Teen Drinking IT\'s Friday Night,

Teen Drinking

It's Friday night, and you're driving slowly down one of the many residential streets in my small hometown. Just a few hours earlier, you would have heard shouts of delight between young children as they scampered in the warm weather, but these children have since been tucked into bed. But the street is not silent, as brothers and sisters of the tucked-in children listen to loud music and laugh in their family's garages. At first, you might smile, thinking back to the parties of your own adolescence, but this is no innocent party, and by the end of the night, end of the week, or end of the year, another one of those laughing teens will be dead.

Alcohol has claimed the lives of more than fourteen students at my small, local high school in the last five years. These were good kids who, only years earlier, had been among the children called inside for bed by their mothers. They wanted to go to college, join the army, become electricians, teachers, congressmen and women, mothers, husbands, fathers, and wives. But they didn't end up in college or the armed services -- they ended up in a box because of judgment impaired by alcohol, and the resulting auto accidents. I like to think that they didn't die in vain, that their deaths serve as a warning and a call to action. From their graves, they plead with us to end our silence, to tell their stories in order to save more lives.

In this small community, filled with families, good students, and an efficient police force, it has been easy to pretend that we don't have a problem. After each death, parents, teachers, and community members have shaken their heads and commented on the tragedy, but at the same time, the entire community has seen teen drinking as a problem for the parents of the one who is dead. In fact, many community members have probably judged those parents. They must have done something wrong, many of us thought. I'm so glad that my child doesn't engage in that kind of behavior. But teen drinking isn't a problem that lies squarely on the shoulders of one set of parents. Instead, it is a problem that the entire community must address. We all contributed to the deaths of these teens by remaining silent, but not holding a community vigil to stop such tragedies from repeating themselves. And so they did repeat themselves, more than fourteen times. And no one can be blamed but us -- the community?

So how can we make these lives that so many believe to be wasted matter? What can we do to honor the memory and stop the tragedy? The answer is simple: we must be upfront about our community's problems. Local schools, government agencies, parents' forums, and the media must band together so that we can broadcast our problem, telling teens that it is no longer acceptable. We won't stand for them to take another drink. It is no longer an action that fathers will smirk about and mothers will dismiss. Instead, we'll view each can of beer in teens' hands like the deadly drug that it is. After acknowledging the problem, then, we must try to stop it through education and vigilance. It is the community's responsibility to teach these teens about the dangers of alcohol use. Schools, parents, and the government must be involved. In addition, simply knowing isn't enough, these groups also need to stand up to ensure that teens are not drinking through legal action, reeducation, and by preventing them from purchasing alcoholic beverages.