Drinking and Teens

[catnapper]

I'm just curious... is drinking all THAT prevalent among teens? I'm including a poll just so teens who DO drink and don't want to openly admit it can annonymously say they do.

When I was a teen, I hated the idea of drinking. It didn't make sense to me. My friends understood and loved me anyways (and the fact that they always had a designated driver! )

It seems today though that alcohol and teens are much more common. Is it really? Even after efforts of parents to tell kids drinking is bad, etc? And can we blame the media with all those ads, music videos and movies highlighting the fun one can have drinking?

Are there really teens out there who DON'T drink? I'd like to think none of mine drink but I also know thats some pretty major denial

[JenBKR]

I think it's out there a lot. I didn't actually drink until I was 19, and even then I have never been a big drinker. But I know lots of people who drank a lot earlier than that (including my husband, who told me he only had to go to his aunt & uncle's house at the age of 14 to have a beer you can bet my kids will never go there alone!). And it's getting worse than when I was in high school

[animal_rescue]

My friends do drink mostly on one of my friend's private beach. There will be bonfire and about 5-10 people hanging out, drinking. Not often but some of my friend's have a tolerance and can drink a lot before their actually drunk. I'm very lightweight and not used to beer so I could get drunk easily.

[Flatcoatluver]

My freinds and I will drink once in awhile. We only drink when we are only at one of my freinds house. So not very often, like not even once a month. We only have like one drink and thats it.

[Uabassoon]

I drank occasionally when I was a teenager. My parents never really taught me that drinking was bad, instead they taught me that drinking was something that should be done in moderation. My dad and my aunts would let me have drinks with them, they would buy me things like wine coolers. However they made it VERY clear that if I was ever caught drinking without their supervision I was in big trouble! In my case I think it worked. I lived right on a border town and most of my friends would go to the clubs in Mexico and drink. I figured it wasn't worth the risk because if I wanted to try drinking I just had to ask. I never once went drinking in Mexico with my friends until the day I turned 18. I think they knew that I would be less likley to put myself in a bad situation if I could try it out under their supervision.

[cali]

none of the above. I am a teen, and I will be legal drinking age in a few months(19) I HAVE had some drinks before, but I dont drink casually, or sometimes with freinds, I have had a sip of my brother win cooler(YUK!), I have had some Whisky(even worse), and I have had some wine(which was waaay too dry) for the most part I dont drink, but its because I hate the taste of everything I have tried, and has nothing to do with legality or moral issues.

[Karen]

I didn't drink alcohol in high school, but had plenty of friends who did. They just knew I wouldn't want to, and was not planning on staying in my hometown forever anyway. But I had classmates who were thrown out of the high school musical when they were caught drinking (drunk) the night of the first performance, the scene they were in got a hasty rewrite, 6 fewer dancers. We were 15 years old. I would say more than half my classmates were drinking - probably closer to 90% - before we graduated high school. It was "normal."

I had a few drinks in college (I think a total of 4, maybe 5) before I decided drinking was just something I did not want to do. All my friends did, even though the drinking age had been chaged to 21, and we were 18. They understood my decision for the most part - or just accepted it, and the rides home. The most amazing thing to me was that the woman who kept pushing, saying "Oh, but just try THIS one - it's yummy, you can't taste the alcohol at all" was the adult daughter of an alcoholic who made her childhood miserable. The one person who finally snapped at her, said "Cut it out, X, leave Karen alone! She doesn't WANT to drink, don't you GET it?" was the guy in our crowd who ended up in detox shortly after college.

[lizbud]

I didn't drink alcohol as a teenager and nobody I hung out with did either.
It really never occurred to me to try it.

[jenluckenbach]

I was a teen who NEVER drank. (and I am an adult who STILL never drinks)

[Cataholic]

I drank as a teen, and I drink now. I drank then cause my friends drank. I can't say it was peer pressure....as it wasn't. Today, I drink because I like that taste.

I would estimate at least half of the kids in my class/grade drank.

[Kfamr]

I voted, but the answer didn't apply to me.


I have drank and still do once in a blue moon. I don't drink to get drunk (that is my main problem with drinkers), I drink for the taste of the drink. In fact, I've NEVER been drunk. If I know it tastes good or sounds/looks like it does, more than likely I'll have a sip or glass of whatever.

My parents are 100% aware if I have a drink and usually I am with them when I do. Tonight I actually had a Strawberry Kiwi Margarita, other than today I cannot remember the last time I've drank.

I have a like/hate relationship with alcohol.

[Sevaede]

I will be eighteen on the fifteenth.

Like others, we were taught panton in temperantia. My dad bought wine coolers, say, on New Years and there would be four in a box to be split up amongst four (Or two, at times).

Last year, I was bad bad bad. I drank quite a bit. I got sick once and, then, I got sick again. That was also the last time I've gotten drunk. It was because I wasn't really aware of my limits and trying different drinks.

Oh, I do still have the once in a while sour apple Smirnoffs. Those are *SO* freakin tasty.

[binka_nugget]

I drink here and there with friends. I used to drink to get drunk but now I drink occasionally because I like the taste of some drinks, and because I tend to relax after a drink.

[Alysser]

I never drink and have no interest in it, whats so ever. I WILL probably drink once in a blue moon when I'm older at a party or some other occasion but it'll be very rare. I have no interest in smoking or drinking and I don't think I ever will.

[Miss Z]

I'm 14 and have never ever thought about drinking. Alcohol knackers your brain, poisons your insides and can make you look a real idiot. Of course, having a limited drink for someone over the legal age is fine, but the people who go overboard just make me sick.

Alcohol is a drug, even though it's still accepted in society. It's a depressant, so it slows down the signals to and from your brain. It inhibits the cerebellum which makes you act stupid, and kills brain cells in the medulla which can kill you, even if you only drink heavily once. It's also a poison, and your poor liver has the task of pumping it all out your system, and after a while, it can't take the strain. You can't live without your liver.

Poor George Best suffered due to alcohol, it just shows how dangerous it is.

I don't think anyone at my school drinks, at least not at school, and if they do, I don't want to know them. What's with the rush? Can they not wait for a couple of years? If not, I'll just stick to keeping myself healthy.