Stoogy

I know it is easy to sit back as an recovering alcoholic and look back at "what if's" etc. I'm not one to blame family history for having a drinking problem, as I honestly believe we all control our own destiny to a certain degree. Do you think kids today get enough education about the harmful effects alcohol and substance abuse can cause long term? I'm 37 now but when I look back at my school days the only education outwith academic education was sexual education. I'm not saying that has any effect on why I drank at all but I'm just asking all you parents of young kids going to high schools, colleges etc do they get any guidance on this or help should they need it?

seek

I am in agreement that the subject is pretty much ignored. The culture, especially these days, is saturated with alcohol not only as a fun right of passage, but as a staple of life. The ads these days are everywhere.

I also think the college culture does nothing to dissuade college kids from binge drinking. Again, it seems to be part of the fabric of the culture. It is one thing to have an occasional "beer bust" in high school or college, but another thing completely to be binge drinking 24/7.

There is no excuse for the promotion of these poisons - it is pure Capitalistic greed, in my estimation (and also "old boys" influences, which are more subtle).

biminiblue

I think they get ten million "Look how fun/sexy/wealthy/attractive people are who drink!" and zero, "It will kill you." messages.

I would hope parents would take this on, the schools don't really do that great of a job on much more than the three Rs.

...and even then...

caboblanco

the only kind of education that helps is the kind the kids see repeatidly around them especially at home. a few school assemblies are not going to do anything. Iif kids are taught how to drink at home in moderation that will effect their chances of becoming an alcoholic. I remember a few assemblies on the effects of drugs where kids cut out in the middle to smoke a joint.

TroubledJoe

No. Not even close. I believe societies view on addiction is so utterly twisted and wrong that it will take years and years to fix.

It starts with children. Children should obviously be taught the dangers of alcohol/ substance abuse but also that the mere act of being an addict is NOT reprehensible and we are not the scum of the Earth. Addiction is an illness and an addict needs HELP.

People need to be held accountable for their actions, but I wish society would look at addicts with a little more compassion rather than outrage, anger and disgust. The current system is not working.

karate

NOT NEAR ENOUGH EDUCATION , ON THAT DAMN POISON , called alcohol .

Its just basically poison , it should have a MSDS label on the container .

Copenhagen has BOLD warnings , alcohol does have "small warnings ".

More lives have been lost to alcohol than smokeless tobacco .

Ever seen a deadly wreck ,because someone was chewing tobacco .?

People would not be able to understand the amount of alcohol produced , the company I work for is directly involved with one of the big alcohol companies .

I don't want to tell too many details of my life on a public forum , but you folks would be AMAZED at the amount produced ,and sold .

The size of that business is in the tens of Billions of $ ,They have a powerful lobby in Washington .

Its a BIG , business.

The storage warehouses are many times guarded by a group ,like a SEAL team ,its amazing the security .

Too much money involved ,to get education in public schools .

grubby

This is a very pro-alcohol culture, part of the reason things like prohibition failed miserably. It is ingrained in the fabric of this particular Western society, pretty much the only thing that prohibition accomplished was laying the foundation for modern organized crime.

I'm not surprised knowledge regarding alcohol is scarce in the "real" world, quite the contrary........ society encourages alcoholism wherever you turn, but it shuns you once you actually cross that invisible line.

To answer your question, no. It's a joke really........ the extent of our education and information regarding alcohol is "if you drink too much you may have liver problems, but only if you are drinking 24/7, oh and, don't drive drunk! the cops are out there!". So no, i dont believe this Western society does enough to inform the younger folk about the dangers regarding this particular substance.

To add to what "karate" said above.......... who decides what "the law" is? The rich, through the politicians they bribe and own. Who decides what is taught in the "education" system? The rich. Who controls the media and public perception? The rich.

So it's not hard to figure out why alcohol has a public image as being a "safe" drug, and why alcohol is readily available on pretty much every street corner in every city in the country. If something is making money for someone (alcohol), it will continue and grow, it is here to stay......... if something does NOT make money or have at least the potential for money, it will go nowhere or be snuffed out by the same monied entities (healthy foods, non-oil energy, cancer cures, etc). I dont necessarily agree with this setup, but its really that simple........ thats just the way it is.

biminiblue

I don't know the number or percentage of people who would become alcoholics given the chance. I know I have an addictive personality/physiology. I started at age six with candy/sugar, and went to cigarettes, then alcohol.

A lot of the physiological can be overcome by training and fear of consequences. Alcohol is (as the Big Book says) cunning, baffling, powerful. I would add sneaky. I was able to drink moderately for many years, probably fifteen. Then suddenly, a switch was flipped. I had no idea this was coming. I had parents who drank, and had seemingly normal lives. Whether they were lucky or smart, I don't know.

I know some people drink too much one time and say, "blech, not for me." or, "I don't like being out of control." or whatever they say to themselves that stops them from doing that again. I just justified. The longer I drank the more I justified increasingly dire consequences. I never ended up in jail, nor lost a job, or my family, or ended up injured - but I made increasingly bad choices in men, friends, etc. Wrecked some cars. Yes, more than one. Sick begets sick.

There should be some six week course requirement for obtaining a driver's license. Complete with "scared straight" tactics. We should all be required to pay for and go to this course every five years.

There. I solved it. Make it so.

Stoogy

Cheers guys, think we all are in agreement regarding the inappropriate and widespread misuse of this so called soft drug, apologies Dee if this thread seems too political, just think it needs addressing at the highest level. I look forward to reading more replies as the day goes on.
Hope you all are having a great day.

LBrain

"...I look back at my school days the only education outwith academic education was sexual education. I'm not saying that has any effect on why I drank at all..." - Stoogy

I don't know about anyone else, but sex education may have been a contributor to my drinking because I never had it.

A few days ago I thought of starting a campaign against alcohol advertising. Get the MADD people involved etc.
There have been studies done that suggest the amount of advertising has no effect at all on the amount of alcohol use by younger people. I think it's BS. But it has been studied by other than the alcohol industry (right).

There is a smear campaign against tobacco (my favorite ad is the high school cheerleader talking through her cancer kazoo), tobacco advertising in the US was banned 50 (?) years ago. Yet more kids abuse tobacco now than ever.
I think people are gonna do what they want no matter how it is presented to them. I love it when I was in Europe a few years ago with the 'evil' warning labels on cartons of cigarettes. US isn't there yet.

So if you want to compare tobacco against alcohol in our youth, I really don't think it will matter how educated they are on the subject. Kids are gonna do it no matter what. Those rebellious bastar,,, , glad I wasn't like that.

MattyBoy

I could give a brief summary of what I learned in PSHE(physical,social,health education) class at school:

Don't smoke because you'll get cancer.
Don't do drugs because you'll become addicted and ruin your life.
Don't drink too much alcohol because it may make members of the opposite sex more likely to have sex with you.

I'm not even joking. We learned plenty about drug addiction and the harmful consequences of abusing drugs and smoking but I was never taught about alcoholism or alcohol addiction.

So no , I don't think youngsters get enough education about alcohol - other substances however I think most people are warned off drugs from a young age but certainly jot alcohol.

Bostonsportsfan

I feel like the only thing they taught you about drinking was "Don't drink and drive". I never knew anything about alcohol withdrawal. I just thought alcoholics were bums who drank all day. I don't think schools really teach you about the disease that is alcoholism. I didn't understand it until it was happening to me.

Bostonsportsfan

Schools don't do enough to teach about alcohol addiction and abuse. Since it's legal and socially acceptable to drink I think alcohol isn't put into the same category as other drug addictions, when it really should be. My mom, who's an alcoholic, is the only one who tried to warn me about the dangers of alcohol.

hopeful4

Normally there is not education with the children until it's too late. When I was a kid, I think I was 17, I had to attend SATOP class b/c I got caught as a minor in possession.

I think kids should have to attend that class as a part of their junior high and high school experience.

I thank God I never hurt anyone and made it out safely. I drank a lot in high school and college as part of my social life. Luckily I never became an alcoholic, but looking back I can see I was definitely a binge drinker during that time.

Scary stuff. I pray for my children every single day. I also educate them, that is ultimately my job. I wish the school would do so also, but I definitely will.

Good topic, thanks for the post!

Stoogy

Yeah you are correct, when I first started going to bars when I was 18 (uk law) it was generally seen as being pretty cool to drink, it was always a Friday night thing for a few years then it became the Saturday night, but of course Sunday was still part of the weekend too so that became normal, and before you knew it there was a football match on worth watching through the week and,well you know the rest... Most people I know do drink maybe more than they should but I don't know if that's just culture in general in the uk or more a reflection on the circle of people I know. There is no easy answer but I do think alcohol is taken too lightly. Cigarettes are now banned from shelves in uk supermarkets (available but behind plastic covers and cannot be seen) which is a good thing but why not alcohol? Worth too much to the government with the tax money?

karate

[QUOTE=grubby;4621133]This is a very pro-alcohol culture, part of the reason things like prohibition failed miserably. It is ingrained in the fabric of this particular Western society, pretty much the only thing that prohibition accomplished was laying the foundation for modern organized crime.

I'm not surprised knowledge regarding alcohol is scarce in the "real" world, quite the contrary........ society encourages alcoholism wherever you turn, but it shuns you once you actually cross that invisible line.

To answer your question, no. It's a joke really........ the extent of our education and information regarding alcohol is "if you drink too much you may have liver problems, but only if you are drinking 24/7, oh and, don't drive drunk! the cops are out there!". So no, i dont believe this Western society does enough to inform the younger folk about the dangers regarding this particular substance.

To add to what "karate" said above.......... who decides what "the law" is? The rich, through the politicians they bribe and own. Who decides what is taught in the "education" system? The rich. Who controls the media and public perception? The rich.

So it's not hard to figure out why alcohol has a public image as being a "safe" drug, and why alcohol is readily available on pretty much every street corner in every city in the country. If something is making money for someone (alcohol), it will continue and grow, it is here to stay......... if something does NOT make money or have at least the potential for money, it will go nowhere or be snuffed out by the same monied entities (healthy foods, non-oil energy, cancer cures, etc). I dont necessarily agree with this setup, but its really that simple........ thats just the way it is.[/QUOTE


Im sensing a fellow conservative here ?

Im so far right ,I don't look left

zjw

alcohol should be in the same category as any other perscription drug along with cigarettes. that being said I think all of it should be legal and freely available but it should be clear to people that weather you wanna get on pills booze drugs or smokes etc.. your asking for trouble no matter what.

somehow or another alcohol is like the only one thats socially acceptable more so then cigarettes. Cigarettes are so dirty and cause cancer etc.. No one says the same about alcohol and its just as bad if not potentially worse.

karate

Its worse -imo .

But alcohol causes problems in a very small % of the population .

A small group drinks a large part of the alcohol .

Ever notice they don't make a 30 pack of coke ?
Thought that odd .

Dee74

I think this generation gets more education than I did - which was none. My niece and nephew are high school age - they not only get government sponsored talks and programmes but the school has it's own in house education too.

It's a start

They do where I live Karate

D

Gottalife

We have drug and alcohol education to a degree, and also sex and tobacco. Since these things started, over 30 years ago we now have

More young people smoking
A massive increase in teenage pregnancies and abortions
More people, up to 20% abusing alcohol and drugs.
Many young people seem to be immune from the benefits of this kind of knowledge they are ten feet tall and bullet proof, it won't happen to them.

Same with the real alcoholic. Knowledge alone has never been quite enough to prevent the progression of the illness. The only solution is no alcohol, and look what happened when you guys tried that. (Prohibition).

I remember a piece if diseased smokers lung was passed around the class. Still became a smoker.