Why You Should Become Your Son's Drinking Coach

Advice on Forming Temperate Men in a Culture of Poor Drinking

It is a fact that in our society high school students live in a culture of drinking. Not all teenagers drink, and many of them handle this culture impressively well. But they are all exposed to it, so parents ought not to ignore it. Whether you have a teenage son already or your sons are younger, I want to offer some ideas as to how to deal with this reality. It is never too early for you and your spouse to start developing an approach to this topic.

A Culture of Drinking Poorly

The problem is not that teenagers live in a culture of drinking, but that they live in a culture of drinking poorly. Not only is alcohol all around them—in some cases, the high school social scene is dominated by drinking—but more importantly this drinking culture tends to abuse alcohol. Teenagers tend to not like the taste of alcohol, as it is a palate usually developed later in life. This means that teenagers drink primarily, if not exclusively, for the effect that alcohol produces: to get a buzz, to feel good, to boost their self-confidence. If Coke had the same effect as alcohol, they would drink Coke rather than alcohol just about every time; they prefer the sweet taste. This, by the way, explains why teenagers tend to drink mixed drinks with liquor as the base: it gives a hard buzz delivered in the sweetness of the mixer. It also explains the proliferation of alcoholic seltzers and hard lemonades.

Some teenagers will start drinking out of social pressure. They don’t want to look like the odd one out; they want to be cool. To this end, drinking has become a false rite of passage for many teenagers. Adults drink, so if teenagers want to act adult-like, then they should also drink, or so their (often-implicit) reasoning goes. Unfortunately, it has become a rite of passage with no rules, very few limits, and no parental mentoring. Imagine if driving were approached this way: teenagers started to drive illegally, hiding from the law and their parents, with their peers as their only counselors, and with the goal of driving as fast as they could as soon as they could. That would be a total disaster with lethal consequences. High school drinking is also a disastrous experience for many, even if its lethal consequences are more rare.

Common Parental Responses

The other contributing factor to teenagers drinking poorly could be parental reactions. Instead of helping their sons develop a healthy relationship with alcohol, which could include not drinking at all, parents may fall into one of two camps:

1. Authoritarianism: As the enforcers of a no-alcohol policy, some parents remain closed-off to a conversation with their son as to why he wants to drink, and are not open to helping him deal with social temptations. This often leads to underground drinking and lies.

2. Blissful ignorance: Some parents prefer to assume that their son may drink a little, but not want to find out exactly how much or when he does it. Parents may feel that they cannot let their son openly do something illegal such as underage drinking, while at the same time holding a groundless belief that their son will only drink reasonably.

As a consequence of both these attitudes, teenagers tend to binge drink mostly in unnatural places and times: at night in unsupervised basements, in the back of cars, or in parks under the cover of darkness. As a result, the teenager who drinks does not only have to go underground but stays underground so as to not be detected and made to stop. This gives parents no opportunity to teach their sons how to drink. Thus drinking often brings with it lying and deceit. In this scenario you should not be surprised if your sons are likely to drink before you think they are drinking, and are likely drinking more than you think they are.

Six Facts About Teenage Drinking

Let me present to you some quick points about the negative aspects of teenage drinking:

1. The teenager’s brain is more affected by alcohol than the adult brain. Young brains are being formed and are therefore more impressionable. That is good, since they have much to learn, but it means they will be more impressed by alcohol.

2. Teenagers do not need alcohol to socialize. They are around their classmates and friends all the time. Their challenge is to productively use the time they have with each other. Drinking does not add to their social lives but rather detracts from them.

3. Alcohol will also cramp their sociability. They are at the time in their lives when they are learning to make friends, learning to enjoy friends’ company, and learning to tolerate those whose company they do not appreciate as much. Insofar as they may use alcohol as a crutch in their social life (to make them more “outgoing”), alcohol is preventing them from developing their natural social skills that could benefit them for the rest of their lives, but which will be increasingly hard to develop as they grow older.

4. Since alcohol is addictive, the teenager will want to drink more and more, even when there is no special vulnerability or susceptibility to alcohol. As with any other addiction, the individual will seek to feed his desire by either drinking more often, or drinking more when he drinks—or both. The teenager who begins drinking in high school will likely be drinking too much (even for adult standards) by the time he graduates, and then he will go to college where his growing vice will be free to dominate him.

5. Drinking in high school almost necessarily means living a dark life of deception. The most detrimental aspect of this life would be if they are lying to you, acting secretly so as to hide from you an activity that they know is disagreeable to you. As a result, they get used to living with you, while living a lie. They get used to looking you straight in the eye and lying to you. This is a most frightening vice. Once a teenager has developed this unfortunate character trait, he will be more likely to give in to it later in his life. What will prevent him, then, from lying to his future wife? Early drinking could be the entry ticket to a painful and duplicitous life.

6. Finally, since the vast majority of teenagers also drive, those who drink have entered a terrible lottery. As they get more comfortable and confident—overconfident—behind the wheel, and more accustomed to drinking, they are more likely to combine drinking and driving. Of those who drink and drive, some will have minor accidents—a small fender bender or a little nudge at the mailbox when pulling in the driveway. Of those who have an accident, a few will have more major accidents—perhaps a totaled car. And occasionally, one of those major accidents will be fatal, either for the boy or some innocent victim, or both. These terrible accidents are tragic, truly, but not shocking.

Become a Drinking Coach

So, what exactly are parents supposed to do about all this? How can they help their children navigate this culture? Well, the first point is precisely this: parents are here to help their children navigate their social life. Parents are not policemen investigating their lives, or a court judging their decisions, nor are they wardens overseeing a sentence. Although parents will have to occasionally investigate, judge, and pronounce sentences, they are first and foremost parents, mentors, coaches. Parents are to guide their boys to become men who neither follow rules out of a sense of fear nor evade them out of a false sense of freedom, but who prudently pursue the good because they see it as good and wise. In this regard, the culture of drinking in which their sons are immersed presents parents with an opportunity to teach, advise, encourage, and support.

In an ideal world a teenager would agree not to drink during his high school years except on those occasions in which he is afforded opportunities to learn appropriate drinking habits in coordination with his parents. The teenagers I know who have followed this path have tended to do well academically, socially, and in many other aspects of their lives. The risk of demanding this approach in every case, however, is that some teenagers will see abstinence from drinking as unrealistic, and therefore conversations where you forbid them from drinking and threaten reprisals if they do will merely encourage them to offer an insincere assent to your demand. They may then drink underground without you ever knowing it.

In general, think of yourself as a drinking coach for your teenager. It may sound counter-cultural, but in truth it is realistic. It is safe to assume that he is going to drink at some point in his life—at least when he turns twenty-one—and, therefore, you should train him to drink well. More importantly, you should assume that, all things being equal, he wants to make the right decisions in regard to drinking. But, you also know that he will face challenges when trying to do the right thing—his own desires, peer pressure, and the like—so you are there to help him navigate those challenges. Since most of your sons will move away after graduating from high school, and therefore be out of your close supervision, his high school years offer you the best opportunity to inform his character in this area. Most importantly, your communication with him, and his with you, should always remain open and trustful. He must feel that he can tell you anything that he does.

You may decide that he is going to drink with you on occasion so that you can teach him about good wine and beer in small quantities—as opposed to bad wine and beer in large quantities. You may even decide that you are going to let him drink some other times, not in your presence, with people you trust—relatives or family friends, for example. I have no definite suggestions; that is for you and your spouse to discern. What is universally advisable is that there be open communication and that you see your role as helping him learn to drink as a good man ought, which at his age will mean drinking very little, if at all, and then only in the right setting. Your son needs, or will need, you to help him navigate the drinking culture. Withholding that help would be the loss of a great opportunity to guide your son into this aspect of mature adulthood.