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The dark side of schoolies
By Ross Fitzgerald
November 13, 2006 12:00am
BINGE drinking may be part of the Australian teenager's rite of passage, but for some youngsters it may be the start of a lifelong battle with alcohol.
WITH schoolies week coming up soon throughout Australia, it is timely to confront the problem of out-of-control binge drinking among our teenagers.
In contrast to all the fun and release of schoolies week there is a dark side to this annual rite of passage.
That is that a significant number of teenagers who drink alcohol will - no matter what their level of education, ethnicity or gender - end up becoming alcohol dependent. Also there are the immediate harms of risky drinking, including physical injury, mental health problems and sexual assault and exploitation.
Despite all the advances in medicine and in the so-called helping professions, few experts seem to understand this and that for those who become alcoholic, however young, the only safe solution is not to drink at all, otherwise the end result may eventually be severe physical injury and mental impairment or even death.
Schoolies week is a reminder of how central alcohol is to Australian society, but it is also an early indicator of troubles ahead for many.
It is important to stress, though, that alcoholism is a health problem, not a moral problem. Alcoholics are not bad people who need to be good, but people suffering from an illness who can recover if they learn to totally avoid drinking alcohol, one day at a time. So before we judge these young people we need to keep this in mind, because negative views of people with alcohol problems often get in the way of helping them.
And help they will need because in the 21st century one disturbing trend is an exponential increase, among teenagers in Australia, in out-of-control drinking, and especially of binge drinking in teenage girls. This problem is accentuated if, as so often happens, teenagers use other drugs including ecstasy, cocaine and especially marijuana, which is cultivated hydroponically and is therefore much stronger than it used to be 20 or 30 years ago. Some of these drugs will certainly be available to young people during schoolies week.
In spite of abstinence having saved the lives of countless people, not drinking alcohol at all is seen by many as being rather weird, especially if one is young.
Yet these days, a number of 16, 17 and 18-year-old drinkers have done so much physical, emotional and social damage to themselves and others that they are already seeking help, including joining groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, whose meetings they regularly attend in order to remain abstinent from alcohol and other drugs and get their lives back on track.
Unfortunately, there is still enormous social and peer-group pressure in our society on those who wish to avoid alcohol. Not surprisingly, this pressure is extremely strong on the young, be it from friends, school or workmates, or from fellow members of sporting clubs and other organisations to which teenagers may belong. And during schoolies week abstinence is probably seen as a kind of treason to the generation.
In a society like ours, with such an entrenched drink culture and with such a politically powerful liquor industry, advertising and significant social and peer-group pressure is often applied to those who need to remain abstinent in order to stay alive, let alone to live productive lives. This even applies in our prisons, where 80per cent of inmates have problems with alcohol and other drugs. Of this group, there is a core of about 40 per cent who need to remain totally abstinent if they are not to become recidivists.
Yet even within our prison population there is strong pressure, from psychologists and other supposed professionals, against the notion of total abstinence. This is despite the fact that, over the long term, so-called controlled drinking or controlled drug use for alcoholics or other addicts is amirage.
About 20 years ago, I was waiting for my friend, Jim Maclaine, then a psychologist at Sydney's Langton Clinic, when it was abstinence-oriented. Through the paper-thin walls, I overheard Jim talking to a young male patient whose name, I recall, was Boris. Said Jim, "Boris, now that you've been admitted to this hospital as an alcoholic, for as long as you live you'll be spending a lot of your time with other alcoholics. The big question is whether they're going to be drunken ones or sober ones."
Jim continued: "If you cross the road outside the clinic, and get run over by a truck and break your hip, depending on your personality it may take three months, it may take six months, it may take a year or even two, but eventually you'll forget the dreadful pain of breaking your hip and be able to cross a road without a qualm." Forgetfulness, he explained, is a necessary and important part of human evolution. If we remembered all the dreadful pains of existence we'd never get out of bed.
"That forgetfulness is enormously helpful - except for what you've got Boris, except for alcoholism. You need to remember organically what has happened to you. The best way that I know of achieving this," he said, "is to regularly attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and listen to other alcoholics tell what they used to be like, what happened, and what they are like now."
Alcoholism and drug addiction among the young is much more prevalent than most people in Australia, and many in the media, realise.
If someone inquires, "am I an alcoholic?", I suggest they ask themselves four questions: Is alcohol costing you more than money? Does your personality change for the worse after drinking? Do your relatives, friends, lovers, etcetera, point out that you have a problem with alcohol? Sometimes after drinking, do you have hours, or even days, that you cannot remember? If you answer yes to at least three of these questions then you are almost certainly an alcoholic or at the very least, a severely impaired problem drinker.
And if you are, and you want to do something about it, Alcoholics Anonymous is by far the most successful agency in helping alcoholics to stop drinking and to refrain from using other drugs. In terms of efficacy, Alcoholics Anonymous certainly has the numbers. So, as a friend of mine often says, why not avail yourself of the best?
Many of those who attend schoolies week will have to confront such a choice sooner or later. For some it may be as soon as right now. A rite of passage it may be, but there is indeed a darker side to this festival of fun and booze. Alcohol may be our most acceptable party drug but it can ruin lives and destroy families. Luckily, help is available and while abstinence may not be fashionable in some medical circles, AA has proven over decades that it is the most successful way out of the alcoholic's private hell.
The Australian
