By Olivia Eiken | Staff Writer
Growing up and listening to my parents and their friends reminisce on their younger days, I have learned that nearly every rebellious story from their teen years includes one, if not both, of these key components: sneaking around their parents and finding a party with a keg.
The desire to break the rules and experiment with alcohol was just as prevalent for teens in the late-’80s as it is today.
The legal drinking age was set at 21 in 1984, following its lowering by some states in the ’70s. Lowering it to 18 at the time made logical sense, because if we were expecting our boys to die for their country in Vietnam, then they should absolutely have been able to pick up a six-pack from the gas station or join their daddies at the bar.
While teens today aren’t being forced to fight on a battlefield in a foreign country, sometimes life just metaphorically feels like a warzone — and stealing a Mike’s Hard Lemonade from your parents’ stash is the equivalent of waving the white flag and easing the tension on all sides.
Stealing a wine cooler from your parents and drinking it alone is one thing. It becomes a serious problem when one turns into two, two into three, etc. — and when it becomes a regularly consistent activity.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention define binge drinking as a “pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 g/dl or above.” Essentially, consuming four to five drinks in two hours is considered a binge, and if done regularly, it can lead impressionable teens to an unhealthy mindset and pose a risk to their physical health.
According to Brown University professor Dwight B. Heath, the chance of a binge drinking disorder rises in people who grew up in households or environments where drinking had a taboo allure.
The CDC also states that “binge drinking is a serious but preventable public health problem,” meaning that there is an approachable and palatable way to deter it from happening, especially in young people.
In an attempt to curb this phenomenon, parents should take the time to educate their teens about the effects of alcohol and allow them to reasonably drink under their supervision in a safe, controlled environment. By doing so, the taboo nature of the act is removed, and safety measures can easily be taken if need be.
This taboo allure leads to the danger that comes with the disconnect of trust between teens and their parents, further encouraging teens to sneak alcohol or lie about going to a party out of fear that they will be punished. I’ve never been a parent, but I am willing to make the assumption that parents would rather know where their child is and that they are practicing safe drinking as opposed to getting the phone call that something went wrong.
Ensuring that the next generation of teens prioritizes their safety and has a healthy relationship with alcohol can only be done if proactive measures are taken now. Alcohol is such an integral part of American culture, meaning telling teens not to experiment with it until they are 21 is the same as taunting the forbidden fruit. It will continue to lead to unsafe underage drinking if teens are not allowed to try it without risk of punishment, which can only be done through parents’ understanding and cooperation. Pandora’s box has been open for decades, and it cannot be shut. The only solution is truly prioritizing teens’ safety.
