Facts on Alcohol

• Junior and high school students drink 35 percent of all the wine coolers in the U.S.
• Binge drinking – consumption of five or more drinks at one sitting – is reported as early as the eighth grade.
• Alcohol-related accidents are the leading cause of death among people 15 to 24 years of age.
• Half of all youthful deaths in drowning, fires, suicide, and homicide are alcohol related.
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a survey of high school seniors, found that 2.5 million respondents did not know they could die of alcohol poisoning.

Solutions

Your message to your child must be simple and clear-cut: Drinking beer, wine, or distilled spirits is only for grownups who drink responsibly. Underage drinking is not only breaking the law, but also can seriously injure your health, your future success, your friendships, and possibly even kill you.

Here are some other things parents can do to keep their children off alcohol until they are at least of legal drinking age:

• Be an exemplary role model.
• Establish a two-way dialogue with your children about drinking, whether you imbibe or not.
• Know the facts about alcohol use and abuse and discuss them with your children.
• Offer loving but firm advice with clear boundaries and consequences by setting down firm guidelines.
• Set a rule that your child must never drink and drive.
• Be prepared for other families having different standards of acceptable behavior.
• Do not joke about alcoholism or drunken behavior.

While alcohol is a gateway drug that can lead to other, stronger chemical dependencies, it has its own addiction: alcoholism. Alcoholism is a progressive disease that only gets worse by drinking irresponsibly.