Being educated about alcohol

Cacophony: chanting, cheering, screaming; pure unadulterated teenage energy. Music blaring from all directions. New friends united through the dance floor.

Parties offer teenagers release, an opportunity to escape study pressure, stress and anxiety and to just let loose. But there is a problem with this intoxicating image of release.

Teenage binge-drinking is a multi-faceted problem that plagues our youth and permeates New Zealand society as a whole. Binge-drinking is the definition of a great time for an alarming number of our youth.

The Alcohol Advisory Council says drinking is seen as a rite of passage and is as embedded in our culture as our backyard innovation or our obsession with rugby. Our excessive alcohol consumption can be traced back to our Anglo Saxon roots and the 1950s "six o'clock" swill, when pubs would be filled with drinkers consuming all they could in the hour between work finishing and closing time.

Teenagers tend to model their drinking on their parents, friends, sports and movie heroes - that skuxx* character, say. When a 12-year-old girl sees her father sloshed and incoherent, it hardly radiates a message that alcohol must be treated respectfully and responsibly. But how are we going to make a change? Firstly, families as a whole have to take responsibility.

Parents are perhaps kids' biggest role models. It is illogical for parents to believe they can go out drinking with their friends and expect their children not to touch it until the magic age of 18.

Families should have open conversations on the subject of alcohol.

Whether it is around the dinner table, on the drive to school or after Saturday sport, the conversation must take place. Discussion about responsible drinking, knowing one's limits and assurance of open communication must take place regularly. A family is a team. Each member works to ensure all the other members are happy and safe. This team is responsible for setting boundaries and making sure all the members know where the line is drawn.

By advocating enjoyable but controlled use of alcohol, our youth can grow up understanding that alcohol's correct place in society is as a means of enjoyment, but not the definition of what it means to relax.

The home is the safest place to educate youth about alcohol, rather than at a party, surrounded by boozing teenagers, under the influence of peer pressure, testosterone and societal expectations. Secondly, government intervention is needed. RTDs, or ready-to-drink beverages, are a soft-drink concoction - sweet, sugary and laced with alcohol. These are the drinks of choice for the majority of teenagers, for their affordability and potency.

Drinks companies target these soft-drinks at youth, with flashy, colourful marketing and appealing flavours. Taxes should be imposed to drive up the price of these drinks and cut demand. And alcohol suppliers found selling to under-18s should be hit with hefty penalties.

South Auckland has the highest number of liquor stores per head of population in the country and, coincidentally, the highest number of distribution law breaches. Shop-owners willing to corrupt and potentially kill youths for a quick dollar must pay the price.

Lastly, the fundamental perception of alcohol must be altered. Every time those ambassadors for our nation, the All Blacks, take to the field they do so with the Steinlager logo on their jerseys. This absurd promotion of the substance that cripples the country and contributes to so many unnecessary deaths must end.

Every year the duopoly of Lion Nathan and DB invest millions of dollars in sports-oriented alcohol advertising and, unfortunately, it's working. Every big sports match is followed by an even bigger booze-up to celebrate.

The top echelon of sports players who are role models for our youth should act as the voice of reason, not the loudspeaker of alcohol advocacy.

Despite the torrent of cash spent on alcohol and drug education in schools, the average age at which a teenager is first exposed to drink has not decreased. Fundamentally, teenagers believe they are indestructible.

The horror stories unleashed on us leave us startled in the short term, but soon fade. Let's face it, we hear the information but we just aren't listening. We need to be a united youth, not just passing off the problems that affect our generation, our future children's generation and the well-being the country, but caring enough to try to make a change.

The habits we establish in our adolescent years intensify throughout our life so if we don't start early, this issue that claims our brothers and our sisters is not going to go away.

A final warning about alcohol from the porter in Shakespeare's Macbeth: "[Alcohol] provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance". We may think it enhances us but in reality it can destroy us. There is no need for binge-drinking in our society. Let's have a great time without that RTD in our hand.

*NZ teenage slang for a ladies' man.

Jamie Beaton, Year 12, King's College