Mugica

Xabier Mugica

11/30/10

GWRTC 103- Jefferson

Drinking Doesn't Have to be SADD

It was a semi-normal day in my house when I had my first alcoholic drink. Shortly after dinner,

my parents and I were just sitting around talking about how our days at school and work were going. I

was about 16 or 17, a junior in high school, and I was at the age where drinking alcohol was a normal

thing for teenagers, but I had never participated in drinking before in my life. Because my parents were

so casual and upfront with alcohol, they made drinking seem like not a big deal. My parents had

always said “we prefer that you drink here in the privacy and safety of our house rather than going out

to a random party, at a house where we know nobody, and recklessly drink there.” My parents would

expose alcohol to me in a family setting. For example, they would occasionally offer me beers at

dinner, or to drink champagne on New Years Eve at midnight. Even though they would offer me the

alcohol, I would refuse it because I just didn't feel comfortable drinking with my parents.

To be honest, the reason I think I had no interest in alcohol was because my parents always

kept alcohol out in the open in and I was exposed to it when I was younger: seeing my parents drink at

new years, when friends were over, or even having a small glass of wine while at dinner, and I just

didn't think there was much to drinking. It wasn't until my late junior/senior year in high school that I

actually wanted to try alcohol for myself. When I told my parents, one night at dinner, that I wanted to

try a beer, the fact that I asked out of nowhere kind of surprised them. I had never shown interest in

drinking before and I just had never voiced my curiosity before. However, after the initial shock of me

asking them my parents thought it was okay and they gave me my first beer-a Corona-and the taste was

awful to my tongue. For my unaccustomed tongue, beer was extremely bitter and had a horrible flavor.
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I quickly gave the beer back to them and they just chuckled to themselves. I hated it for the longest

time just based on that one taste and it wasn't until my other friends started drinking that I tried it again.

There's a piece of advice that my friend gave me that, in recent years, I've always tried to live

by: “Always try things twice, because the first time could have been a screw up.” I follow the motto in

most forms of life, whether it be food, new activities or sports, or even people. I felt that I should give

alcohol a second chance, since it had been a while since I last tried, so I spent the night at a really close

friend's house and they introduced me to social drinking, not just drinking with the family. The second

time I had alcohol was in the basement of one of my best friends who, along with some of my closest

friends, helped me get drunk for the first time in my life. We had to keep the alcohol hidden for their

sake, but despite that my friend's basement was a safe, casual environment where me and just three

friends sat around the TV watching movies and playing video games while drinking. That night was

one of the funnest nights of my life.

However, I kept hearing in the back of my head my parents' voices and what they always said

about drinking: “To take it slow and always be careful of what you do.” And I did just that. Since I was

so used to seeing them drinking and just being around alcohol, I knew to be careful of how much I

drank. The night went along smoothly and pretty calm, with no one getting too drunk or passing out.

The next morning I went back home and I actually told my parents up front of what I had done last

night, explaining how we were safe and it was only a couple of my closest friends. At first they were a

bit disappointed: they were worried about me and would have rather me been at home, but by being

honest with them about everything and being responsible about the drinking they weren't too mad.

The thing is, America's standpoint and its culture towards drinking is drastically different to the

viewpoints of other countries and cultures. My family being Hispanic and pretty liberal, drinking isn't

seen as something that should be condemned, just taken with precautions. However, that's not how
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most conservative Americans take it as. Instead of being a familiar thing, it's regarded as a taboo.

Those who drink normally are considered alcoholics by those who don't, and parents tend to just

straight up forbid alcohol in any form. People believe that the more you disapprove of something, or

the more you ignore it, the less people will do it. However, in reality it's the opposite. Most of the youth

in America drink because they see it as a form of rebellion against their parents and they think of it as a

way of acting like an adult. They drink BECAUSE their parents tell them not to.

However, many teenagers aren't mature enough to handle the effects of alcohol and go wild

with it their first times. For example, for many teenagers, college is their first taste of freedom and the

first time they ever drink alcohol, and because of that they go crazy with it. But that's one of the most

dangerous ways to start drinking alcohol. Instead of being in your own home, with your parents

literally a shout away, surrounded by friends who actually care for you; you're in college, an unfamiliar

place, a place where your parents could be days away, surrounded by people who you might not even

know. That leads to serious risky and potentially fatal situations that many college kids don't know how

to handle. If the United States lowered the drinking age and changed their drinking culture and

perspective on drinking there would be a decrease in alcohol related accidents, drinking and driving,

and alcohol poisoning because teenagers will see alcohol in a different light. Instead of abusing it and

only using it to get drunk, they'll see it as a more familiar, almost casual beverage.

According to a website dedicated to bringing information to the public about alcohol, Alcohol:

Problems and Solutions, the United States is one of only five countries with a drinking age of twenty-

one (Hanson). Almost half of the world has set their drinking age to the reasonable age of 18 and that

has worked for them for the longest time. Why can't it work for the United States? If we change the

drinking age and get younger people to become more accustomed to alcohol, while simultaneously

teaching them the negative effects of it, then I'm sure the rate of alcohol abuse and alcohol related-
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accidents will fall. I know this because having my parents show me it's okay to drink occasionally, as

long as it's in a safe environment, has helped me become more responsible when I choose to drink. I

believe that if you're raised around alcohol and you have an idea of what its effects are, when you grow

up you have less of an interest in drinking because you already know how it affects people and don't

believe a lot of the hype.

According to an article in TIME magazine, a study was done by a team of North Carolina

researchers, led by public-health professor Kristie Long Foley, as to whether drinking with your parents

affects your behavior with alcohol. They analyzed surveys of about 6,000 kids with ages ranging from

16 to 20. What they found out from their study is that those that have had experiences drinking with

their parents were half as likely to say they had drunk alcohol in the past month and one-third as likely

to say they had five or more drinks in a row in the previous two weeks (Cloud). The study shows that

by having a positive connection between your family and drinking, teens make better, more responsible

decisions about alcohol. Instead of drinking until you puke or black out, teens would prefer to have a

couple drinks around dinner, or while hanging out with friends.

By creating laws that forbid teenagers from drinking alcohol, it creates a sort of “forbidden

fruit” effect. Fundamentally, as a human behavior, people want what they can't have and they strive to

make that dream a reality. The same goes for teenagers and alcohol. By not allowing them to drink

even a little bit of alcohol responsibly, teenagers strive to obtain alcohol and ultimately go overboard

with it. Psychologist Stanton Peele concurs with this idea of forbidden fruit in his 2007 book:

Addiction-Proof Your Child (one of his 10 books on addiction). He says, “When alcohol is presented as

impossibly dangerous, it becomes alluring as a 'forbidden fruit' …. The choice between abstinence and

excess is not a good one to force on children” (Cloud). If we introduce alcohol as something that is

standard and something you do normally at home or in the family, a very European view on alcohol,
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teenagers are more likely to see alcohol the way I do, not that big a deal and a small part of normal

social gatherings. Their priorities will have changed to having fun with friends and family, not getting

drunk or hammered.

To be perfectly honest, the alcohol culture at JMU kinda weirds me out. Before college I was

relatively accustomed to drinking and was okay with it. But I had different experiences than most

people on campus. For me, having a “drinking party” involved a group of about 10 friends just hanging

out and drinking, as if we were just drinking soda at a birthday party. Our intent was never to get super

hammered every day; our intent was just to hang out with close friends. However, when I got to JMU

and I went to my first party, it was a bit off-putting. It was at a small frat house where there were at

least 50 people, of which I only knew like 2. The lines to get beer were ridiculously long, it was hot,

people were being loud and obnoxious, and I didn't really have a good time. I went home extremely

early for the night and thought, “man, that was dumb.” But that's because I had some prior experience

with a different environment of drinking than most of the people at that frat house. For them, that was

the only type of party that could be had, and the only way to use alcohol was to abuse it and get drunk.

But that's just not true. Teenagers and people in college need casualty and familiarity with alcohol or

they will continue to abuse it and allow their lives to be in danger.

Drinking has been, and always will be, a part of human culture. What really matters though is

how much we control it. When I say control, I don't mean parental control, or governmental control

because in the long run, that doesn't do anything. What really matters is how well you control yourself

and what your view on alcohol is. Self-control is something that you gain through experience and life.

However, for many teenagers, college is the time where they learn to control themselves, but that's just

too late. There are so many dangers that can come from drinking in college, drinking and driving,

alcohol poison, rape, assault, and even lowering your grades. Teenagers need to learn how to control
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themselves and gain more responsibility at a younger age, so when they venture out for the first time in

their lives, they have an idea of what they can and cannot do. Choose the safe path, drink at home, and

avoid making rash decisions on your own.

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Bibliography

Cloud, John. “Should You Drink With Your Kids?” TIME Magazine. 19 June 2008. 3 pgs.

<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1816475,00.html>

Article in TIME magazine explaining how drinking with your children could in fact be a positive way

of stopping kids from overindulging in alcohol.

Hanson, David J. Minimum Legal Drinking Ages around the World. Alcohol: Problems and

Solutions. New York University. 2009. December 01, 2009.

<http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/LegalDrinkingAge.html>

Website with statistics about alcohol and alcohol related accidents and deaths. Gave a chart of the legal

drinking ages around the world and how the US was one of only 5 countries with a drinking age of 21.

Saffer, Henry. Michael Grossman. Beer Taxes, and the Legal Drinking Age, and Youth Motor

Vehicle Fatalities. 1987: 23 pages. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/724352?seq=1>.

Article found through JMU database. Talks about alcohol related crashes and how the government is

taking the wrong approach to lowering alcohol related accidents. Instead of passing laws to restrict

people, they should raise the price of alcohol so people won't be able to afford as much.