That’s the title of Eric Asimov’s column “The Pour,” in The New York Times this morning (here) and repeated on Asimov’s blog on 
the Times’ website (here). Asimov is probably the most visible commentator in the country about wine, spirits and beer and the industries and cultures that surround them. I have been following “The Pour” online for several years, and I have never seen a post stir up so much controversy and response — at 2:45 this afternoon more than 260 responses.
The question is whether exposing teenagers gradually to alcoholic beverages, beginning with occasional sips of wine or beer at home and proceeding with perhaps a half glass of wine with dinner will teach them moderation and prevent the binge drinking in which too many college students indulge. American collegiate life tends to promote the orgiastic consumption of immense quantities of alcoholic beverages for the sake of drunkenness. Asimov and many of the responders to his post assert that the sensible introduction of alcoholic beverages will encourage young people to be sensible about their choices of when, where and how much they drink. It’s the principle that a forbidden object becomes a focus of fascination, while knowledge brings a sense of familiarity and comfort.
Quite vehement, however, are the posters who disagree and say that the only way to prevent binge drinking is never to allow teenagers exposure to alcohol at all, that only complete abstinence will avert binge drinking in college and an inevitable life of degredation bound for the gutter.
I’m inclined to think that the issues are more complicated than are stated here and that all sorts of familial, generic and personal influences, as well as the circumstances of time, place and peer pressure, dictate how teenagers and college students react to alcoholic beverages and their consumption. Whatever the case, Asimov touched a cord that resonates in American culture, a cord that begins in our Puritan heritage, flows through our whole history of ideological, individual and religious conflict and washes up in our present evangelical and political climate that uneasily confronts the influence of an increasingly permissive media.
Drinking
Responses to ““Can Sips at Home Prevent Binges?””
March 26th, 2008 at 11:07 pm
The nifty thing about the world is that it’s big enough that you don’t have to guess how things would be if we did things differently, because it’s almost certain someone somewhere already does it that way, and all you have to do is observe.
As a game developer, I have a number of college aged friends all over the world. My Greek and French friends laugh hysterically at visiting American teens who get so drunk they wet themselves - no Greek teenager would dream of acting like that. On the other hand, the Germans seem to learn to drink beer until they fall over from their parents, and my friends from Finland are far wilder than anyone I knew in college.
I doubt that anything anyone could possibly say could influence the opinions of fundamentalists; their opinions aren’t connected to reality. But it’s been my observation that most kids raised by parents who pretend that a sip of beer will send you straight to the gutter do eventually figure out that it’s simply, provably a lie, and as a result of having been lied to, they are less likely to pay any attention to the good messages their elders might have tried to pass along. Therefore they end up being much wilder than those kids who were raised to believe that all pleasures should be enjoyed in moderation.
March 27th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Well, it worked for me, but I don’t believe it would work with all teenagers. Everyone’s different, and kids each need to be handled very differently.
My parents raised me to enjoy things in moderation and that alcohol wasn’t taboo. Because of this, I wasn’t interested in binge drinking with my friends who were busy trying to have illicit parties involving large illegal quantities of booze.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Human behavior is both learned and instinctual. Because alcohol (like many other substances) causes dopamine release in the brain to give us that good feeling, our instinct is to drink as much of it as possible. The only way to counteract that instinct is to learn behavior that will cause us to ignore that instinct. Parents are responsible for teaching their children responsible behavior, and that means ALWAYS drinking responsibly while your children are growing up. If children never learn behavior to counteract that instinct, then they are going to use alcohol inappropriately. Compare the US to European countries where children routinely learn to drink alcohol in the family setting beginning as early as age 12. The drinking age is 18 in Europe, but they don’t have near the problem with drinking as the US does.
March 28th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Ireland was part of Europe the last time I checked, and early exposure doesn’t seem to head off adult drunkeness there.
I think reasonable controlled imbibing at an early age would probably take much of the illicit thrill of over-indulging away from many teens as they move on to college. But addiction issues can also be based on genetic predisposition and people’s tendency to self-medicate when depressed or upset. There may not be one right approach that would work out best for everyone.
March 29th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Matt, you are correct. However, that should be up to parents to decide, not the government. The government is trying to raise our children, and it is doing a very bad job at it.
5 comment.