TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Underage Alcohol Abuse Is A Poorly Kept Secret

ADVERTISEMENT

By JACKIE BURRELL Contra Costa Times

Published: October 21, 2007

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - With an empty martini glass at her elbow, teenager Serena van der Woodsen, star of the CW's 'Gossip Girl,' leans against the tony Manhattan bar and blithely downs another vodka concoction, unscathed.

It's no surprise the frothy series about the sexy lifestyle of Upper East Side prepsters has some parents and reviewers in an uproar over its glamorized glimpse of underage drinking.

But the truth is, though U.S. youths may not knock back limoncello and champagne as blithely as couture-clad Serena, TV shows such as 'Gossip Girl' offer a fairly accurate depiction of teen partying across the country.

According to the U.S. surgeon general's office, underage consumption of beer and alcohol accounts for a quarter of alcohol sales.

The truth is also that many parents are in denial.

Parents think, 'Oh, not my wonderful children,' said Orinda parenting expert Ksenija Soster Olmer. 'They pretend it's not happening, that it couldn't happen to their family.'

But according to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, it is happening - to 11 million youths ages 12 to 20.

Although the overall percentage of drinkers has held fairly steady for the past five years, the most recent statistics from that survey show teens have begun drinking at younger ages, and binge drinking has surged - nearly 7.2 million teens report they sometimes down five or more alcoholic beverages in a single sitting.

It's the middle school numbers that psychologist Sara Denman of Danville finds most alarming. Teen drinking is not just glamorized, she said, 'it's accepted. It's expected. Now, if you're not going to drink, you hold a beer so people think you are.'

It's 'an epidemic of underage drinking that germinates in elementary and middle school with 9- to 13-year-olds and erupts on college campuses, where 44 percent of students binge drink,' said Columbia University's Joseph Califano Jr., who heads the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Now, recent research has tied early drinking to adult alcoholism. A teen who begins drinking before age 15 is four times more likely to develop alcohol dependency as an adult.

Parents are a critical piece when it comes to addressing the issue. But they're also part of the problem, Califano said. According to a 2006 study produced by Califano's department, 99 percent of parents said they would never serve alcohol to minors. But 28 percent of partygoing teens said parents had chaperoned their booze-soaked parties.

Too many parents are either naive or delusional - or they're buying the keg so they can 'supervise' the drinking, Olmer said. Add in the secrecy and frequency of unsupervised parties and the time constraints of curfews and you've got a recipe for disaster.

The solution has to come from not just one home, Olmer said, but all of them.

'There's a lot of drinking and partying going on in the parents' lives too, and no one's talking about that,' she said. 'There's media influence, but we don't have to look that far. It's in our communities. That's the reality.'

What's needed is a new approach, said Berkeley's Norman Constantin, program director of the Public Health Institute's Center for Research on Adolescent Health and Development.

'Alcohol is a reality in the lives of young Americans,' Constantin said. 'Our drinking age of 21 eliminates the opportunity for parents to legally teach safe drinking to their teens. This missed opportunity can lead to unsafe and immoderate drinking, especially on college campuses. Most teens would benefit from being taught how to not to drink, together with how to drink safely and moderately when and if they do drink. Both skills are critically important.'

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT