Underage Drinking, Not a Minor Problem

Details: Created on Friday, 05 December 2014 21:14; Written by Brooke Devine

UNDERAGE DRINKING NORTH EAST KINGDOM- In a rural area such as the North East Kingdom, many young people complain about not having enough fun activities to distract them from the monotony of their everyday lives. This boredom unfortunately is often the cause for underage drinking.

In 2013, a Vermont youth risk behavior survey showed that 29% of high school students in Caledonia County have participated in underage drinkin. Out of that, 5% of these kids have also been able to buy alcohol on their own at stores, bars or restaurants.

Underage drinking is the cause for 4,300 deaths of young people annually. 11% of all the alcohol drank in the united states is consumed by somebody under the legal drinking age of 21. On Average, an underage drinker will consumer more drinks while drinking than an adult. This is because the majority of underage drinking occurs at parties where binge drinking is encouraged and underage drinkers are less likely to know when they have had too much.

The Vermont state average for underage drinking is only 5%, Caledonia county underage drinking alone triples that. This could be because many other areas of the state are more urban or have places like White River Junction's "The Junction" where teens can go and learn skills and stay away from doing drugs or drinking.

After school activities can also be a deterrent for underage drinking as they often require a student to have a certain GPA and provide positive roll models for teenagers to not want to drink.

Signs of underage drinking in your child are poor grades, skipping classes, smelling like alcohol, being moody, being apathetic, having bloodshot eyes and switching friends.

The best way to know if your underage child is drinking or to prevent them from drinking is to just talk to them. Be honest and open and non-judgmental, speak with them about the dangers of drinking in general and how negatively it affects a brain that is not fully developed.

Research shows that brain development continues well into a person’s 20's. Alcohol can affect this development and contribute to a range of problems. Those problems include but are not limited to memory loss, poor speech development and motor skill issues.

Sexual assault is also often the result of underage drinking. For somebody to be able to give consent they need to be one hundred percent sober, even just one drink affects a persons ability to make decisions for themselves.

The way a state could get involved in deterring underage drinking is by making alcohol more pricey but that unfortunately punishes everyone who drinks legally. The best way to prevent and stop underage drinking is to keep the citizens informed of it and its dangers.

According to Lee Loyer the Tabacco grant coordinator for NVRH, not one person is to blame for counties problem.

"Well, I think that everyone is probably at fault for the problem, ya know. You take the advertising, I think everyone, parents, if you don't educate your kids on drinking at home then sometimes your parents are at fault. It's a little bit of everybody I believe."

An underage alcohol abuse and tabacco forum will be hosted at NVRH on December 16th.