It also strikes me, from your post and from my own experience, that some of these kids seem to want to get caught. A couple of boys in my school were suspended for smoking pot on the school bus (!). This is either incredibly stupid or an attempt to get attention. I know kids actually want and need boundaries and structure from the adults in their lives; many this is them asking for it.

While I’m not suggesting that the boys on the PSU football team do not drink, I have never associated them with alcohol. However I do associate most of their fan base with alcohol use, since I see many fans that show up each week drunk to the games. A big ritual of football weekend is the tailgating, where you can see nearly half a million people drinking in the early morning to “get ready” for the game. People do not show up drunk to women’s volleyball games or even any other men’s sports, so I guess that is a very interesting point.

I suppose since the NFL is more widely televised, that is where the majority of alcohol advertising comes into play. Again, when I think of the Super Bowl or even Monday night football, I associate that with guys sitting around having a beer. Even though alcohol is legal to those of age, this is an image I probably have had since I was a child. The super bowl is watched nation-wide and I agree, that perhaps the glorified ads of drinking should be kept to a minimum.

I suppose my opinion of alcohol has always been quite different than those my age since I personally know so many people who have struggled with alcoholism. My sister and I grew up knowing that alcohol is not as much “fun” as it can be portrayed and that it must be used in moderation, which is probably one of the greatest contributors to why I never drank. However, to those who have had no significantly negative experiences with alcohol, I can see how young children are bombarded with messages that alcohol will make you more fun, or happy, and succumb to that. I mean, who wouldn’t like to be happy or have fun or be attractive? And if the media is portraying alcohol as giving you all of these things, who could resist?

Even in school, we were always told not to drink because “it is bad” and “we are too young”. But that has no significant meaning. Between the way alcohol is portrayed, and the insignificant education we receive in school it is not wonder why so many young people want to drink so badly.

my parents were quite strict and consistent, and i was kept on a short tether. i chafed considerably at their control. i honestly commited no crimes, in any sense. heck, I never had the chance to. i was a good kid, albeit lazy. my parents instilled much self-confidence in me, and there were many expectations as to what I would do (get good grades, go to college) and many expectations as to what I would *not* do (drink alcohol, get involved with boys). when I finally did rebel, by breaking curfew, it was *after* my HS graduation. I was then grounded; I still wasn’t off the hook.

my parents drank very little; my mom had a few sips of daquiri for christmas, and my dad would make a can of beer last a few days (bleah). my mother had several brothers and brothers-in-law that were alcoholics, and on a few occasions one of her sisters was hiding at my grandparents’ home from here husband. her near tee-totaling was the result of seeing alcohol at work. I am not sure why my father never drank. I don’t believe his parents were drinkers. I believe my paternal grandfather drank very little; I remember seeing him drinking a can of beer only one time.

when I went to college, I did drink too much, but quickly tired of the scene. (Riunite isn’t nice, even on ice.) I quit drinking for many years simply because it was too expensive, and I was working and going to college on my own dime. I didn’t have the time to spare.

Traveling back and forth between the two countries over the past years has given me a different perspective and has made things more complicated. There is rampant alcoholism in both Europe and the U.S. but it takes on different forms of visibility.

Thinking back I think I was a timid but stubborn teenager. I did not wish to be out of control on drugs much like I would not want to get on a roller coaster. My adolescence overlapped with the slow decline of my mother’s health. Somewhere in my teenage brain I had a sense that I needed to be present, that I could not go off and experiment as my mother was buckling under the stress of raising three children and fast moving cancer. My filial allegiance was forged by my mother’s fierceness as a parent. Logistics may have been against her and she was certainly outnumbered by us as a single parent, but we knew she was on our side and cared. Not much went by her. She was a parent, meaning she paid attention. She knew sometimes before we knew what was going on. As far as I know it is this back and forth between children and parents that can make all the difference in the choices we make.

I think a lot of how I feel has been covered. Parental support seems to be a common denominator among people who don’t drink throughout high school. That definitely was the case with me. Something that was important for me was my mom explaining why she didn’t want me to drink. I learned about the genetics involved with addiction and that drinking in high school, even occasionally, might have long-term affects. She didn’t want me not to drink simply because drinking is “bad”. I’m not sure but I feel like that might be how a lot of my friends conversations about drinking went with their parents.

A lot of these discussions I had were when my dad was in rehab. This was right before people in my grade had started to drink so I think that also had an impact. Finally, as I went to parties all through high school I was really turned off from drinking. It seemed as if 99% of fights between people in my grade could be traced into alcohol.

There are a lot of reasons to not drink but clarity from my parents had the most impact for me I think.