Feature

"OUR KIDS AREN'T TEETOTAL-LY BAD"

Teens will drink. We know this. It’s about when, how, and why. It’s about teaching them the risks and to know their limits – something teenagers on the verge of adulthood will always be keen to test. As someone who has never consumed it personally, I have witnessed, and remembered, nights where friends have drunk themselves into dangerous oblivion. Don’t get me wrong; we’ve definitely had some good nights. Wild, fun, kebab-scoffing, accidental-celeb-meeting nights. But it’s the awful ones that creep on me without warning, reminding me of that heart-stopping feeling. When I was 15, I watched on from the side as friends spilt their mixed drinks – containing more contraband than coke – into the swirling hot tub at the motel where we were celebrating a birthday. We were young, naïve and experiencing alcohol and independence for the first time. It took less than 2 hours for the situation to take a turn for the worse. It was only while I held back the encrusted mess of hair for a girl vomiting for the 14th consecutive time outside in the bushes, while another began seizing in the bedroom, that I registered what alcohol truly meant for a young mind. Danger.

In my 21 years of sobriety I have been asked (ad nauseam), ‘Why don’t you drink?’ It’s a valid question; there aren’t many people out there who have never had a drop of alcohol before (‘never ever?’ I’m doubted. Never ever, I answer to their raised eyebrows.) And I have been described accordingly: unicorn, fairy, one-of-a-kind, weirdo, freak, and the ‘mum’ friend. I like to mix my answers up; I don’t need it to have fun, I’m still drunk from the night before, I’m driving. If someone is being particularly persistent with this line of questioning I say I’m so deathly allergic that they need to back off because they are spraying droplets of beer too close to my vicinity.

I’ve thought about working in a bar but I don’t think I could lie to patrons about how the nodes of nut in the cabernet complement their steak when a) isn’t red wine made from grapes not nuts? And b) I have a knee jerk reaction to make a disgusted face whenever someone mentions red meat. I’d be fired within the first hour.

I truly believe that alcohol and I wouldn’t mix well together. And as a person who learnt the risks alcohol poses first hand during some particularly harrowing nights, it is difficult to understand why young people especially indulge so haphazardly.

Heavy drinking in Australia has been a cultural norm since colonization. During an unconventional phase in history convicts in our land down under were partially paid with rum, as was the custom then. And isn’t it due to the ingrained social attitudes toward it that we still struggle as a nation with the drug’s effects? Steve Allsop, a professor at Curtin University and the director of the National Drug Research Institute affirms this worry. He paraphrases “Drunken Comportment”, an anthropological study first published in 1970, saying, “[alcohol intoxication] is used as a passport to otherwise unacceptable behaviour”.

The Salvation Army sites alcohol abuse as being associated with drink driving, violence, child abuse and neglect as well as absenteeism in the workplace. And according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) alcohol is the second – after tobacco – leading preventable cause of death and hospitalisation in Australia. It’s a wonder there have been no recorded health organisations trying to end alcohol to the same effect as prohibition in the early 1900s.

The most recent National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) stated that more than 1 in 3 people aged 12 and older had consumed 5 or more standard drinks on a single occasion, thereby exceeding the NHMRC risk guidelines.

Aged 12 and older? That’s a child, drinking just shy of a bottle of wine to themselves. So how do we stop kids drinking and experiencing the negative effects of alcohol? Simple answer: we don’t. Instead, we teach them how to drink in moderation. At least that’s the view of committee members like Julia Stafford from the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth.

When I met with Ms Stafford, an expert on alcohol policy and advertising, she maintained that the word not to throw out is ‘blame’. She explained that for there to be change we need to look at the industry itself and understand that mistakes have and are being made. Formerly, alcohol and advertising agencies have been responsible for regulating their own advertising, a notion Ms Stafford labels appropriately as “useless” and an “absolute conflict of interest”. Outing the flawed situation, she continues, “it’s unfair that companies profit massively from products that have so much harm”. When an entire industry is allowed to excessively boast how much better life will be if a person consumes a drug (because that is what Corona and VB and all those others are talking about doing) the winner is not the child who anticipates his first sip.

There is countless research of studies conducted showing how young people’s exposure to alcohol influences their drinking behaviours. The WHO has even identified that controls on alcohol marketing is one of the three best buys for reducing its harms. The connection between health outcomes and commercial interests with regards to alcohol is clear; that old demand and supply structure we learnt about in basic economics is doing its thing.

Unfortunately though, it means the developing brains of our kids suffer despite best efforts. Australia is well known for its campaigns against binge drinking, however, public education is totally dwarfed by advertising. So we ask what the effect education will have when it will always be limited by counter messages showing alcohol in a positive light? No amount of scare tactics or knowing their low risk guidelines will stand strong against the lack of advertising regulations on these companies. The environment needs to support people making good choices.

It’s not about demonizing; it’s setting a system in place to protect kids from a world they are only beginning to understand. And this is where the government comes in.

We’ve all sat at home, surrounded by family, shame-watching the banal shows Australian broadcasting has to offer, and heard the unmistakable mutter of “Drink Responsibly” – courtesy of Australian organisation DrinkWise, of which Aldi supermarkets is an industry contributor along with both Coalition and Labor governments. It’s this new, international brand that we should be wary of. Aldi has been in the news recently due to its accessibility and low price – one bottle of wine recorded being at just $2.79 – thereby making it a problem in communities. As much as the government values leaving industries to do their own work, isn’t it time for them to step in? And they are, however minimally. There have been some state governments making or investigating possible adjustments. WA Labor leader Mark McGowan’s election promises included the restriction of alcohol advertising on public transport properties and vehicles. Though this has not yet been acted upon there is hope they will deliver soon. Especially considering the WA Labor Party’s annoyance that it is currently legal for alcohol advertising on school buses. McGowan compares his movement to that of the successful anti-cigarette campaign in the 1970s and 80s, which was targeted at young people, claiming it as the “fresh approach” WA needs.

Surprisingly, there have been some encouraging trends recently in alcohol consumption among younger generations – go us. Compared to 2013, fewer Australians were reported to be drinking alcohol in quantities that exceeded the lifetime risk guidelines in 2016 according to the NDSHS. The proportion of teens abstaining from alcohol has significantly increased, with young people delaying their first sip until the age of 16, as opposed to 15, the age is was 3 years ago. Surprisingly, it is not a trend confined to Australia and while deputy director of AIHW Matthew James ties it to the lower proportion of young people with disposable income, few posture it is social media’s influence. With people now able to socialise in different ways, they are instead choosing to meet screen-to-screen rather than face-to-face. There is also our distinctive – and expansive – multicultural population. We have more and more people coming in from countries where drinking is not as big a deal as some tour-de-fridge participators may have you believe. Countries such as India and Kuwait have very limited availability of alcohol, akin to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan’s rigid prohibition. As our cultures mix, more people are choosing not to drink.

I was lucky; it wasn’t until after I entered legal status (and gained the ability to confidently say ‘no’) that people around me concerned themselves with my drinking habits. All those warnings from grown-ups about peer pressure and people pushing their beliefs onto me were wasted. Teens are smarter these days, more stressed for sure, but making better choices for their wellbeing. With new laws and regulations pertaining to controls on marketing, price, and availability we will be supporting these decisions faithfully. Being an adolescent shouldn’t mean learning to drive and manage alcohol at the same time. And the next time I’m told to ‘live a little’ I might have the social grace to hold my tongue rather than lecture someone who thinks I don’t know how to have fun. Rolling my eyes is fine though, right? Baby steps.

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Image credit: "No Brainer" 2012. Directed by Joe D'Arcy

-Isabella Tait (Content writer)