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EDUCATION MATTERS:
Substance abuse is a major detour
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By DAN KIMBER
“Any man who hits a woman is no man at all.”
It is a sentence I have spoken many times in my years of teaching. The context varies, but it often gets brought up when the subject of alcohol is raised. Specifically it involves boys who drink and are prone to becoming violent when they drink.
Occasionally I’ll hear stories of normally well-mannered, even-tempered boys who become something else once they’ve had a few beers (or a few six-packs as the case may be).
Perhaps some of you reading this might remember this type of fellow back when you were in high school. He was the one who got good and liquored up early in the evening, slurring and slopping his way through the night. By mid-party he always somehow managed to pick a fight with someone.
Sometimes that someone was/is a girl. Which brings me back to my opening sentence. My advice to the girls is that they need to move away from boys who are so easily weakened. These not-yet (some perhaps, never-to-be) men are working out their own personal inadequacies by using their physical superiority to mask their emotional inferiority. Alcohol gives them the “courage” to be aggressive and demanding while disguising the fact that they are really only frightened and confused little boys.
When I hear girls talk about such fellows, without knowing one other thing about their relationship, I say without hesitation, “Get the hell away from him.” He may be a prince of a guy when he is sober, but if he a) likes to get drunk and b) is violent, then I repeat, “Get the hell away from him.”
Teenagers who are already regular drinkers need to be told in the most forceful terms that they are laying a very shaky foundation for their future. By “regular drinkers,” I mean once or twice a week, likely on weekends. If those episodes often or usually result in drunkenness, then clearly someone needs to intervene before a young life becomes completely washed out.
Yes, yes, I know that we all have old buddies with a legendary ability to regularly “get wasted,” and who ultimately recovered from their youthful excess, but I think we all know of other stories as well. Stories of kids who got off on a wrong foot early on and have stumbled through life ever since.
According to the Department of Health, drinkers under 16 are consuming twice as much alcohol as they did 10 years ago. Their reasons for starting are the same as they were for every generation that preceded them: curiosity, to appear mature, to have fun, to socialize, to overcome shyness, to feel more confident, to get drunk and lose control.
Experimentation with alcohol is going to happen at some point for the vast majority of young people. It becomes a problem when those episodes stop being experimental and start being regular and detrimental. Drinking can then become the focus of socializing, a way of filling leisure time and a way out of problems. Unfortunately, drinking doesn’t mask problems, it becomes one and leads to lots of others, including violent behavior.
I ask my students each year if they know or know of peers who fit the above descriptions, and the answer is always “yes.” Some will say that marijuana is more used and abused than alcohol, and from what I have observed, that seems to be true. Without getting into the “Alcohol vs. Marijuana — which is worse?” debate (although violent behavior is not associated with marijuana as it is with alcohol) parents should be on the lookout for any early signs of addictive behavior in their kids, regardless of the substance involved.
Better to confront the issue now than later. Better to suggest moderation now than have to require complete abstinence later. We want our children to grow up to be mature, responsible and loving adults without too many detours along the way. Regular/habitual substance abuse by a teenager is likely to be a major detour. It’s up to all of us in this village (to borrow a political phrase) to notice the signs.
DAN KIMBER is a teacher in the Glendale Unified School District, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He may be reached at DKimb8@sbcglobal.net.
It is a sentence I have spoken many times in my years of teaching. The context varies, but it often gets brought up when the subject of alcohol is raised. Specifically it involves boys who drink and are prone to becoming violent when they drink.
Occasionally I’ll hear stories of normally well-mannered, even-tempered boys who become something else once they’ve had a few beers (or a few six-packs as the case may be).
Perhaps some of you reading this might remember this type of fellow back when you were in high school. He was the one who got good and liquored up early in the evening, slurring and slopping his way through the night. By mid-party he always somehow managed to pick a fight with someone.
Sometimes that someone was/is a girl. Which brings me back to my opening sentence. My advice to the girls is that they need to move away from boys who are so easily weakened. These not-yet (some perhaps, never-to-be) men are working out their own personal inadequacies by using their physical superiority to mask their emotional inferiority. Alcohol gives them the “courage” to be aggressive and demanding while disguising the fact that they are really only frightened and confused little boys.
When I hear girls talk about such fellows, without knowing one other thing about their relationship, I say without hesitation, “Get the hell away from him.” He may be a prince of a guy when he is sober, but if he a) likes to get drunk and b) is violent, then I repeat, “Get the hell away from him.”
Teenagers who are already regular drinkers need to be told in the most forceful terms that they are laying a very shaky foundation for their future. By “regular drinkers,” I mean once or twice a week, likely on weekends. If those episodes often or usually result in drunkenness, then clearly someone needs to intervene before a young life becomes completely washed out.
Yes, yes, I know that we all have old buddies with a legendary ability to regularly “get wasted,” and who ultimately recovered from their youthful excess, but I think we all know of other stories as well. Stories of kids who got off on a wrong foot early on and have stumbled through life ever since.
According to the Department of Health, drinkers under 16 are consuming twice as much alcohol as they did 10 years ago. Their reasons for starting are the same as they were for every generation that preceded them: curiosity, to appear mature, to have fun, to socialize, to overcome shyness, to feel more confident, to get drunk and lose control.
Experimentation with alcohol is going to happen at some point for the vast majority of young people. It becomes a problem when those episodes stop being experimental and start being regular and detrimental. Drinking can then become the focus of socializing, a way of filling leisure time and a way out of problems. Unfortunately, drinking doesn’t mask problems, it becomes one and leads to lots of others, including violent behavior.
I ask my students each year if they know or know of peers who fit the above descriptions, and the answer is always “yes.” Some will say that marijuana is more used and abused than alcohol, and from what I have observed, that seems to be true. Without getting into the “Alcohol vs. Marijuana — which is worse?” debate (although violent behavior is not associated with marijuana as it is with alcohol) parents should be on the lookout for any early signs of addictive behavior in their kids, regardless of the substance involved.
Better to confront the issue now than later. Better to suggest moderation now than have to require complete abstinence later. We want our children to grow up to be mature, responsible and loving adults without too many detours along the way. Regular/habitual substance abuse by a teenager is likely to be a major detour. It’s up to all of us in this village (to borrow a political phrase) to notice the signs.
DAN KIMBER is a teacher in the Glendale Unified School District, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He may be reached at DKimb8@sbcglobal.net.
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