The senior class in my high school outdrinks half the fraternities across America. They started young, around freshman or sophomore year. Facebook is fluttered with lovely, drunken snapshots of them; they hold beer pong tournaments every so often; the unofficial senior trip revolves solely around drinking. Most of these kids are pretty well off; not in the "Gossip Girl" sense, but still. Money is definitely not an issue.
Drinking culture is big, I understand. TV, movies, music, pop culture in general, glamourizes it. But many of those binge drinkers know people who have been killed through alcoholism, be it their own or by a drunk driver.
Wouldn't that influence you NOT to be a hardcore drinker? Sure, I may be prejudiced; I'm what you'd call "straight edged" - no drinking, smoking, drugs, nothing. But why do people treat drinking alcohol as a right?
There was an argument about this once in school; a lot of people said, "If you can enter the service at eighteen, you should be allowed a swig of whiskey, too."
I don't think all people who drink are bad, though, if that is the impression I give; do what you'd like, and that's fine with me.
Except...it's not. And I say this for one reason; heaven forbid someone goes and damages their health, gets injured, or freaking killed! As much as I hate the jerks who tell me I'm a frigid [insert explicative] because my idea of fun isn't getting wasted on a Friday night, I'd hate to see them die from their recklessness. I get really upset when I find out someone I just started to become close with really loves getting trashed, only because I hate that they don't have their best interests at heart. It's disappointing to see so many people, talented, intelligent, capable people, throw it all away.
People tell me I'm a genius, because I am a good student. Wrong. Really, really wrong. I break my back working for my grades, because that's kind of important to me. I tell them this, but they don't listen.
If half of those kids applied themselves with the same fervor they put into a game of beer pong, I wouldn't have my top ten ranking, or so I believe. I want them to see how much they can do, if they gave themselves the opportunity.
I try to get them to see their strengths, without much success. I have failed to motivate any of my peers, although so many adults cite me as a "leader". Some leader I am.
I hope that they won't hurt themselves, but you can't change people, can you?
I'm starting to think, "If they don't care, why should I?"
Regards,
Kanika
I think it's just a lack of maturity. For whatever reason there's always a group of kids that are really reckless with their lives, and then there's people like you that are just above it. I call it Darwinism.
I agree with you completely on the fact that kids these days disregard their own health and safety to get drunk at parties. But we have to understand why it is that they do so. In my opinion, the reason is that America looks down upon alcohol, as a form of sin or badness or what not. And obviously, teens are rebellious, so they use alcohol to rebel.
At home, their (most) parents discourage drinking to the point where they don't drink at all in front of the children. But because of their lack of acknowledgment of alcohol, they do not teach their children at least to drink RESPONSIBLY. Therefore, kids don't have a limit to stop drinking at parties, and that is why the kids of America today are binge drinking to the extreme.
-Lani