Under age drinking

Under age drinking has increased in the last 10 years and many organisations and politicians are developing new ways to tackle the ever-increasing problem.

Some of the ideas that have been discussed are:
raising the drinking age to 21,
banning adverts for alcohol,
allowing 16 year olds to go into the pub to drink,
fining parents whose children are caught drinking,
banning so called Alco pops
fining the young people themselves if they are caught drinking

but will any of them ever work?

It appears that many of the suggestions people have with regard to under age drinking or binge drinking revolve around banning or chastising people. Therefore tackling the end product, but not necessarily tackling the source or reason. One of the difficulties with this is that it may only make a problem go under ground (it still exists but is less visually obvious).

This way young people may still continue to drink but hide away when they are doing it. Police may then have more difficulty apprehending people as they are less obvious. This will not necessarily take the problem away from our streets. As these people will still be drunk on their walk home and may still cause the trouble that they do already.

Part of drinking under age is the fact that it is new, exciting and rebellious and many young people give in to peer pressure to join in underage drinking. If we bring in laws to try reduce it happening it will no doubt become even more enticing.

To try reduce this problem we should be looking to understand in more depth the difference between our culture in the UK and that of European countries that don’t have this problem.

If we look at people in Europe they are introduced to alcohol at a younger age. It is presented to them in the context of sitting round the table with the family, enjoying a family meal. The emphasis from the adults is to enjoy their drink and not drink to be drunk. It is about an experience that is wrapped up with family, socialising, telling stories, and eating food over a period of time and not dashing away from the dinner table.

We may not be able to instil all these qualities within our culture into today’s society as it has moved and developed, but that does not mean we cannot take the basic essence of what is happening within these cultures.

It is about changing people’s attitudes to alcohol, not so much through education when children are young, though this is helpful, but more through discussing and understanding. It is not enough to tell people the dangers and try scare them away from alcohol as this only works with those people that were already likely to be scared. It is more about understanding and appreciating the taste, understanding socializing and encouraging socializing. Helping people to acknowledge what fun they can have without the need for excess. How confidence and fun does not come from alcohol but from how you choose to think, feel and behave.

We also need to challenge young peoples beliefs, this could be carried out in schools or clubs. We can do this by discussing words that may be synonymous with under age drinking. For example words like “cool”, young people may belief they look cool as a result of drinking and getting very drunk. The question is how cool do you look when you are sick, can’t walk straight, feel ill, your head is spinning, you can’t think straight or even articulate properly. Does the alcohol make you belong to the group or did you already belong to the group before the alcohol. “What is belonging, and does alcohol make you belong?”.

By challenging these thoughts and beliefs we can help reduce under age drinking, by changing the way young people view alcohol and getting drunk.

I believe that we will do more to reduce this problem, not by chastising or bringing in laws but through developing respect, understanding and challenging beliefs. We need to help young people to have respect for each other, themselves and other people. Again we develop this through taking the time to understand them and in turn helping them to understand alcohol in a different way.

Young people can still have fun, be rebellious and enjoy themselves but without excessive alcohol consumption, and it is the older generations job to show them how.