This is too pat. You're too eager to extrapolate from your personal experience with this issue. Not everything that's wrong with life can be made right with a pleasant introduction; You personally may simply lack the soul of an alcoholic.

And contemporary teenagers, four generations and several waves of immigration removed from Prohibition, are no more responding to social oppression of the 1920's than they're dancing the Charleston.

Nor were the effects of Prohibition so perfectly negative: It's said that the American tradition of interesting cocktails came from the time when crafty barkeeps had to dress lesser or spoiled stocks with interesting spices and flavors. In Russia they got shitty vodka and early death.

Besides, consider the Dalyrmple that I've cited so many times here: The United States was not an especially meddlesome nation for wanting to get a lid on this part of human nature. This photo was the first big image out of Britain for the year... Everyone in the world seems to understand that it's social forces that made their problem so severe, and its social forces that will bring things back again.

Hi, Amy. I didn't know you were in college. What did you major in?

Prohibition did increase the drinking it was trying to prevent, no question. The speakeasies and blind tigers that mushroomed into existence are proof of that. And I think that's the point of this post. The more you decree something off-limits, the more desirable it becomes. It's why diets fail so much. Start telling a person they can't have something and they'll start wanting it all the more.

I find it fascinating how often people trot out the "two wrongs" fallacy to justify what they've done. It's a practice that paralyzes the justice system fully as much as "not me" syndrome - that odd rationale that laws apply to "other" people.

Radwaste: I find it fascinating how often people trot out the "two wrongs" fallacy to justify what they've done. It's a practice that paralyzes the justice system fully as much as "not me" syndrome - that odd rationale that laws apply to "other" people.

Like Leona Helmsley? Like Donald Trump? I'm not really sure what you're referring to, Rad. Can you elaborate?

My kids have tried wine and beer in sips. I have allowed my 13 year old to have 2 oz. of wine with 2 oz. of water for a long time now. And we are catholic so he get real wine for communion as well. My daughter, 15, dislikes the taste so much she only takes the bread for communion but my son and I have had discussions about how Jesus tasted great today. He is too funny.

I have taught my kids that everything can be had in moderation and to its proper purpose.

And as my daughter says, The only true purpose to Guinness is beer and cheese bread.. She's kinda funny too.

I agree with you. My parents let us, my two brothers and me, drink in our home. Most of us just sipped. It was controlled and parental supervision of experimentation. That demystified the stuff. This was in the 50's. Today parents cannot even let their own children drink in the privacy of their own home without fear of being arrested for giving alcohol to a minor. How stupid is that? How much more of a loss of personal freedom is this country going to tolerate? Today I am a social drinker as are my two brothers. So this did not make us alcoholics.

Anything a parent forbids usually becomes desired for a child. And I've always found that the parents that claim their child would never do something because it simply is not allowed are the parents who are delusional and have had their child in the ER at some point with alcohol poisoning. It has been my experience that most kids will experiment and my fear is that if alcoholism or addiction is a disease or passed genetically then you have a kid who is fucked regardless of what you teach them though I still lean towards a house that has rules but is also open and safe for kids. Its not an easy balance all the time, but it makes life so much more enjoyable. I will never make a claim that my child won't do something. I will make the claim that I try to teach them healthy ways of dealing with things in life in general and hope that by guiding them rather than forbidding them, that they will make good choices. And when they make a bad choice, which we all at some point make, I will be there to help them fix it and learn from it.

Speaking as a college student, I agree 100% with Crid that you can't turn your personal experience into a universal phenomenon. At my school, drinking (and by "drinking" I mean "getting drunk to the point of frequently throwing up and blacking out") is pretty much the university-wide pastime. Alcohol is so easy to get ahold of, there are so many places to drink, and binge-drinking is so socially acceptable that abstaining from drinking is more of an act of defiance than drinking.

And of course, the current population of college-age drinkers includes kids who never touched alcohol until college and then went crazy. But I also know people who, like you, got drunk for the first time at age 14 or 15 in a controlled, parent-approved setting but unlike you fell in love and never looked back. And some of the kids at my high school like this never MADE it to college, because they were essentially too young to handle the drinking, and it took over their lives and ruined their opportunities.

And josephineMO6- your approach to drinking is great, but your kids are too young right now to have really been exposed to and rejected alcohol. I didn't like the communion wine either, but I can pound hard liquor with the best of them. Patting yourself on the back because your middle-schooler doesn't drink is a little premature.

I grew up in a very Italian area, where the kids were raised on wine and Grappa. My friends all had wine with dinner in their teen years and yet there was no shortage of binge drinking at parties and get togethers.

I agree that prohibition is not the answer. I just don't think that Amys explanation of why SHE didn't binge drink is necessarily applicable to the world at large. There are greater influences going on such as age, peer groups, generational differences, personal psychology and genetics (some people just enjoy the feeling of being drunk and/or under the influence of drugs. Others do not...).

Agreed. Not letting kids drink until 21 is dumb. The sub-21 kids/adults that want to drink, do anyway.

"The 1920s roared with reckless amorality in all directions, including Wall Street. When everything came crashing down in 1929 and the long gray years of the Great Depression began, second thoughts were the order of the day. Large numbers of people pointed to Prohibition as one of the chief reasons for the disaster."

This--THIS!?--is what passes for "History" as a discipline?

Outrageous. The economic ignorance shown in these three sentences is astounding. This guy is Flat Earth Society material. It is akin to him discussing how the diminishing respect for Jupiter helped bring about the end of the Roman republic.

Please, anyone reading that piece, do not let that historian's twaddle move from short term memory to long term memory, unless it is labeled "Example of yet another useless historian who didn't take Econ 101."

I agree Amy's experience can't be extrapolated. My parents rarely had alcohol in the house, but I remember getting a sip of wine at a dinner party when I couldn't have been more than 5 because we were still living in Houston. And having small glasses of wine on holidays in my teens, and my mom saying "if you're going to have a glass, do it when I'm around" when I ordered and was served a glass of beer at a hotel at 16. I didn't like it, and didn't drink from then on until I went to bartending school at age 21. Then, I drank in moderation for another year. Peer pressure/college social norms got me after that, and I drank a lot (I started college at 21)

DH started drinking young too, with parent's knowledge, and he thinks nothing of drinking a 6 pack watching a football game now.

And the argument about europeans not overdrinking because they're exposed young is just wrong. They drink to excess just as much as we do.

So obviously, Prohibition was wrong, but there are a LOT more factors in someone's drinking than age of exposure. My kids have all had sips (except the baby) and don't like it. For now. We'll have plenty of talks as they age about the health effects of overdrinking, and the things that can happen to you when you aren't in control of yourself. That's all a person can do, I think.

Better an ill Roosevelt than no Roosevelt at all.

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD!

The New Deal was packed-to-the-rafters with Left Wing Radicals. These were men (and one woman - Francis Perkins) with a serious agenda. Their main concern was for the welfare of the common man and woman. Not until (and not since) Johnson's Great Society a generation later would the betterment of the American people be the chief focus of the executive branch of our government.

There aren't many people left who even remember the Great Depression. All but a few of them have since passed on. A child born on the day the stock market crashed in 1929 would have turned eighty this past October 29. The problem is that hardy anyone alive today has a first-hand appreciation of what true progressive policies might mean for this doomed country - if only they were allowed to be put into practice in 2010. Liberalism saved America once. It could do it again. If only....

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan

Amy-haven't you said before that you were somewhat of a loner in high school? That might explain for your lack of drinking more than anything. My guess is that most teen drinking can be attributed to peer influences, and it's hard to be getting drunk when you're not going to parties.

...and it's hard to be getting drunk when you're not going to parties.

I dunno, Shannon. My older daughter (senior in hs) went to a few parties over the holiday where there was drinking going on, but she didn't feel the need to drink. She and her sister have both had sips of my wine, once in while, when they've asked, over they years, and neither one has developed a taste for it, yet. They know that they can try it here, where it's safe to do so. But they've also seen the damage it can cause, as they have both lost friends to underage drinking and driving. There was a horrific accident here last year at the mall, kids drinking and driving and getting killed while trying to outrace mall security on the access road. I think that may have made an impression.

Here's something kinda related that really suprised me:

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/20-marijuana-arrests-set-new-record/

I agree with Shannon and Crid.

I'm with Crid. You either alcoholic, or you ain't.

And along with Karen, I grew up in an Italian household where wine and spirits were readily available. There was no shortage of binge drinking in my family, by the alcoholics...everyone else, I never saw drunk, ever. Either you are or you are not. Prohibition has ZERO to do with it.

Ever since alcoholic beverages were invented there have been those who suffered from over-indulgence, misuse and abuse of it and those who have not.

The most important part of the end of Prohibition was separating the gangsters from their bootlegging income. Unfortunately, these criminals were already well organized, so they moved on to greener pastures.

When the use of a controlled substance becomes uncontrollable and widespread, there's no longer any point in prohibition. As with marijuana in my home province of British Columbia, a lot of people are doing it and yet society hasn't devolved into a ghetto.

As with alcohol, marijuana should be legal. We must take the profits away from criminals and turn the growers and distributors into law-abiding taxpayers.

Who cares about "Will they drink more?" We could prohibit fast food until the age of 21, and maybe there would be fewer fat people. Except, of course, that prohibition in any of its forms does not work. Most nanny-state legislation serves only to make money, in the form of fines and tickets, for the government. Let's not lose sight of that.

Secondly, even of prohibition could actually work for some magical reason, we still shouldn't do it. 18 is the legal age of adulthood. Therefore, 18-year-olds should be legally allowed to drink. Period.

>>I agree with Shannon and Crid.

Same here, Jason.

Though this doesn't take anything from Flynne's wise approach.

I think everyone has been a little to quick to jump on the "it is entirely caused by this or entirely caused by that" band wagon. In my experience it takes a lot of factors to decide whether or not someone will take to binge drinking/alcoholism. I also know several people who waited until they were 21 to try alcohol because of their own beliefs, not those of their parents, who drank amazing amounts once they let themselves drink. Then after a while, once the fun times got boring, they went back to normal lives. It takes many factors to create an alcoholic or binge drinker. Prohibition can cause it in some people, no doubt, but in others it does nothing. The lack there of is equally true.

When I was in college in the early '80s, binge drinking was not very common. We probably all drank more then than we do now, but that was more a factor of having more time on our hands, and not having the money to partake in more expensive (but sober) forms of entertainment.

On the other hand, I'm convinced that some people are born alcoholics. The moment they get their first sip, it's all over.

"And josephineMO6- your approach to drinking is great, but your kids are too young right now to have really been exposed to and rejected alcohol. I didn't like the communion wine either, but I can pound hard liquor with the best of them. Patting yourself on the back because your middle-schooler doesn't drink is a little premature."

Well one she is a high schooler at 15 years old.. And she has tasted Jamison's whiskey, Baileys Irish cream, Guinness, wines and a few schnapps. Just enough to taste and decide she hated it..

I have one who likes it remember. My goal is not to have them hate it, it is to see if they like it and get them to use it responsibly.. To have some understanding of the consequences. To know that alcohol has a purpose but that it comes with effects.

I will admit though it is a mothers worst fear that a child will lose their minds after they leave home. My kiddos know that even if they go bonkers I will be there for them. They know that if they have a problem they can come to myself and heir dad for help.

I think communication is key when teaching kids about anything like this. Or anything else for that matter.

Say's me who is now ducking hoping uncle Sam isn't reading this and analyzing my horrible parenting skills.

College is an environment especially suited for binge drinking. A loose schedule that can be tailored around a person's needs, lots of young, inexperienced people tasting freedom for the first time, and a "party" atmosphere can inspire it. Most of the people I know who drank a lot in college sobered up once they had regular jobs and families, and once they stopped recovering so quickly from the hangovers. Didn't seem to matter how their families felt about alcohol.

> It was controlled and parental supervision
> of experimentation. That demystified the stuff.

Who says alcohol is a "mystery"?

What exactly is this darling fantasy experience of father to son, or mother to daughter, or whatever to whatever that's supposed to make this go well? I don't think you guys are pushing your fantasy far enough.

Binge drinkers (who are risking –if not preparing for– lives of alcoholism) aren't doing this because they're awed by some grand enigma in the chemistry of it all. This is not an intellectual, note-taking investigation of an uncharted realm in human reasoning, something their parents should have explained to them between shoe-lacing and dental floss. They're not peeking up a woman's skirt (or down a man's pants) for the first time.

Many of them will have seen what it means to be drunk in the behavior of other people.

All of them will have heard about what it means to be drunk, or what it's said to mean... And that's really important.

My personal theory goes like this— Binge drinking by youngfolk is about sex, and terror of sex, and terror of their social incompetence generally. They know they're supposed to be able to form productive friendships, and to pull more comfort from them than they actually can... After all, they're grown-ups, aren't they? But they're children of divorce, or they're away at school, or they're so fucking clumsy that it's better just to get plastered, hit the lights and drop the drawers. So they'll always have that wonderful excuse for doing badly: "I was really drunk at the time."

Even if you don't like my theory, there's no reason to think this is about "demystifying" anything, or about getting a gentleman's handshake with alcohol so that you two will be friends later in life.

Sure, Tressider's right about Flynne's "wise approach". A gentle introduction to the stuff can't do any harm, and I think a parent who offers warm, unblinking instruction about tolerable impairment is doing a good thing.

But the range of feelings and biological responses and EMOTIONAL responses to alcohol limits the power of simplistic approaches like this.

I hate to do this, since I don't know Amy personally, but dammit, she started it, by offering her own life as an example. So far as we know, she came from a loving home. Her parents weren't violent or wackazoid or impoverished. (And there's some Jewish heritage, which as I understand it offers some protection both genetically and behaviorally from alcoholism. [Someone please speak up if I've got that wrong]). She's talked about having some awkward loneliness as a kid, and some experiences with bullies. (Truly sorry to hear that, Big Red, but cry me a fuckin' river: Who hasn't had times like that? Are we all gonna trot out our schoolyard tussles?) Her response to this childhood seems to have been an adult life of considerable audacity and independence, the kind in which most of us find much to admire: She's not on welfare, or making other people carry her burdens. So I'd say it like this: Amy had a loving home which gave her steady character, so she was less likely to be an alcoholic. (Also, she'd didn't have the genes.) It wasn't about her introduction to alcohol, it was about the sturdiness of her nature when it became available.

Listen, I've never had a truly severe auto accident. (K.W.) Is it because I started Driver's Ed in April 1975 instead of May?

"This photo was the first big image out of Britain for the year... "

Not sure what the problem is here. She's on her back and wearing the appropriate shoes. This is an issue?

Gog, take another look at the photo.

Columnist Theodore Dalrymple has written a lot about public drunkenness in Britain in recent years. There didn't used to be nearly as much of it. In one column (and I'll never forgive myself for not saving it to disk) he talked about how so much of British life was now under the control of government.

You don't have to work for much in Britain, because the British government -

• Watches over your food, makes sure you get what it wants you to eat.

• Watches over your health, makes sure you get the care it wants you to have.

• Watches over your education, makes sure you get one, and makes sure all the ideas a pre-digested and inoffensive.

• Watches over your retirement and makes sure you live long enough to suffer from years of cancer while sitting in front of your TV set.

• Watches over the media, and makes sure your entertained and informed in a government-approved way.

Dalrymple puts it like this: In Britain, your life is already lived. You have been sliced and diced and processed, and there's no reason for you to think you're bringing anything special to the party... No reason to actually go out there and create a destiny to find out what you might be able to make of yourself, or why anyone special would love you. Your ass is done.

The only things for British young people to decide are who they want to fuck, and maybe which island nation they want to go to for vacation.... To get drunk.

(And of course, society can offer no judgment about who you sleep with... Ever! This isn't the oppressive 1950's, you bigoted jerks!!! OK??!?!?!)

So take another look at the woman in that photo. All we see is gorgeously alluring legs. There's a thick, girly head of hair, too, but we can't see who's wearing it. And I see what you mean about the shoes; drunk as she is, that crossed ankle is amusingly demure.

It's like she saying: OK, cold world, here's my sexuality, which is apparently supposed to mean something to someone... Though I don't know why it would.

There's picture of her later on the page. Same thing: As if randomly, her identity is missing, but the sex is right out there for us all to enjoy.

Y'know, sometimes people ask more of sex than it can deliver. I don't know whether this is about the tragedy of socialism or the tragedy of binge drinking, but the two are probably not wholly unrelated... Just ask the Russians.

>>She's on her back and wearing the appropriate shoes. This is an issue?

That's in very poor taste and made me laugh, Gog.

I agree with Jody, Flynne and Gog.

In Britain, your life is already lived.

"We are kept by the state in the style that the state wants to keep us, i.e., in poverty." - The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole

To take a page from the immortal Jeff Foxworthy (who isn't dead yet): "If you refine heroin for a living, but have moral objections to alcohol, you might be a Taliban."

Ah ha, I found it! I've been looking for it for almost half a year! It was in a review of Berlinski, as he talked about the public drinkers in post-Thatcher Britain:

These self-obliterators are not the underclass; such self-obliteration is beyond the means of the underclass, which obliterates itself in other ways closer to home. The people of whom Berlinski writes are actually the beneficiaries of the Thatcher revolution. They are the market; the market cannot be wrong; ergo, it is right to vomit in the gutter and pass out in public.

Thatcher believed, in a kind of mirror-image Marxist way, that the market automatically made men virtuous. Unfortunately, she did not so much restore a market economy as promote a consumer society, which is not quite the same thing. It was a society in which most of the really difficult aspects of existence in the modern world - education, health care, social security and many others - remained in the hands of the state. This meant that consumer choice was largely limited to matters of pocket money: whether to ruin Ibiza by your behaviour on holiday, or Crete. The resultant combination of consumer choice and deep irresponsibility was not an attractive one, to say the least. A large part of the population became selfish, egotistical, childish, petulant, demanding and whimsical.

It's sad to see him say this about Thatcher, who I want to like very much, just as I had to grow up to learn to like Ronald Reagan. But the review at that link has another powerful line, published shortly after the election of '08:

Indeed, [Thatcher] seems almost the last politician on the world stage to have had any object in view other than the achievement of personal power. Manmohan Singh of India is perhaps the only contender, but he does not have her newsworthiness.

Re: the woman laying on her back in the great shoes...I was totally impressed by the tan she's sporting in the middle of winter in England. Oh and I loved her shoes!

Thomas Flemming, great guy, great historian.

One of my father's friends saw me drinking at my sister's wedding when I was 13 or so. Instead of a lecture or ratting me out, he merely advised me not to embarrass myself or my parents by getting sick. That seemed a reasonable request.

The way we handle drinking here in the states is asinine. You forbid your kids from drinking, then pack them off to the tender mercies of state U or Ft. Bragg to learn how to drink from their peers and wonder why there are problems. Would the results for any other life skill similarly instructed be any different?

"When I was in college in the early '80s, binge drinking was not very common. We probably all drank more then than we do now, but that was more a factor of having more time on our hands, and not having the money to partake in more expensive (but sober) forms of entertainment."

In the mid 80s -- just as the drinking age went from 19 to 21 -- my college had a club on campus whose raison d'etre was to do alcohol awareness. They did this not by wagging their fingers at freshies but by hosting parties that involved drinking but provided a safe environment (and non alcoholic drinks for the "kiddies" who were just about to turn 19 any day now) and policed good conduct. Bad and sloppy drunks were bounced and fake IDs were spotted since some of them were... well... bouncers (nice guys, but bouncers). People were given rides home and escorts back to their dorms. They advocated that "private parties" had a ratio of sober shepards to keep things under control, noise down, and hands off the fire alarms. The only group to whom they were "unwelcome" were those frats (not all of them) who had reputations for being 24-7 jackasses. Otherwise they were appreciated liked and respected (by all but the prude in administration and jack-assed frats).

Then the drinking age was raised to 21, the administration disbanded the group - as there was no more need for it other than a finger wagging wing of admin and Residence Life, and the favorite drinking game became "don't get caught." The group even got bogusly retro-charged with encouraging the worst drinking on campus (which was really done under those who rejected them to begin with). And the binge drinking (though it wasn't called that) culture on campus rose.

"Columnist Theodore Dalrymple has written a lot about public drunkenness in Britain in recent years. There didn't used to be nearly as much of it"

Have you never seen "Gin Lane" by Hogarth? Printed in 1751:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:William_Hogarth_-_Gin_Lane.jpg

There was a mind-blowing amount of public drunkenness in Britain centuries ago, when people were left entirely to their own devices and the Nanny State was not even a figment of anyone's imagination.

Go read him. He makes the point that public drunkeness comes and goes in Britain, and that it's time for it to go.

I don't think it makes a blind bit of difference one way or the other. I was allowed alcohol on the supervised, half a glass of wine with dinner basis from 15 (sips earlier but I didn't like it much), and 5 years later I was binge drinking and well on the way to being the full blown alcoholic I am now 15 years after that (past detox now thank goodness). My ex who was forbidden alcohol by her parents (her mother freaked out seeing a single bottle of wine on the kitchen bench in her share house after she moved out), despite every opportunity since still doesn't drink much except occasionally at Christmas, etc.

On the other hand, I was brought up to be very anti-smoking, didn't even try it once at school - then took it up around 22 and haven't stopped since. She smoked at 13 and hasn't ever been tempted since.

There is perhaps some societal pressure involved in the the college binge drinking culture and similar situations - but if you're predisposed, having been introduced to it early ain't going to stop you (early intervention and discipline can mind you). I agree that trying to criminalise supervised drinking by minors at home is stupid, but don't fool yourself into thinking it's immunising them against later problems.

It occurs to me I should have played up the smoking angle more - would you give teenagers the occasional cigarette and not demonise it so that they're less likely to be tempted later?

Bill, you hit on a key point which I accidentally omitted from my earlier post -- the drinking age was 19 then. Actually, they had already raised it back to 21, but my compatriots and I were grandfathered in because we had turned 19 before the bill passed.

Ltw, interesting thing about smoking. When I was a young child, my dad used to smoke cigars. One day, when I was about 5 years old, I wanted to be "grown up", so I got into my dad's dresser (had to stand on a chair to get to the top drawer) and got out a cigar and his lighter. I lit it and took a good hit...

... and there are very few times in my life since then that I've ever been that sick. I can count on one hand the number of times I've smoked a cigarette since then, and I never touched a cigar again.

Another member of the Crid/Shannon school of thought.

I grew up with offerings of booze. I never binge drank that much and still don't (I'm 24). My sister grew up in the same household. She is more "normal" than I and could probably drink me under the table (she's 20 and goes to school in NC). When I drink I have a few glasses of wine, which makes me the anomaly among my friends. My friends, who are all incredibly average 23-25 year olds, strive to be professional shit shows.

Has anyone seen Jersey Shore on MTV?

While most dudes might not use that much hair spray, and most chicks might not layer on the bronzer so thickly, they are not as outrageous as they seem. Their drinking and partying is more "stylized", for lack of a better word, but the quantity they imbibe and voraciousness with which they approach drinking is totally normally. Every weekend needs to be more epic than the next to my friends. And they will post the pics on FB to prove it.

I am not sure if it's as simple as being prone to alcoholism or not, but it's a factor. Other personality factors I think are important:

1. How driven you are to please people. I couldn't give a fuck when my friends give me flack for staying home with my fiance and tell me I act like an old lady. Peer pressure doesn't work on me. I am an introvert and do better one-on-one so I spend time with friends that way. The part I went to on NYE (crowded house with drinking games and lots of bodies and deafening noise level) gives me anxiety. For most people my age all you have to do is say "Come out with us, it won't be the same without you!" and they're there. I'd rather stay home and cook a delicious meal and get a little wine buzz going with my music playing and candles burning.
2. Self-respect. If you have a shite home life I think you're more likely to seek escape through booze and drugs. It's easier than talking to new friends you meet at school - who are probably not well-equipped to deal with your shit anyway. Most kids I know wouldn't seek out psychological counseling on their own.
3. Lifestyle. I like to wake up on Saturday mornings and hit the gym first thing, then eat a huge breakfast. Not nurse a hangover. Drinking too much all the time feels like self-abuse. My friends who drink a lot don't seem to feel this way.
4. Goals. I drive a nice car for a 24 year old. I don't make that much more than other people my age but having a car that feels solid, handles well and looks nice has always been important to me. I'd rather spend the $380/month on my Passat than the $400/month they spend going to bars in Boston.

This is a really interesting discussion, and I'm having fun watching everyone throw their hats into the ring...

I kinda lean towards Gretchen's POV the most - I think peer pressure is a *huge* deal to most people, and that a lot of the time, that's what drives them to drink to excess. Everyone else is doing it, so its safe for me to do it, too, kinda deal.

But I've had this theory for a while about why drinking to excess seems so much more prevalent today than ever before. Excluding historical perceptions of drinking (in Shakespeare's day you drank alcohol because it was cleaner than the water, for example), I think sometimes it has to deal with alleviating stress.

Our bodies are designed to deal with outside, physical stressors. Like predators and bad weather and things like that. And we dealt with a great deal of that kinda thing through physical activity. You run from the predators, you work to keep yourself warm, and you had way more in a day to do (cooking was not so easy as opening a package and hitting 3:00 on the mike). But nowadays, most of our stress is in things that aren't physical presences in our lives. We deal with evil bosses, tiresome desk jobs, virus-ridden computers... and we're less physical than ever before! All that stress builds and builds and builds... compounded over and over again by more intangibles every second.

So a lot of people find relief in drink. They don't think while they're drunk, just enjoy the buzz. And in an age where you're encouraged to stress about everything from your job to whether or not your deoderant will give you cancer, its easy to slip into addiction, even if you're not genetically susceptible.

I think this may be a reason why other things are more prevalent despite the obvious risks, like self-mutilation (cutting), smoking, and the need to have sex with everything that moves irresponsibly and unthinkingly.

This theory, however, has more to do with adult drinking, rather than the young adult binge drinking. That, I still think, comes a great deal from peer pressure.

For the record, btw, I'm a tee-totaler. My parents let me sample alcohol growing up, but my first few encounters with drunk people at parties scared the daylights out of me, and hence I don't drink.

Random thoughts:

In the 1980s, Ellen Goodman said in a column on underage drinking that back when young men started arguing: "If we're old enough to fight, we're old enough to vote," we should have raised the draft age instead of lowering the voting age. At the end, she said: "What then of the voter who says that anyone old enough to die for his country is old enough to drink in it? Tell him 18 is much, much too young to die for his country."

I must say it's interesting to imagine how the debate would have gone HAD we tried to raise the draft age.

I also wonder, why is it that, before the 20th century, when adolescence didn't officially exist and young men were expected to do men's work starting in their early teens, they STILL couldn't vote until 21? Or did that have to do with the fact that so many back then didn't finish high school anyway because doing so wasn't as important back then?

Moving on:

From the 1996 book "Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in a Free Country" by the late Peter McWilliams:

"Our laws are telling people, 'If you're concerned about getting caught, don't use marijuana, use cocaine.' Well, that is not necessarily what people want to do."
-JUDGE JAMES GRAY, author of "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It."

And from Barbara Ehrenreich's "Drug Frenzy" essay from her collection of essays from the 1980s: "The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed":

"Alcohol is the drug that undid my parents. When my own children reached the age of exploration, I said all the usual things - like 'No.' I further told them that reality, if carefully attended to, is more exotic than its chemically induced variations. But I also said that, if they still felt they had to get involved with a drug, I'd
rather it were pot than Bud."

(And I assume she meant she would always feel that way, no matter how old the kids got to be. Unfortunately, thanks in part to the anti-
tobacco forces, I bet it'll be quite a while before pot laws loosen.)

Personally, I believe in letting kids sip wine at dinner with their parents, if only so as to take away the "forbidden fruit" allure. (Not sure if letting kids have beer with their pizza with their parents would be OK too, for certain reasons.) However, I understand if Ehrenreich would feel uncomfortable with that.