Let’s teach kids to drink responsibly

By DWIGHT HEATH

As we muddle through the dog days of summer, government data tell us that more young people try alcohol for the first time during these months than at any other time of the year.

Uncle Sam has been vigilant about trying to keep alcohol out of reach for young, inquisitive hands. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls underage drinking a “major public health problem,” and last year the Surgeon General issued a “call to action” to stop minors from drinking.

But perhaps the U.S. government needs to clarify the issue. Drinking alcohol itself is not the root of the social, legal and physical problems attributed to underage drinking; it is the epidemic of heavy, excessive drinking among teenagers that is causing most of the problems.

In fact, if this country were really serious about curbing excessive drinking among youth, it would abstain from its zero-tolerance, total-abstinence approach. A more successful line of attack would be to teach young people how to drink responsibly, including encouraging parents to drink in moderation with their underage children at home.

This may seem like a radical and irresponsible notion until you consider the facts. Several years ago a study at the University of North Carolina found that kids who drank with their parents were about half as likely to say they had drunk alcohol in the past month and one-third as likely to say they had had five or more consecutive drinks in the previous two weeks. The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2004, concluded that “Drinking with parents appears to have a protective effect on general drinking trends.”

Widely accepted practice

Introducing alcohol to children at a young age is a widely acceptable and culturally-ingrained practice in other countries. France views drinking as an integral part of everyday life, a sociable custom usually enjoyed at the family table. There is no attempt to protect children from learning about alcohol, including the hazards of drinking too much or too fast.

Whatever else it may be, drinking is a learned behavior. It is shaped by a complex combination of observations, warnings and personal experience. The U.S. needs to start recreating a culture as we had 200 years ago where alcohol was an every-day part of family life and not the forbidden fruit.

Drinking with your kids does not mean giving them alcohol for parties. The same University of North Carolina study found children whose parents supplied them with booze for parties were more likely to binge drink.

The fear that teaching kids to be responsible drinkers will only teach them to be heavy drinkers has been unfounded in Italy, Spain and other “wine cultures.” Both countries report very low rates of alcohol dependence: less than 1 percent in Italy and 2.8 percent in Spain. In the U.S., the rate is 7.8 percent.

Nor do parents who want to drink with their kids at home need to worry that they are breaking the law. Despite what police or others often claim, the so-called National Minimum Drinking Age Act does not make it illegal for people under age 21 to drink. The law deals with purchase and possession.

An eye-opening new book, “Swimming with Crocodiles: The Culture of Extreme Drinking,” examines the motivations, experiences and outcomes of young drinkers in countries around the world. Produced by the International Center for Alcohol Policies, the book introduces the term “extreme drinking” to describe the pattern of heavy, rapid drinking among young people. The book finds a remarkable range of similarities and differences in how young people in different cultures view drinking and getting drunk. A young man from South Africa says, “When I get drunk, I want to go swimming … This is a stupid thing to do because there are crocodiles and hippos in the river, but you feel like you are invincible when you are drunk, so you do it.”

It is high time we begin to demystify drinking and start teaching our children that alcohol will not make them cooler, more popular or invincible.

X Dr. Dwight Heath is a professor of anthropology at Brown University. Dr. Heath has published extensively in many areas of anthropology, particularly on the subject of alcohol drinking patterns and their relationship to culture.