather than the press report (I have one on my shelf, but not in electronic form); it actually says far less than what you see here. It is true that drinking alcohol with parents “may” teach them responsible drinking habits; it may also set them up for a lifetime of alcohol addiction.</p>
<p>(My personal view is agnostic and individualistic on this matter, and has to do with genetics: if you have in your family line a genetic predisposition toward alcoholism, giving your kid even a few drinks, especially in a positive environment, is playing with fire. On the other hand, for those without such a genetic predisposition, if parents don’t regularly drink before their kids in an atmosphere which suggests that alcohol is necessary for enjoyment, there may indeed be a protective effect. Proceed with cautiion.)</p>
<p>mini, I agree that family history is an important factor in the decision whether or not to begin drinking responsibly. What is your take on a family history of bi-polar disorder? I heard that this coupled with alcohol is a toxic combination.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, Mini. I completely agree. “Proceed with caution”. One poster accused me of being alarmist and I don’t mean to be, ( I’m not saying that one drink and my kid will be a crazed alcoholic!) but families have personal, health, religious whatever values about alcohol and parents should be aware of that when they look the other way in their own homes.(Letting drinking happen while away) This whole discussion reminds me of my nephew, brought up in Latin America and offered wine with meals on occasion, who came up to Williams for college. He couldn’t believe how juvenile the American kids were about drinking, the bingeing, the “I’m SOO hungover!!” the next day, etc. He didn’t get what the big deal about it all was.</p>
1of42, I note that you are yourself a teenager. In addition to mini’s statistics, all I can say is, “You don’t know what problems it may result in yet.” In addition to the drunk driving deaths and injuries, which are of course immediate consequences, you don’t know what the long-term consequences are on the developing teenage brain/liver/nervous system and other organs. And yes, physiologically, 16 year olds are different than 19 or 21 year olds.</p>
<p>Sorry to sound cynical, but I think many of the parents who weren’t partiers themselves tend to be naive. I remember from my own high school days that teens always find a way to party, somehow, somewhere. And don’t be so sure that you know who the ‘party crowd’ is - you may be surprised! Even the parents of so-called’ ‘straight’ teens are often surprised to find out what their kids are doing. It’s that way now too. I know of a number of my son’s friends who told him of their exploits and no way did their parents have any clue at all.</p>
<p>“What is your take on a family history of bi-polar disorder? I heard that this coupled with alcohol is a toxic combination.”</p>
<p>I am an epidemiologist/policy guy, not a clinician, so I am not up on the latest clinical findings. I can tell you that among those with bi-polar disorder treated in the publicly funded mental health system, 60-65% have a co-occurring substance abuse disorder. the vast majority using alcohol as their drug of choice. The two hypotheses as to why (without going into too much detail) are: 1) bipolar individuals use alcohol to “self-medicate”; and 2) there is a part of the brain that really “enjoys” bipolar mood swings, and alcohol exacerbates the feeling.</p>
<p>I will see what my clinical colleagues have to say.</p>
<p>I completely agree. There was a group of girls in my school that appeared to be very so-called “straight and narrow” teens. They were aslo in the top of our class. Very great ECs. I was hanging out with them one day and heard of how one of the girls almost got alcohol posioning, etc. It was quite bad.</p>
<p>I know many parents from many walks of life that are extremely naive of what their children actually do. They are do some things that they should not have done, and they got away with it. I am not sure how they did…prehaps of them being cunning in pulling it off and their parents being naive.</p>
<p>vicarious, I misunderstood. You are right that sober kids shouldn’t feel like unpopular outliers, and there are more of them than kids think. But I do think a lot of parents have a “not in my town, not my kid” mentality that needs to be awakened.</p>
<p>One of the biggest battles we have with kids is the battle of perception. The idea that “everyone is doing it” adds to peer pressure. That’s one of the reasons the survey was done in our hs, to convince the kids that NOT everyone was doing it. I don’t think it worked, though.</p>
<p>"“What is your take on a family history of bi-polar disorder? I heard that this coupled with alcohol is a toxic combination.”</p>
<p>So…I checked with some of the clinical people. Bipolar disorder runs in families, or at least runs in families where there is also clinical depression. (Think the Eddie Fisher/Carrie Fisher connection.) Alcohol addiction also runs in families (recent estimates are that genetics account for about 55% of all alcoholism.) Alcohol abuse occurs in about 35-65% of all bipolar cases; however, it is actually at the upper end of that range for those actually undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder (much of it is untreated). </p>
<p>To date, however, no genetic “alliances” have been found for the genetic predispositions toward each. It may simply be that the “self-medication” or “exacerbation” hypotheses are as far as we get, though there is new genetic news virtually every week.</p>
<p>True, but neither do you. My point was that the short-run consequences that you posted there are not as high as everyone here seems to suggest. This is not some causal “drink underage, get arrested or die in a drunk driving accident”. The vast majority of teens who drink underage never have any of the immediate consequences you suggest. As for the long-term ones, I must say I’m not qualified to assess that necessarily.</p>
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<p>Provide some numbers/a source to back that up, please. It’s tough to debate with you when you call up all these statistics out of thin air and never provide me with an actual source for them to examine and critique.</p>
<p>Sure, when I get a chance. But you know, you can do that research yourself - it’s all publicly available data. (for much of my Washington/U.S. data, you can go to www1.dshs.wa.gov/dasa/ and look up Trends. There is an entire section on Underage Drinking - I wrote it myself.)</p>
<p>Mini, I’ll certainly defer to you on this, but one note regarding bi-polar/other mental illnesses and drinking… I’ve been told that alcohol basically negates the effects of anti-depressants, so I would think that even someone who is keeping their mental illness in check w/ meds is doing themselves a double-whammy by drinking heavily, right?</p>
<p>I would assume. (The question I couldn’t answer was about families where bipolar is common, not about individuals.) I know several folks with bipolar disorder, and they “tolerate” their medications, and are satisfied with avoiding the social consequences of going off one end or the other, but they will also tell you that they occasionally miss the “happiness” that comes with the manic phase (and they often get that with alcohol). So it isn’t so much self-medication as it is an attempt to override the effects of the medication.</p>
<p>There is some data that suggests those with bipolar also can develop a hankering after Ecstasy.</p>
<p>1of42, You really might want to research drinking threads on this forum before you offer to “critique” and debate mini. I daresay he knows a bit more then you about this subject. :)</p>
<p>^^Yes, he’s a maxi on that topic. A gaon. An uber. Knoweth much. He’d also be the first to encourage you to inquire and research freely on any topic under the sun…</p>