Sue Scheff: Preteens Get Alcohol from Home by Emily Halevy

“I woke up in the driver’s seat, blood all over me, glass everywhere. The doctors said my friend had 48 hours to live.”
– Nick, 19

Nick, who wishes to remain anonymous, started drinking when he was 12 years old.

“I loved it. I was off to the races then. It made me feel 10 feet tall and bulletproof,” says Nick, now 19.

Where did he get his first taste?

”I think it was off of some Jack Daniels I got out of my parents’ liquor cabinet,” says Nick.

In fact, according to a report published in the journal, Preventive Medicine, preteens are more likely to get alcohol from their own home or a friend’s home than any other place.

“I think parents are just oblivious to the fact that their kids are drinking,” says Ari Russell, substance abuse prevention director at Guide, Inc. (Gwinnett United in Drug Education in Georgia).

“They just think that they are too young to start thinking about alcohol. And so they are not checking their supplies, they are not seeing the whiskey going down in the bottle.

Is there a beer missing from the refrigerator?

Is there a wine cooler missing from the refrigerator? They are not even paying attention to it.”

Experts say the younger children start drinking, the more likely they are to suffer damage to their brain, heart and liver, and the less likely they are to ever put the bottle down.

“If they start drinking before age 15, the chances of them developing alcoholism are much greater because they are learning early on to use alcohol as a social crutch,” says Russell.

Nick’s last drink was more than a year ago, and it was the night he totaled his truck while drinking and driving.

“I woke up in the driver’s seat, blood all over me, glass everywhere. The doctors said my friend had 48 hours to live,” says Nick.

Nick’s mom says if she had to do it over again, she’d make sure the alcohol was out of his reach.
“It wasn’t that easily accessible; I would certainly make it totally inaccessible,” says Kathy, Nick’s mother.

Tips for Parents

Send your children a clear and consistent message that you do not want them to drink before the age of 21.

Do not make exceptions for special occasions like prom parties, spring break or graduation parties. Kids who are allowed to drink at home will believe “drinking is no big deal to my parents.” This will make them more likely to drink outside the home. (Dr. Michael Fishman, addiction specialist)

Lock up your alcohol. Two-thirds of teens admit they have stolen liquor from their parents without their parents’ knowledge. (Teenage Research Unlimited)

Inform your children about the risks of underage drinking. Research from the VA Medical Center in San Diego shows that the part of the brain responsible for memory and certain learning functions (the hippocampi) is affected by alcohol. Hippocampi in the brains of teenagers who drink were, on average, about 10 percent smaller than the hippocampi in the brains of non-drinking teens. If the hippocampi are damaged, it can affect a person’s memory and ability to learn certain functions. (American Medical Association)

Underage drinking is also associated with future alcohol dependence. Analyses of data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions show that people who began drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence during their lifetime than those who began drinking at age 21 or later.

References

The American Medical Association (AMA)

Teenage Research Unlimited

Dr. Michael Fishman, addiction specialist