My Article On Teenage Drinking

[Carp4U]

Lots of thoughts in my head recently about life in general and alcohol consumption by teenagers. I'm a 16 year old guy, who has never been drunk and I decided to write quite an opinionated blog about the subject. You might think it's a load of #105###, but please read it and let me know your honest opinions about it from someone of the same age and not some journalist/reporter/scientist, hope you like it
http/teenage-perspectives.blogspot.com/

 

[the_lock_man]

Lots of thoughts in my head recently about life in general and alcohol consumption by teenagers. I'm a 16 year old guy, who has never been drunk and I decided to write quite an opinionated blog about the subject. You might think it's a load of #105###, but please read it and let me know your honest opinions about it from someone of the same age and not some journalist/reporter/scientist, hope you like it
http/teenage-perspectives.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry, I had huge trouble reading it, the background gave me a migraine.

 

[BigTom]

That's amazing. It's genuinely almost impossible to read the text with that background.

 

[Cazgar]

I appreciate thoughts behind it but......
White text on black makes it hard to read, plus that busy background, it's all too much.
It's also far too long, a bit of editing wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Ace Of Spades]

Why do people feel the need to take some much concern in other peoples lives, especially when they've never tried that specific things themselves, they have no concept of it.

 

[scotty]

many alcoholics once had the same opinions as yourself

 

[simonas]

I assume youve changed the back ground as I had no trouble reading other than I didnt have the time now

teenage drinking needs monitoring as it is a big problem. I work in crime and spenda lot of time in court and the police station and the amount of disorderly behaviour from youths drunk is terrible and the quantities they drink disgusting,

My sons nearly 10 so I will have to be on my guard in the next few years against this as it scares me what can happen when youths go out getting bladdered

 

[moochy13]

i havnt read it, but i skimmed to a bit and it said "My decision to avoid drinking at my age, despite legal..."

but you're 16 according to the blog ? did they reduce the drinking age since i last checked ?

 

[micko]

I read it and really enjoyed it to be honest.

Yes, there is the argument that if you haven't tried something then how could you possibly comment about it but regardless, everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I used to drink and stopped a number of years ago, I don't believe it was for peer pressure, just that I wanted to. I do look in shock at the local paper sometimes and read how this person done some stupid act whilst drunk, his solicitor always then states to the judge that it was due to excessive alcohol and the person would not normally behave like this. Some of these people I've read about I actually know and then the next weekend after its printed in the paper I see them staggering around the town even during the day with a traffic cone on his head.
My oldest is 16 and he's a good lad, he doesn't smoke and hopefully never will and he has said he doesn't wish to drink until he's 18. Being legal age or not doesn't stop someone from acting like a clown though unfortunately.

Whilst re-reading the comments above again I have to agree 100% with TLM. Alcoholism whilst an extreme problem hasn't been looked into enough IMHO. They cannot say whether its passed on through the genes, whether its learned behaviour or anything. All they can do is guess. So this means, someone who never drank in their life could still be an alcoholic if they started drinking.
I know a nurse who didn't drink until her 40th birthday and in three years she had died from alcoholism.

 

[GrayScale]

Good read. The keyword in the OP that should be remembered in this thread is "opinionated". Everyone is entitled to one and I believe yours is pretty valid. And as such, opinions are subject to change.

Alcoholism is a form of addiction which, yes, is genetic. IMO, the reason for age restrictions is that the government sees people as "responsible" at that age to not make stupid decisions but the fact of the matter is, regardless of your age, whether it be 13 years old or 80 years old, people still do stupid things. Yes, they can look more into underage drinking but what will that really solve? As long as alcohol is existant and consumable, it's going to happen. Of course this is just my opinion but it's just one of those things that's just extremely hard to monitor or change. The only thing I could see them doing, is manufacturing cars so they are sold with breathalizers as a standard and you can't start the car without blowing first. But even those are bypassable and it still doesn't stop people from walking out in traffic, or drowning in a body of water or getting alcohol poisoning. Sadly, I've lost a lot of good friends, both young and old to alcohol. I know a lot of schools spend money on programs to show teenagers, "this is what happens when you drink."(Commence slideshows to scare the teens) Of course, some will remember it and not do it while others have the mentality of "oh, that will never happen to me so I'm going to do it anyways."

Props to you though for not doing it. I could go on and on but I think I covered my general opinion on this and as stated, it's my opinion and I hope no one is offended.

 

[moochy13]

i used to do the precise thing you seem to despise. i was one of the 'popular' guys at school, i was on the football team which pretty much guaranteed entry to the popular people, and all my mates were, and generally it was good times. i also started drinking at about 15, getting my mates who looked the oldest to go and buy booze, then cane it up at the local park. we didnt cause anybody any trouble, never had dealings with the police, and the park is also part of a huge field with about 10 footy pitches on it, so we'd go over to the far corner away from everybody and get nutted. i dont regret it, me and my mates still talk about the good times we had doing stuff like that, downing alcopops while spinning round on the spot , and as we were young we were generally pretty drunk pretty quickly. by 16-17 though i was getting served in the pubs, drinking with my dad and the adult football team we played for, so the field thing didnt last long.

shock horror, im not an alcoholic waster. i can count on one hand the number of times i go down the pub in a month on average, and spend a lot of my time driving to mates houses so dont drink. once a month i'll splash out on a taxi and consume a bottle of whiskey with one of my mates round his, but thats a payday special. i dont drink at home, purely because for me its a social thing, with mates or down the pub.

maybe its about what you drink ? by 16 i was drinking real ale thanks to my dad, and the awesome freehouse we used to go down that won regular awards for its ale. getting smashed on neat spirits, or strong lager/cider is not appealing to me - not because of the state it gets you in, but purely because of the taste of those drinks. an ice cold cider is nice when you;re having a bbq, and i'll drink lager if theres nothing else going. i drink my whiskey or brandy with coke, because thats how i like it. maybe if i spent the last 10 years drinking stella and scrumpy it'd be a different story.

its also very much about who you drink with. none of my mates are the club going, rave attending lager louts that usually inhabit the local seafront on a saturday night, we like sitting in a nice pub and ripping the p**s out of eachother while getting slowly more slurred and incoherent. ive had drinks with my fair share of idiots, and i generally just leave them to it and do my own thing. or make my excuses and go somewhere better.

 

[coldcazzie]

I read about two-thirds of it, but couldn't finish, even with the new background. However, I understand the choice not to drink. What you have to remember is that your choice not to drink is just that. Yours. You are you, and others are not. If you choose not to drink, fair play, but don't expect others to get on the bandwagon with you just because you think they should - you'd get the same reaction if you started to breed ferrets or paint your fingernails a different shade of blue each week. It's your thing, not theirs.

My personal choice is not to drink. But not because I think it's quintessentially bad in and of itself. I choose not to because I suffer horrendously the next day if I do: but only with certain drinks. I can drink red and white wine, and cider. I used to be able to drink spirits but can't now. If I drink rosé I get amnesia. I choose not to drink for the majority of the time. Also, for me, having a drink is something I do with friends. If the girls are round I'll have a drink. If I'm out on a night out (something which happens about twice a year) I'll have a drink. The rest of the time I don't bother.

My manwife on the other hand, usually drinks 4-5 cans on a weekend and may have a glass of wine on a couple of nights during the week, depending on his day. That's his choice. I make sure we have separate wine for drinking so he doesn't drink the wine I want to use to cook, and I buy crates of lager when I shop as they're better value than the 4 packs from the corner shop. But I don't stop him drinking, nor do I bash him for doing so.