Alcohol and minors at family events

[catz]

3 minutes ago, GoodGrief1 said:

 We have a pot shop on seemingly every corner here now, and there has been an explosion on the use of edibles in the high school (as reported by my daughter who is there and who has friends/acquaintances that use.)  Edible use is more difficult to detect than that of smoke producing substances or alcohol. I presume the kids get them from older friends/family members willing to buy. I do think it is complicating our already tenuous situation locally with youth mental health.

This is really what I struggle with.  I don't care so much what consenting adults are doing in their own homes.  Pot is not even legal here but we live near a major university and I smell it all the time now.  Including at our parks.  There was a student death tied to pot use last year.  It just seems more accessible to youth than ever.  

[GoodGrief]

2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

 

My beef bourguignon is so much better than my beef cocaine.

 

What if they compared big mac use to alcohol use?

 There are certainly plenty of people who struggle with food addiction. I actually have a theory that our national push to end tobacco use has contributed heavily to our current obesity problem, as one addiction replaces another.

That said, excessive consumption of turkey and stuffing is not going to lead to impaired driving or violence. Our big news story yesterday was a man who spent Thanksgiving drinking at home, then went to the family gathering and shot his sister in the head while her baby sat on her lap. No doubt alcohol was a contributing factor there. My daughter's boyfriend's mother has had two DUIs in the past year and a half (one of those with minors in the car) and her family is still justifying her alcohol use. Her husband described a routine where they wait until an hour before her bedtime and then enjoy a drink together so that she will be too sleepy to go out and drive somewhere.  In my opinion, she'd be better off having a cookie before bed.

Edited November 30, 2019 by GoodGrief

[Guest]

2 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

I'm not sure how enlightening it was.  Parents throwing keggers for groups of under-aged teens is weirdly specific, not at all legal or moral, and makes for a more sensational contrast in their report.  Of course kids who are raised by people with this level of dysfunction are going to be prone to all sorts of problems later in life.  There's a reason the person writing the article discounted the wine-with-dinner families during her investigation

You’ve gone and made a straw man. The study was not on “parents throwing keggers”, it was on parents who believe their children should be provided alcohol, even to the point of drunkenness, even with friends who are also underage, so the kids will experience the “forbidden fruit” under their roof. I don’t personally know any kegger-throwing parents, but I *do* know parents who supplied alcohol freely (NOT wine-with-dinner, not a sip of champagne at New Year’s) to underage kids because they thought they would remove the forbidden fruit aspect and the kids would not abuse alcohol in college. 

Once, I was at a family event. My kids were 12 and under. Some of the older, yet underage teens played beer pong with their parents and other aunts and uncles. One of those kids got puking-sick drunk. I find that wrong-headed from a parenting perspective and I removed my kids from the scene. The parents in this case had exactly the philosophy examined in the study. No, they didn’t throw ragers for half the high school, but they also didn't communicate disapproval of abuse of alcohol. They presented alcohol as essential to a fun time; I strongly disagree with doing that. 

 

[ktgrok]

2 hours ago, StellaM said:

 

 

But look, I went to school with first gen kids whose parents were from Malta. Half my school was Maltese. All these kids drank wine with their dinners, and had parents with good European values. Most of them binge drank at parties on the weekend. Their family background and cultural practice just wasn't protective enough. Some of them are problem drinkers today.

Alcohol use and abuse is complicated. It's clearly a huge public health issue, and think we need to consider it from that perspective. 

 

I think there is no real protective mechanism that we know of. Plenty of people whose families never drank end up binge drinking, as people reported in this thread. I think addiction is more complicated than that, as you state. But I do think there are things that are protective against ridiculous binge drinking without alcoholism, and perhaps growing up seeing moderation and experiencing it helps? 

2 hours ago, StellaM said:

 

I don't think I ever saw an adult non-drinker at any family event I went to.

...

think your culture/s sound quite different in some areas at least, and I wonder if a more...puritan...approach actually has some protective features.

 

wow. Yeah, at any family even there will likely be a few drinking, and a few not, and who is and isn't often changes. I often don't because it makes me sleepy and I'm already tired, or because I know I'm going to be eating more than usual and don't want the extra calories, or because it is just red wine and that gives me heartburn. No one gets drunk. Last gathering my mom had a glass of red wine towards the end of the evening, to unwind after making all the food and having a successful event, my dad and my husband had I think two glasses of nice single malt scotch over the course of the event (4 hours I think), switching off with water or diet soda. I have no idea if my sister had a drink..sometimes she has a  couple canned margarita things or something, sometimes she doesn't, depends on if she's dieting. I had a sip of my husband's scotch just to taste it as it was a different distillery but otherwise had diet soda and coffee. Other events we've had a pitcher of margaritas or a pitcher of mojitos and some have several, some have one, often we pour one then get distracted and only drink a few sips, and at least one or decline and no one notices or cares. 

But not sure I'd call that puritan - no one cares if people drink or shame it, they just don't force it. Because pushing ANYTHING is bad manners. Alcohol, cake, whatever. 

1 hour ago, GoodGrief1 said:

 

I do agree with this, and get frustrated at the tendency to separate rehab for alcohol/substance addiction from mental health treatment. In my opinion the vast majority of addicts are self-medicating. You can end the substance abuse, in theory, but there will be some other behavior that pops up unless you get serious about identifying and treating the underlying problem. It's like medicating the fever without searching out the reason the fever/immune response is occurring.

Agreed. I think a lot is self medicating. 

1 hour ago, Quill said:

You’ve gone and made a straw man. The study was not on “parents throwing keggers”, it was on parents who believe their children should be provided alcohol, even to the point of drunkenness, even with friends who are also underage, so the kids will experience the “forbidden fruit” under their roof. I don’t personally know any kegger-throwing parents, but I *do* know parents who supplied alcohol freely (NOT wine-with-dinner, not a sip of champagne at New Year’s) to underage kids because they thought they would remove the forbidden fruit aspect and the kids would not abuse alcohol in college. 

Once, I was at a family event. My kids were 12 and under. Some of the older, yet underage teens played beer pong with their parents and other aunts and uncles. One of those kids got puking-sick drunk. I find that wrong-headed from a parenting perspective and I removed my kids from the scene. The parents in this case had exactly the philosophy examined in the study. No, they didn’t throw ragers for half the high school, but they also didn't communicate disapproval of abuse of alcohol. They presented alcohol as essential to a fun time; I strongly disagree with doing that. 

 

See, to me a party with people playing beer pong is the equivalent of a kegger, even if with bottled beer. 

[KathyBC]

On 11/29/2019 at 5:49 PM, PrincessMommy said:

We have offered wine to our own children in our own home at celebrations/holidays.  I would never ever think to do that to someone else's child... and I CERTAINLY would never insist that the parent was wrong to say no.   That is really what crosses the line to me. 

While I generally agree with this, grandparents aren't just people. Family dynamics play so much into this: Grandma who wants to be cool and pressures mom: rude and overstepping. Grandma who draws attention to risks she sees in mother-daughter dynamic: trickier wicket.

[Mbelle]

We do allow 18 and older to have 1 drink at our house if their families are ok with it.  Our friends also allow 18 yo and above to have a drink at their house if their families are ok with it.    I would never insist.  We always offer a variety of beverages that includes non alcoholic choices.

I grew up in a dry county and my parents almost never drank and no one I knew really drank alcohol on a regular basis.  In the late 1980's we started to be able to buy wine and beer and then maybe in the late 90's liquor could be sold. Nothing could be sold on Sunday until a few years ago.  The next county over was not dry and there was a liquor store right on the county line.

DH grew up in a drinking culture and when we first got married and started having people over I remember him being completly shocked that our guests might not drink (lots of Baptists and similar in our area).  He's gotten used to that now and is comfortable with drinking or not drinking.  We just spent all of Thanksgiving with  family that chose not to serve alcohol this year and everyone actually had a great time.