Underage drinking

[LizzieMaine]

I can understand the pleasure inherent in casual social drinking, the conviviality and all that. But where is the pleasure in getting blind stinking drunk, stumbling around like an idiot, and finally passing out in your own puke? Seriously, why is this considered *fun*?

I've never been drunk, but I know what I feel like when I have a migraine -- curled up on the bathroom floor at three in the morning, gasping for breath and wishing I could die. Why would anyone deliberately *induce* that sensation?

 

[gtdean48]

I went to college at 17 & didn't look 16, drinking age then was 18.
I had plenty of experience drinking to get a buzz on as well stone drunk. It was the mid to late 1970's.
In high school, we'd wear bib overalls to the home football games & sneak in pints of cheap whiskey.
Did the same thing in college, too. Had a few times when I blacked out totally = no recollection except taking the cap off the bottle.
My folks were social drinkers, never saw either bombed, just a buzz.
As the song goes, the hangovers hurt more than they used to....I have a couple of drinks to help with my HDL....and get a buzz on. Sometimes, I slip up & take drunk if I don't go to bed soon enough....

 

[Canadian]

I solved the problem of irresponsible drinking, by borrowing Dad's Buick and being the designated driver for my friends. When I went out, I mainly drank Shirley Temples or just Cokes. I only had one drink before age 18, and around age 19 had my next drink.

I think the smart thing to do is permit youngsters to drink wine and beer, if the party can prove that they have a designated driver. And only between the ages of 16-18. Some of the local bars here put on "all ages" concerts where no liquor is served, and a band performs. I personally think every bar should refuse to serve patrons unless they clearly have a DD or the means to hire a taxicab.

Some cabarets held at the university are serviced by cabbies who are paid by the university to shuttle intoxicated students home. This way, nobody walks home in the snow, and nobody skips taking a cab, because they're already paid for.

Tom

 

[Flicka]

I can understand the pleasure inherent in casual social drinking, the conviviality and all that. But where is the pleasure in getting blind stinking drunk, stumbling around like an idiot, and finally passing out in your own puke? Seriously, why is this considered *fun*?

I've never been drunk, but I know what I feel like when I have a migraine -- curled up on the bathroom floor at three in the morning, gasping for breath and wishing I could die. Why would anyone deliberately *induce* that sensation?

I asked this of my ex many, many times and never got a satisfactory answer...

 

[angeljenny]

We once worked out that one of the girls had drunk 98 units in one week. That can't be healthy! Plus it costs a fortune to drink to drunkenness.

I don't get drunk - I am always the responsible one on rare nights out. I would rather spend my money on books!

 

[Canadian]

Angeljenny,

You'd be surprised how much money you have when you're not having a beer or two every day. 7 days with 2 beer in the evening =14 drinks. At 3 dollars a bottle (liquor mart prices) that's 42 dollars. In a month (4 weeks) that's 168 dollars.

I always heard it likened to smoking. What would you rather do with that money. And if you're underage, how do you manage to get 168 bucks a month without being questioned?

I had a buddy in high school who was a senior (18) and was legally allowed to drink. He always offered to me to get me whatever I wanted if I would pay for it. I never took him up on the opportunity. I rarely had cash, especially not for booze. As a 15 year old, working for dad part time, Dad would know if I was buying a couple pints a week from my friend. I only made about fifty bucks a week, and most of it went for army kit (I was a Cadet and all our kit besides dress uniforms were private purchase).

There were some girls I fancied in high school. One of them remarked that she had gotten ridiculously drunk on jello shooters and was "so" hungover the next day. I wanted to learn how to get invited to such parties. My parents kept such a close eye on me, I never went.

As a side note, my sisters in-laws asked "What kind of wine do your kids like for Christmas dinner?". The answer was, "They're 12 and 15. They don't drink".

Tom

 

[Paul Roerich]

We once worked out that one of the girls had drunk 98 units in one week. That can't be healthy! Plus it costs a fortune to drink to drunkenness.

I don't get drunk - I am always the responsible one on rare nights out. I would rather spend my money on books!

Here in the U.S.A., a university Fraternity member recently died of alcohol poisoning after ingesting booze through his bum, courtesy of a rubber tube. The abundance of capillaries and blood vessels in one's bum greatly heightens the level and speed of the alcohol entering the blood stream, as it bypasses the filtering by the liver. And yes, there's a name for this practice: "Butt Chugging".

The Sorority equivalent is vodka-soaked tampons: you can guess how it works, and where. (You don’t have alcohol on your breath, so it’s a 'way' to hide alcohol consumption from parents and teachers.)

 

[angeljenny]

Here in the U.S.A., a university Fraternity member recently died of alcohol poisoning after ingesting booze through his bum, courtesy of a rubber tube. The abundance of capillaries and blood vessels in one's bum greatly heightens the level and speed of the alcohol entering the blood stream, as it bypasses the filtering by the liver. And yes, there's a name for this practice: "Butt Chugging". The Sorority equivalent is vodka-soaked tampons: you can guess how it works, and where.

There is a news story at the moment about a girl who has had her stomach removed after drinking some sort of cocktail with liquid nitrogen in it.

People do crazy things.

 

[angeljenny]

Angeljenny,

You'd be surprised how much money you have when you're not having a beer or two every day. 7 days with 2 beer in the evening =14 drinks. At 3 dollars a bottle (liquor mart prices) that's 42 dollars. In a month (4 weeks) that's 168 dollars.

I always heard it likened to smoking. What would you rather do with that money. And if you're underage, how do you manage to get 168 bucks a month without being questioned?

I had a buddy in high school who was a senior (18) and was legally allowed to drink. He always offered to me to get me whatever I wanted if I would pay for it. I never took him up on the opportunity. I rarely had cash, especially not for booze. As a 15 year old, working for dad part time, Dad would know if I was buying a couple pints a week from my friend. I only made about fifty bucks a week, and most of it went for army kit (I was a Cadet and all our kit besides dress uniforms were private purchase).

There were some girls I fancied in high school. One of them remarked that she had gotten ridiculously drunk on jello shooters and was "so" hungover the next day. I wanted to learn how to get invited to such parties. My parents kept such a close eye on me, I never went.

As a side note, my sisters in-laws asked "What kind of wine do your kids like for Christmas dinner?". The answer was, "They're 12 and 15. They don't drink".

Tom

It is expensive - even at the cheap bars - because people just keep drinking and drinking. I am unlucky as the drinks I like are expensive anyway so it is a good job I don't aim to get drunk.

Alcohol just isn't a worthwhile thing to spend my money on. You have nothing to show for it the next day apart from a headache. My parents never really had rules for me! My school friends would get drunk at the local park from 14 or 15 so I just stopped going. Never appealed to me - same as smoking.

My parents let me drink at home or with them but I like different drinks to them. My dad would drink larger and I would be sipping port.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I thought the whole point of college was to teach kids the critical thinking skills they need to be functional adults. Clearly they aren't getting their forty-grand-a-year's-worth.

 

[Undertow]

Well it certainly sounded as if you were, and I don't think an apology would be entirely out of order

:eusa_booh

:ranger:

 

[Paul Roerich]

I thought the whole point of college was to teach kids the critical thinking skills they need to be functional adults.

That's what I was taught, but I'm old. My nieces and nephews are taught that a four-year degree is a piece of paper for grad school, which is a piece of paper for a career, which is an income machine. Their practical peers believe that cheating in school is all right, as long as you can get away with it; college is too expensive these days to risk an 'honest' low grade. Besides, they say, everybody cheats and 'massages the numbers' from time to time: the banks, the bundlers, Wall Street, the agencies, Washington... it's the way of the world, the grease of the system.

 

[Undertow]

I thought the whole point of college was to teach kids the critical thinking skills they need to be functional adults. Clearly they aren't getting their forty-grand-a-year's-worth.

Oh heavens no.

College has become an institution in which the child of the home badgers his or her parents into believing that $10k a year is not a waste of time and money, and I swear I'll walk it and feed it and clean up whenever it makes a mess, pretty pleeeeeease!?

But if you give a mouse a cookie...it's going to want a laptop to do "homework", a smartphone to "call home", a car to "drive back on holidays" and some spending cash for "school books and lunches". Riiiigggghhhhtt...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Around here we used to have a saying: nothing turns a kid into an adult faster than a year in a fish cannery. Pity them days are over.

 

[AmateisGal]

Community college is SO much cheaper - but I think partying is still part of the culture, unfortunately.

 

[Paul Roerich]

Around here we used to have a saying: nothing turns a kid into an adult faster than a year in a fish cannery.

No kidding. For my father, it was a summer working in a gypsum factory. The only 'benefit' was that he lost thirty pounds and got a washboard stomach.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

It was very common during a family pub lunch/dinner to hear the phrase "and a half shandy for the kids". This was perfectly acceptable back in the day, and unlike our prime minister, my parents never forgot us at the pub after a Loooonnnggg Sunday lunch … This is where I first encountered drinking, and with parents who rarely drank, it was a very civilised beginning. I still really prefer to have a meal with drink, rather than just drink itself.

It was also my first encounter of the awful, rotten, godforsaken people who populate many pubs in the Scottish Borders. Fighting, sectarian, football obsessed morons, it has tainted my view of a certain "type" of pub to this day. There's nothing quite like a fight between 80-year-olds over a game of football to convince you not to go down that road! At least there were no bulletholes in the windows, I guess, unlike my current local.

 

[sheeplady]

The Sorority equivalent is vodka-soaked tampons: you can guess how it works, and where. (You don’t have alcohol on your breath, so it’s a 'way' to hide alcohol consumption from parents and teachers.)

The vodka tampon story has been exposed as an urban legend. The actual mechanics of it wouldn't work well. And also, even if it did, the only way you're hiding alcohol consumption is not having it directly on your breath (you will still fail a breathalyzer and still reek of alcohol at a high enough amount) and you can't hide being intoxicated off your bum.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was also my first encounter of the awful, rotten, godforsaken people who populate many pubs in the Scottish Borders. Fighting, sectarian, football obsessed morons, it has tainted my view of a certain "type" of pub to this day. There's nothing quite like a fight between 80-year-olds over a game of football to convince you not to go down that road! At least there were no bulletholes in the windows, I guess, unlike my current local.

You should sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park on a Saturday afternoon when all the college boys from BU are out to get some sun. By the fifth inning those that haven't passed out are on their feet screaming obscene suggestions in the direction of any woman who makes the mistake of walking past them. And by the seventh, when the beer stands close, at least five or ten of them will have tried to punch out an usher.

For a long long time in Boston beer wasn't sold at ballparks. I wish we could go back to those days -- every game I've been to since the late '70s has been spoiled by stupid, screaming drunks who don't know anything about what's actually happening on the field.

 

[Paul Roerich]

The vodka tampon story has been exposed as an urban legend.

That's great news, Sheeplady! If only the butt-chugging death were not true as well.