Who tolerates underage drinking?

In April 2009 the Maricopa Police Department was awarded a grant for $3,857 from the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to cover overtime and equipment for law enforcement personnel to conduct additional underage drinking enforcement details and youth education to discourage underage drinking throughout the city of Maricopa.

Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were disturbed from their sleep by a very loud door knock and several door bell rings during an early fall morning in south Texas. Outside of the faded, stained glass door stood a blurred image of two people dressed in what appeared to be uniforms; this from the vantage point of Mrs. Jackson, as she hurried toward the loud knocking.

While Mrs. Jackson creases her hair to the side of her head and quickly wipes last night’s sleep from her eyes, she opens the door. She hesitates just before her first word when Officer Roberts and his partner with the Texas Department of Public Safety greet her with a soft “good morning ma’am.” Mrs. Jackson with a surprised yet concerned facial expression responds, “How I can help you officers?”

As Officer Roberts verifies the residence of the Jacksons, he is cut short from further words when Mr. Jackson says in a stern, yet adamant tone of voice, “What is this about, officers?” Officer Roberts conveys to the Jacksons that there was an incident at a teen party two blocks down the street in the neighborhood last night, and they were needed at the county hospital as soon as possible to identify a teen.

Mr. Jackson embraces his wife at the door as she lowers to her knees in fear of the terrible news to follow when suddenly Officer Roberts assists to raise her back up and quickly says, “We believe things are fine ma’am; we have a several teens who were taken to the hospital for precautionary reasons due to a binge drinking party we closed down a couple of hours ago.” Officer Roberts continues, explaining that “the reason we are here is your daughter lost her cell phone at the party and couldn’t remember the home phone number. Not to mention she was one of few out of many teens who provided information while waiting in a long line to be examined by an ER doctor before release.”

Not exactly a welcoming visit from the police. Many parents across our great nation have experienced this numbing, yet death-defying scene when a law enforcement official rings the door bell at three a.m., not to mention that feeling after a deep swallow when your heart began to submerge into your stomach and you can barely speak for lack of air in your lungs.

Who can tolerate underage drinking? This question would spike anxiety in any parent, schoolteacher, school official, law enforcement official, politician, pastor, priest or even President Obama. The immediate response is no one. A good analogy of tolerance according to the National Institute of Alcoholism Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) is a person who loses all sensations of pain. While at first this might appear to be a blessing, in fact, it is a curse; you can be severely injured without feeling it. A further example is that the first sign that your hand is on a hot stove is the smell of smoke. Similarly, for tolerant drinkers the signs of intoxication are felt at rather high blood alcohol content levels (BAC).

Several American households lose sensation by not recognizing the peer pressures and emotional pain teens are exposed to on a daily basis for lack of family time. Our teens lose sensation and pain when they neglect family rules as a result of parents who must extend work hours to finance basic household needs and healthcare or juggle time management with two jobs, just to name a few.

The American parent must find and seek ways to get back to the dinner table of talking and spending quality time with their teen(s); I’m reminded of a commercial back in 2003 that commences with a caption across the TV screen that reads “how to save a child from drugs.” A picture of a dinner table appears, followed by a family of four eating and talking about their day.

Family time enhances relationships. The more a teen spends with peers and other strangers, the more they tend to carry on their character trait(s), and should a break down in communication or an argument occur between the teen and the parent(s), the child isn’t recognized as a member of the family based on strange and aberrant behavior. So the child is, in essence, severely injured from lack of family time, and the stranger and/or peer becomes the: drug, alcohol, escape, etc.. With the smell of smoke being the first sign that a hand is on the stove is analogous to missing curfew, running late or missing appointments, poor memory and grades in school, honesty issues, exhaustion and frequent outbursts of anger.

Could it be the Jacksons missed such signs with their teen binge drinking at an undisclosed neighborhood party? Not to mention the obvious binge drinking that occurred since a medical release was required from the county hospital. Think for a moment as I pose this question again for you to ponder: “Who can tolerate underage drinking?” Moreover, who can afford to tolerate underage drinking?

A few tips and terms common with underage drinking according to NIAAA:

Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC): The amount of alcohol present in the bloodstream when consuming alcohol. It is measured in percentages. For example, BAC of .10 percent means a person has 1 drop of alcohol per 1000 drops of blood in the body.

Binge Drinking: A pattern of drinking alcohol that brings blood alcohol concentration to .08-gram percent or above. For the typical adult, this pattern corresponds to consuming 5 or more drinks (male), or 4 or more drinks (female), in about two hours. Binge drinking is clearly dangerous for the drinker and for society.

Blackout: An amnesia-like period that is often associated with heavy drinking. A person may be functioning normally but later has no memory of what happened.

Alcohol Poisoning: An overdose of alcohol. The body is overwhelmed by the amount of alcohol in the system and cannot metabolize it quickly enough.

Tolerance: Your peak BAC is a good reflection of your tolerance level; if you are reaching BAC levels beyond the normal social drinking range and not feeling some of the normal effects of a lower BAC, your body may have already developed a tolerance to alcohol.

Tolerance:
* Is partially inherited and partially learned
* For the most part does not mean being able to get rid of alcohol at a faster rate (although this occurs to a small extent). Rather it means reaching high levels of alcohol in the body without feeling or showing the usual effects.
* Results in a higher likelihood of taking in large quantities of alcohol–enough to damage the brain and other organs of the body over time without realizing it.

Instances when high risk drinking may occur: 21st birthday celebrations, hazing, sport team and group initiations, any type of celebration, athletic event, holidays, Homecoming, formals, graduations, family reunions and weddings.

Teens drink for a reason and more often than not they want to avoid the negative consequences of alcohol use such as throwing up, hangovers, unwanted sexual contact and getting arrested. Most students drink because they have found that alcohol is one of the most effective icebreakers around. When educating your teen(s) about the risks of alcohol use, it is helpful to engage them from the perspective of “How can you get what you want from alcohol while avoiding what you don’t?”

Submitted photo

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