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May 6, 2009

Mat Anderson: Supervised drinking can have serious consequences

Prom and graduation season are upon us, and with these important events also comes the high-school party season. Teens excited about these milestones will be celebrating together and many will also be partaking in what some view as another adolescent rite of passage: alcohol consumption.

Alcohol is the No. 1 drug of choice among teens, and as the school year comes to a close and the freedom of summer approaches, more and more teens will be consuming alcohol at parties with friends and some even with parents.

Government research shows that nationwide, 600,000 teens get alcohol from their parents, and a Harris Research study found that 1 in 4 adults thinks teens should be able to drink at home with parents. What many of these parents believe is that since most teens will be drinking anyway, it’s better for them to do so while under adult supervision and in the safety of their own home than in a situation where they may drive drunk and endanger themselves and others.

Unfortunately, while this approach may help to prevent some of the immediate and tragic consequences of teen drinking, there is much evidence to show that even teens who drink while supervised are in danger of long-lasting consequences of alcohol abuse.

Through adolescence, teens’ brains go through dynamic changes and are extremely vulnerable as they forge billions of connections and new nerve pathways. These pathways will continue to develop into the early 20s and will provide the blueprint for adult behaviors including those related to substance abuse and dependency. Because of this, teens who have their first drink before age 15 are five times more likely to become alcoholics than those who first drink at age 21.

Alcohol use can also cause serious and irreversible damage to the growth of a teen’s brain. A study by the American Medical Association found that when tested, adolescent drinkers scored worse than nonusers on vocabulary, general information, memory, memory retrieval and at least three other tests. Verbal and nonverbal information recall was most heavily affected, with a 10 percent performance decrease in alcohol users.

Because of these findings and similar discoveries in an Australian study released last month, experts have stated that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe or sensible for teens, and that allowing teens to consume alcohol in a setting that reduces harm is doing more to contribute to the problem than to reduce it.

In light of this new information regarding teen drinking, it’s important to realize that allowing teens to drink in a supervised setting isn’t harmless. The fact is that for teens, there is no safe or responsible way to consume alcohol if it means participating in an activity that can cause brain damage and an increased risk of lifelong chemical dependence.

If we want to reduce the number of teens making bad alcohol-related choices and have fewer teens injured and killed in drunk-driving accidents, we shouldn’t merely strive to control where and how teens consume alcohol but instead, we should work to reduce the number of teens consuming any alcohol at all. This will result in fewer intoxicated teens on the road, fewer teens who become alcoholic adults, and a greater number of teens with bright futures to look forward to this graduation season.

Mat Anderson is the staff writer and research specialist at The Bridge in Joplin. For more information visit futureparadigm.org.

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