2
ALCOHOL AND PARTIES

Alcohol and parties is a big area to cover, but it is one that has garnered a lot of community attention in recent years. Alcohol is a huge part of Australian culture and it would be difficult to identify any social gathering that takes place in this country where alcohol does not play a significant role. Whether it be a christening, a wedding, a funeral, a birthday party or just getting together with a few friends for dinner, alcohol is there and often consumed to excess.

Is it any wonder, then, that our young people regard alcohol as integral to their gatherings and celebrations as well? They learn from those around them and from a very early age we start teaching our children that, as adults, we really are unable to celebrate without having a drink. Try to think of the last social get-together you attended where alcohol was not present. Unless the last event you went to was the local Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting, I very much doubt whether you can come up with one.

A number of years ago a colleague and I were commissioned by a school to interview an entire school community about their alcohol use, as well as their attitudes towards the drug. A survey was designed and administered to every student from year five upwards, as well as all the teachers and the parent group. One of the most interesting results was in response to the question ‘How important a role do you believe alcohol plays in a celebration?’ People responding to the survey could answer ‘not at all important’, ‘not important’, ‘important’, ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important’.

As far as the younger students were concerned this was not an issue. They regarded alcohol as ‘not important at all’ when it came to having a good time. This didn’t change until the last few years of high school, where it began to be regarded as ‘important’. However, there were only two groups where a significant proportion believed that alcohol played a ‘very important’ or ‘extremely important’ role in celebrating—the parents and the teachers!

As I always say, our young people learn from somewhere and we are very good teachers, even when we don’t want to be.

Sometimes things come out of left field that completely surprise me and challenge much of what I believe to be true. The following story is a great example of that . . .

A school prefect, Pat, came up and spoke to me after a school presentation to let me know about a night he would never forget. I had just finished giving a talk about the harms associated with alcohol and, as always, had shared many of the stories that I had come across in my travels.

Earlier in the year Pat had decided to party with two girls from his year group. They were all sixteen and fairly seasoned drinkers. Before they began their drinking session they each took a number of No-Doze tablets. Pat remembers taking three of the pills but said that the two girls he was with took a far greater number than that. The idea behind the caffeine tablets was to reduce the depressant effect of the alcohol. They would, they reasoned, be able to drink more and not feel as drunk.

They started to drink by playing a shots game with bourbon. After a couple of rounds each they were starting to feel quite merry and moved on to the next stage of their dangerous evening. A 750-ml bottle of whisky was brought out and Pat proceeded to skol the entire bottle. To ensure that this moment would be remembered for posterity, one of the girls recorded it on a mobile phone camera. Pat informed me, quite proudly, that it had now been posted on the YouTube website.

After the contents of the bottle had been downed the young man didn’t feel so well. Eventually he stumbled to the bathroom. When he reached it his knees buckled under him and he fell to the floor, hitting his head on the tiles. His head split open and he started to vomit.

He remembers little else of the night, and the rest of the information about the evening was provided by one of the two girls present. They became worried about their friend, who was now lying on the bathroom floor, bleeding from the head. Instead of calling an ambulance, one of the girls decided to drive him to the local hospital herself. Obviously extremely intoxicated, but totally ignoring the risks, the girls put Pat into the car and made the trip.

Pat was kept in hospital overnight and, luckily, made a full recovery.

This was one of the strangest stories I have ever been told by a young person—not just because of the events he described, but because of how he now viewed the experience. He wanted me to use the story to warn others about the risks involved with drinking too much and made it quite clear that since the night in question he had drunk alcohol only a few times, and always in moderation. However, he was extremely proud of the fact that his skolling experience was posted on the internet and that it had been viewed by many. He could even tell me how many hits the video had received on the website. There was no shame, no stigma associated with the incident. When I asked him how he felt about spending a night in the emergency department, he brushed the question to one side. He saw the whole experience as a major achievement—one which, thanks to the mobile phone camera, others could relive in the future.

One of the most significant changes I have seen in the Australian community over the last decade or so has been the growing acceptance of public drunkenness. Getting drunk is often viewed as a ‘badge of honour’ and unfortunately Pat’s story, although extreme, is not unique. The challenge that faces parents and educators in the coming years is to get the message across to young people and the community in general that drinking for intoxication is not acceptable and is potentially life-threatening. It’s not going to be easy but it’s worth a go!

This chapter looks at a range of questions dealing with alcohol and parties. In the last few years I have seen an incredible change in the type of questions I get asked in school communities, by both parents and their children. The most significant of these changes has been the number of alcohol-related questions compared to questions about other drug issues. In reality, alcohol has always been most important to the students I deal with, but it is now far more pronounced than ever before. Alcohol is the drug our kids and their friends are most likely to come into contact with during the teenage years and beyond, and without any doubt it is a drug they have problems with.

Many of the parents’ questions relate to concerns raised in the media about teenage parties, binge drinking and events like Schoolies Week. None of these are particularly new phenomena, but due to the increased media attention and the way some of the stories are presented, it appears to many parents that this pattern of teenage drinking is completely new and ‘out of control’. As far as I’m aware there is no evidence to support the claims that we have more young people drinking alcohol than ever before. There is definitely a group of adolescents who are drinking in very dangerous ways and they appear to be indulging in more risky practices as time goes on, but is this group growing in size? Once again, I know of no evidence to suggest that this is the case. Most of our young people are trying to do the right thing.

The young people’s questions continue to relate to issues around personal safety. Something that many parents forget is that for most adolescents the only drug emergency that they will ever experience will be to do with alcohol. Like their parents before them, they will either have to look after a drunk friend who is vomiting, call an ambulance for someone who has lost consciousness, or simply sit with a best friend who bit off a little more than they could chew and found themselves feeling rather unwell.

Looking after someone who is drunk is traumatic enough for an adult. For an adolescent with not much life experience and little information this can be a major life event. We need to be sure that we arm our young people with as much information and practical advice as we possibly can, regardless of whether they are drinkers or not. They need good-quality information about what to do in an emergency.

Teenage parties can be dangerous places. There is often inadequate adult supervision, young people tend to drink more than they would in other environments and those people who are around them are often ill-equipped to deal with an emergency. The information provided in this chapter is intended to help you to understand what you should be doing as a parent to support your child, and also give you an insight into the type of information your child really needs to help them survive the teenage party scene.

• How should I introduce alcohol to my child?

Alcohol is a big part of many of our lives. We drink to celebrate a victory, we drink to commiserate a loss, we drink when a baby is born, we drink when someone dies. It should come as no surprise that when our young people approach adulthood they start to experiment with alcohol. They have watched their parents and other adults socialise for many years and on a great number of occasions alcohol has been an integral part of the event.

The issue of alcohol and young people is one that attracts a great deal of attention and concern. It is also an extremely complicated area and one that we are learning more about all the time. Many parents are looking for guidance on how to deal with alcohol in their family, particularly as we continue to see people start their drinking career at an increasingly younger age. Some of the questions that I am asked by parents include:

• How and when should I introduce alcohol to my child?

• Are there things that I can do to prevent my child drinking in the future?

• What behaviours of mine are more likely to cause my child to drink heavily in the future?

Unfortunately, many parents believe that there is little they can do to influence their child’s drinking behaviour. Some believe that drinking and getting drunk occasionally is just a phase that all teenagers go through and that it is merely a rite of passage into adulthood. This is not true. We know that there are some young people who don’t go through that phase, and sending a message out there that all of them do is dangerous. Research has shown us that parents can make a real difference when it comes to alcohol consumption, particularly if they really put their mind to it.

One of the most worrying things that I have noticed over the years is that parents now want to be their child’s best friend rather than their parent. Each time I hear a parent say, ‘We’re just not friends at the moment . . .’ I want to clip them across the ear and yell: ‘You’re not meant to be their friend, you’re their parent!’ Your child has the opportunity to make lots of friends in their lives—they only get one set of parents and you are it! The fear that you may damage your relationship with your child if you act like a parent, particularly if you dare to say no to them, is irrational. Young people need parents to give them guidance and to set rules and boundaries around a wide range of activities, including alcohol use. Although teenagers may not always like the rules that are set, they are necessary and assist them to socialise with others in a responsible and healthy way.

Just think about it from a workplace perspective. Where is a better place to work—at a job where the boss doesn’t show any interest in what you do and lets you do whatever you want, or one where you have been set clear boundaries and you know what you are expected to do in order to succeed? A child needs to feel the same way. Having a parent who is constantly saying ‘yes’ may feel great for a while, but in the end the child learns little about boundaries and can end up finding it extremely difficult to function productively in the real world.

There are a number of simple parenting tips that, if followed, will enable you to have a positive influence on your children’s future alcohol use. The first thing to note is that parents who are aware of what activities their teenagers take part in and take an active interest in what they do, who talk and listen to their children and model positive behaviour towards alcohol, are likely to have a far more positive effect on their children’s future drinking. Of course, parents don’t operate in a vacuum; there are many other social influences that come into play. However, parents should never underestimate the very real influence they can have in this area.

So let’s look a little more closely at some of the things that parents can do that will influence their child’s alcohol consumption.

Monitor your children

If you ask the parent of a primary school-aged child where their child is at any point in time they would nearly always know exactly where they are. They monitor them closely, making sure they know their movements as well as who their friends are. This begins to change in the early years of high school. Many parents say they just get tired and their child is older and needs to be treated more like an adult. However, it is worth the effort to monitor your teenager well. Young people raised by parents who are well aware of what their children are up to and who they are with have been shown to start drinking at a later age, tend to drink less, and are less likely to develop problematic drinking patterns in the future.

Parental relationships

It is vital that you try to maintain a positive and open relationship with your child through this time. It’s not always going to be easy but the ability to communicate any concerns you may have about the activities they are involved in is essential. Children who feel they are able to talk candidly with their parents about a range of issues are more likely to drink in moderation or not drink at all compared to young people who do not have such good relationships with their parents.

Parental behaviour management

Most parents use one or more of a variety of strategies to manage their child’s behaviour. These strategies can include the use of incentives, positive reinforcement and simply making sure their child knows that there are consequences for misbehaviour. It doesn’t take a genius to work out which strategies are more likely to result in positive outcomes. Once again, I come back to the workplace scenario to illustrate this important point. Which workplace is more likely to result in happier employees and increased productivity: is it going to be one with no rules and no direction, or the workplace where the people in charge sit down with the employees and come to an agreement on appropriate rules and behaviours, or a dictatorship where strict rules are imposed without discussion?

Research has shown that parents who set positive family standards and rules, reward good behaviour and use negotiation skills appear to be able to delay the age their child starts to drink. Strict discipline and lots of conflict in the home is linked to higher rates of teenage alcohol use. At the other extreme, the children of parents who appear to be more tolerant of teenage drinking tend to drink more.

Parents’ drinking behaviour

From a very early age young people are bombarded with messages, both positive and negative, from the people around them regarding acceptable behaviour. Young people’s drinking behaviour is no exception and often emulates that of their parents. That is, if adults drink more, so do their children. Positive role-modelling is possibly the most important tool a parent has to convey information to their child about alcohol and its use.

Parents’ involvement in the introduction of alcohol to their children

And now we come down to trying to answer the original question. How parents choose to introduce their child to alcohol does appear to affect the attitude the young person has towards alcohol and their future drinking patterns, but the relationship is complex and we still have a long way to go before we have any clear answers.

We are still finding out the best way for parents to introduce alcohol to their children. At present, the results of research are often contradictory. On the one hand, there is research to suggest that parents can have a positive influence on their child’s drinking behaviour by allowing them small amounts of alcohol and trusting their child’s ability to act responsibly and drink in moderation. That said, it is important to bear in mind that if parents do not set boundaries around drinking, their child is likely to drink more. On the other hand, other studies suggest that introducing your child to alcohol at an early age, even in a family context, could lead to future binge drinking.

One thing, however, is now becoming extremely clear. We now know more than ever before about the effect of alcohol on the developing brain, and all experts agree that teenagers under sixteen years of age should avoid alcohol.

We also know that it is important to delay the initiation of alcohol for as long as you can for several other reasons. The earlier a child starts using alcohol, for example, the greater the possibility that they will develop problems with the drug in the future. The message to parents about the introduction of alcohol is clear: hold off for as long as you can!

This is a relatively new message. For years, when I was asked how and when to introduce alcohol to children, I would respond by saying, ‘Before someone else does and as early as you think appropriate—perhaps at a family meal.’ Due to the new information we now have that message has changed dramatically. You still want to try to ensure that your child’s first drink isn’t consumed at a park late on a Saturday night, but providing that drink too early, without setting clear rules and boundaries at the same time, is likely to be just as problematic in other ways.

The most important factor to remember here is ‘individual difference’. When I say that I am not talking about the adolescent, I am talking about the family. Alcohol plays a different role in every family and that needs to be considered when planning how to introduce alcohol to your child.

Here are stories from three Australian families that illustrate my point:

During a parent information evening I began to talk about my views on the introduction of alcohol in the family home. Halfway through I was interrupted by a woman in the back row. She said that my advice was impractical and would not work in her family.

She was a mother of three and had introduced alcohol to her children at a very young age—all pre-teen. She and her husband were not big drinkers but enjoyed a glass of wine or two with their meal every night and provided positive role models to their children. They were of Italian descent and this is how they had been introduced to alcohol when they were younger; neither she nor, to the best of her knowledge, any of her siblings had ever indulged in binge drinking.

All I could do was reiterate that every family is different, with different views and experiences, and every parent was going to have their own opinion on how to handle this complex issue. I was told later that the woman owned a vineyard!

In a family such as this it would be almost impossible to delay the onset of alcohol use until the kids’ late teens. They have most probably been brought up with activities such as wine tasting and would likely regard alcohol in a very different way to the vast majority of young people of their age.

We hear many people from a Mediterranean background discuss how alcohol was introduced in their family as they were growing up. In countries such as Italy and Greece, alcohol is introduced to children at a very young age with a meal. It is done in a very matter-of-fact way and there is evidence to support that this led to more responsible alcohol use later in life. The problem is that the ‘Mediterranean model’ is very difficult to transplant into the Australian experience. There are so many other cultural influences that come into play in this country (alcohol’s link with sport and celebrating, for example) that expecting what worked for you and your family in the past will work in a different time and place is, frankly, wishful thinking.

Maureen was the mother of a fifteen-year-old boy. She and her husband contacted me after hearing me speak at their son’s school. Now that their son was getting to an age where he would be exposed to alcohol they wanted advice on how to deal with the issue.

Neither Maureen nor her husband had ever drunk alcohol. It had never been part of their lives. Neither of them was particularly religious, and they didn’t view alcohol in a negative light—they just didn’t drink!

Should they start having a glass of wine with a meal? They had heard that one of the best ways to introduce alcohol to a child was at the family dinner table—was that the most appropriate thing for them to do?

This story almost broke my heart. Maureen and her husband felt totally isolated and were desperately trying to figure out how to approach an issue they had no practical experience with. This is a great example of individual difference. Alcohol was not a part of this family’s experience and their son had most probably learned an enormous amount from his parents about the importance (or lack of importance) of alcohol from observing how they socialised over the years.

Should they bring alcohol into the home to introduce their son to drink? Absolutely not! They have taught their child a great deal in their decision not to drink and it is highly likely that this will affect how he chooses to consume alcohol in the future. It doesn’t necessarily mean he is never going to drink, it’s just that he will have a different perception of the importance of alcohol in day-today family life.

Once again, there is no escaping the other cultural influences that are all around. There will be social pressures on Maureen’s son to drink and he will probably learn the hard way about limits, but the modelling of behaviour and attitudes he has observed through the years will no doubt provide a very strong foundation for his future.

I was called to a school where they had been having problems with teenage parties. It had been brought to the principal’s attention that at several sixteen-year-olds’ birthday parties the parents had decided to serve alcohol to those attending and, in two cases, a keg of beer was provided. A parent forum was planned and the principal had insisted that some of the parents concerned attend.

It was not a comfortable evening and tempers were definitely running high. The vast majority of parents at the forum believed that providing alcohol to sixteen-year-olds was unacceptable, however there were others who saw it very differently. The father who had provided the keg for his son’s sixteenth birthday party was angry that he had been forced to come to the forum and insisted that he had every right to do what he had done.

He told the audience that he had been introduced to alcohol by his father in his early teens and that it had done him no harm. He wanted to make sure that his son had a great birthday and in his view the sixteenth birthday was as significant as the twenty-first was to the previous generation. He explained that he had done everything he could to make the evening as safe as possible. The young people were monitored, security was employed to deal with gatecrashers and, in his opinion, the night went off without a hitch.

There were so many times in the evening that I wanted to say, ‘So it did you no harm? This coming from someone who is providing a keg to a group of sixteen-year-olds!’

This was not a father who ‘didn’t care’. He did what he thought was right given the information and experience he had. Maybe he was right; maybe the way he was introduced to alcohol by his father didn’t do him any harm—I have no idea about his personal alcohol use. Regardless of that, what worked for you may not necessarily work for your child. We also know so much more now than we did even ten years ago, and providing alcohol to adolescents in this way is not the way to go.

I am sure this father had the best intentions. According to him, he had tried to keep the party as safe as possible. But what was the most powerful message he sent his son about alcohol that night? It was: ‘to celebrate you need alcohol’. Is that really the message you want to send your child when you introduce them to the drug that we know contributes to more young people dying than any other?

Examine the place that alcohol holds in your home and how its use is being modelled. Then negotiate rules and boundaries with your teenager. Obviously, young people need to learn to drink responsibly. Is a teenage party the best place for this to occur? Most probably not. I’d say one of the best ways to teach children about responsible alcohol use is for parents to set the example of how, where and why to consume alcohol.

• What should I do if my child wants to attend parties where alcohol may be served?

One of the most challenging times for parents is when their child is invited to their first teenage party. As scary as they may seem to parents, parties are extremely important for young people. They provide them with valuable opportunities to develop the skills they need in order to socialise and relate effectively with their peers. Unfortunately, in recent years fewer and fewer parents are prepared to host teenage parties due to fears that they will end up spiralling out of control. The media has let us know about so many parties that began innocently enough but ended up with hundreds of drunken teenagers, most of them uninvited, spilling out onto the streets wreaking havoc. As a result, it really is a very brave parent who makes the decision to hold a party in their home.

That said, it is important for parents to remember that plenty of uneventful teenage parties are held every weekend right across the country.

Sally’s daughter Sophie was about to turn sixteen and she wanted a party. When it came to running such an event Sally was totally lacking experience. She had difficulty remembering the parties she attended during her adolescence but was worried due to all of the media stories about teenage drinking and police involvement.

Sally did everything right. She planned the party together with her daughter, got the best advice from a number of people and did her very best to ensure that the night would run as smoothly as possible. Alcohol was not served and that was made extremely clear to all those invited.

To her surprise the night went without a hitch! There were no drunken teenagers, no vomiting, no destruction of property and the police didn’t need to be called. Sophie and the friends she invited had a great time, and Sally’s faith in young people was restored.

Of course there are some parents who are not as lucky as Sally. Sometimes things go wrong no matter what precautions you take, but in my experience those parents who plan carefully and involve their child in the entire process usually have an experience that is not overly traumatic!

As frightening as it is for the parents hosting a party, many parents would agree that it is equally worrying to have a child invited to one. Whether to allow your child to attend a party or not is a decision that all parents will face eventually—and you’ll be making your decision on the basis of information that can be extremely difficult to collect.

One thing I can guarantee is that your child will not want you to contact the parents holding the party. As far as a teenager is concerned that is the ultimate embarrassment. However, if you want to make an informed decision when it comes to your child attending a party or not, you are going to have to bite the bullet.

If your child was going on a school excursion and there were any potential risks involved you would want to know as much as possible about the activity they were taking part in. The school would provide information on where the students were going and let you know what precautions they were taking to make the trip as safe as they could. If you felt that the trip was too risky, you would refuse permission for your child to take part. That is your right as a parent. It should be exactly the same for a teenage party.

Make sure you know what type of event your child is going to attend. Ask your child questions about the party and where it is being held. Get as much information as you can, and don’t just rely on what your child is willing and able to tell you. Even though you may have the most trusting relationship with your child, I would suggest that you are not going to get the whole story from them—not that they would necessarily lie to you, but chances are they really don’t know themselves. As a parent you need to go to the source: the other parents.

It never ceases to amaze me how many parents do not find out more about where their teenager is going on a Saturday night. Of course, contacting a parent you don’t know and asking them questions about a party they are holding is not necessarily going to be an easy task, but that’s what parenting is all about—a whole pile of not very easy tasks! However, you may be surprised at the reception you get and in fact it could be quite rewarding.

I had given a presentation at a well-known girls school in Sydney a number of months before and had been invited back to speak at a mothers’ breakfast meeting. When the talk finished a mother came up to introduce herself. Ruth was the mother of a sixteen-year-old girl, Marta. She told me that when I had last spoken at the school, one message in particular had resonated with her—develop a parents network. If your child gets invited to a party, contact the parents hosting the event and find out what is going on.

‘Now, whenever my daughter gets invited to a party, I always call the parents,’ Ruth told me. ‘I haven’t been exactly popular with Marta but it’s been a tremendous experience for me.

‘Without exception I have been greeted by parents only too pleased to take my call and let me know what they have planned. In fact, many of the parents are relieved to hear from me, sometimes saying that they were getting worried that no one seemed to care.’

Unfortunately, not everyone will have the same experience as Ruth. As I said, contacting parents you do not know and asking them questions about how they are going to host a teenage party can be very difficult, and you might find yourself treading on toes.

Lorraine has two children. She works in the field of health promotion in a regional area so has a good knowledge of the potential harm of teenage drinking. She frequently gives advice to parents about having greater involvement in their children’s lives and monitoring them more effectively. When it came to her own teenage son she thought she had better practise what she preached.

Lorraine’s son was invited to a party and she decided to contact the parents who were hosting the event. She realised that she needed to be careful how she broached the subject, and before she made the call she planned what she would say very carefully.

The call began very positively. Lorraine had decided to ease into the questioning by saying that she had made the call to get directions on how to find the property. This was received very well. The next question—Lorraine asked whether the parents were going to be supervising the party—was answered politely by the other mother. However things took a turn for the worse when Lorraine asked whether there was going to be alcohol supplied.

The woman on the other end of the phone turned on Lorraine. ‘Who the hell are you to ask me that?’ the mother yelled. ‘What’s the matter, lady? Don’t you trust your son enough to let him go to a party?’

The abuse went on for some time. Obviously Lorraine had touched on a sensitive issue. She tried to calm the woman down, but to no avail; she continued to yell, attempting to twist Lorraine’s genuine concern for her son’s safety into a lack of parental trust. Lorraine put the phone down and let her son know that he would definitely not be attending the party.

When you contact a parent to ask them about their party make sure you plan what you are going to say beforehand. Write down the questions you are going to ask and make sure your tone is not confrontational or accusatory.

Some of the questions that you want answered might include the following:

• Will there be adult supervision? Does this mean actual supervision or will there just be adults in the house?

• Who are the adults?

• Will you be providing alcohol?

• What will you be doing about underage drinking?

There are plenty of other questions that you could ask and if you have an existing relationship with the hosts I would strongly advise that you ask them, if only to ensure that they have thought all possible scenarios through. However, if you do not know the parents they could take offence at a complete stranger asking them such questions as:

• How do you plan to deal with uninvited guests?

• Have you registered your party with the local police?

• Have you got plans in case things get out of control?

Some of the ways you could approach the subject when you make the call could include the following:

• ‘My son has just started going to parties and I’m still trying to negotiate my way through setting some ground rules. I’m just calling to find out how you’re dealing with the alcohol issue.’

• ‘Thank you so much for inviting my daughter to the party. We have some basic rules around parties and alcohol that we have developed and we just want some information about what will be happening on the night.’

• ‘I know it can be very difficult to host a party and I really do appreciate that you are offering your home to the young people. We’re considering holding an event in the future, and I’m interested to know what you’re doing about adult supervision and alcohol use?’

It is important to remember that every family is different and that not every parent is going to have the same views as you on the issue of teenagers and alcohol. If they do have a different viewpoint, this phone call is definitely not the time for you to give them a lecture on what you believe is the right way to bring up a child. Thank them for their time, wish them luck for the evening and get off the phone. Getting into a dispute about the right way to hold a teenage party is not necessary. Like Lorraine in the story above, just thank your lucky stars that you did the right thing and have now prevented your child from getting into what you perceive to be a high-risk situation.

As a parent you can only do what you think is right for your child. How other parents raise their children is their business and it really is not your place to become involved in their parenting decisions. This will only change if during the course of your discussion you discover that there are young people at risk of experiencing harm, e.g. physical violence.

It isn’t just what you do before the event that matters. You also need to be prepared for things that could occur during the evening that may also put your child at risk.

Catherine’s daughter Lauren was fifteen years old and had been given permission to go to a party with some of her friends. One of the other mothers had agreed to take them there and it was Catherine’s responsibility to pick them up. They had negotiated a time—eleven thirty—and Lauren left home just after eight. Catherine was extremely surprised to receive a call from her daughter at nine thirty, asking if she could pick the girls up early.

When Catherine asked what was wrong, Lauren told her that the mother of the teenager hosting the party had invited some of her male friends, all in their early thirties. Before long these guys became a little intoxicated and began to hit on the young women. Lauren and her friends had begun to feel uncomfortable and wanted out—and a quick call to her mother ensured a speedy retreat from an unpleasant experience.

Lauren responded in a very mature way to this very difficult situation. Even if you have called the parents before the party and gathered information about adult supervision, do you really know what the standard of supervision will be? Are the adults responsible and can you really entrust your child to people you do not know, particularly when alcohol is present?

Janine’s son Luke was looking forward to one of his first teenage parties. His mother had been very thorough with her explanations about why she was worried about him attending and she had clearly explained the rules she and her husband had come up with around the subject. She would be contacting the parents of the child hosting the party, and if there was alcohol present he would not be allowed to go. If he was to go, one or both of his parents would be dropping him off and picking him up. Luke begrudgingly accepted the ‘terms and conditions’ and the plans were made for the big night.

Janine placed a call to the host parents and asked all of her planned questions. She was happy with the responses. This was a party celebrating a sixteenth birthday party and the parents would not be allowing alcohol in their home. There would be adult supervision and the party would finish at midnight.

On the night Janine arranged to take Luke and three of his friends to the party. It was 8.30 pm and there were already a number of teenagers outside the house. She had compromised and agreed not to take Luke to the door and meet the parents but reiterated to her son that she would be returning to pick him up at 11.30 pm.

At about 10.30 pm Janine received a call from her son. He told her that she would not need to pick him up from the party anymore and asked that when the time came could she pick him and his friends up from another address. Janine’s response was swift and precise. ‘Why did you leave the party when we had explicitly made arrangements for the evening?’ she wanted to know.

Luke’s response amazed her.

Apparently, the party had begun to get out of hand not long after her son had arrived. Gatecrashers, underage drinking and other inappropriate behaviour had led the parents hosting the party to shut it down before it got completely out of control. The music had been turned off and all the teenagers present had been asked to leave. The young people had been left to spill out onto the street and wander away. Luke and his friends made their way to the local golf course and decided to party there.

Janine immediately got into her car to fetch her son. She could not believe that he had been placed in such a dangerous situation by the parents hosting the party.

There is no way that you can be prepared for all of the possible scenarios that may occur when your child attends a teenage party. However, it is vital that you realise that things can go wrong and do your best to outline some possible strategies that could keep your teenager safe in potentially dangerous situations. It is extremely important to discuss these with your child and let them know that, no matter what happens, they can contact you and you will be there for them.

Miriam had a fifteen-year-old daughter, Sarah, who had recently been invited to her first major party, which was being held a few suburbs away. Miriam agreed that her daughter could attend as long as a few basic rules were followed. One of these was that Miriam would drop her at the event and pick her up at the end of the evening, with the end of the evening being midnight. There was to be no alcohol consumed, as Sarah was underage, and, most importantly, if something went wrong, Sarah had to promise to contact her mother immediately.

Sarah agreed to the conditions and in the week leading up to the party Miriam went over and over the rules, particularly the last one. She did not want to get a call from a police station or an emergency department. Sarah’s mother was to be the first port of call. No matter what her daughter got herself into, she wanted her daughter to trust her enough to call her if something went wrong.

On the night of the party, Miriam drove Sarah and a couple of her friends across town, all the way reminding her of her promise to call if she needed to. By this time Sarah appeared well and truly over it. There was no way that she would ever call her mum—that would be social suicide! When they arrived at the party, all seemed calm and the girls got out of the car, excited about the night ahead.

Miriam drove home, stopping briefly at a friend’s house for a debriefing session, and was just pulling into her driveway when her phone rang. It was Sarah. She was crying and quite distressed. Apparently the party had got out of control not long after the girls arrived. A number of cars filled with gatecrashers had pulled up and the atmosphere changed dramatically. The police had been called and Sarah and her friends had realised that this was not the place for them.

Miriam rushed over to the party as fast as she could. Her daughter, now with a much larger group of friends, had arranged to meet her a few doors down from the party. By the time she arrived they were all anxious for a lift to a safer place. What made Miriam feel so fantastic was that she was the parent the girls had decided to call. Her message had got through and she was thrilled at the result.

What this story illustrates quite clearly is the importance of having a strong, positive relationship with your child, one in which they feel they are able to contact you without fear of getting into trouble.

There is a wonderful activity that you can use when setting some rules around parties. I developed it a number of years ago and have used it with many parents and have seen many successful outcomes.

When your child asks to go to a party tell them that you want to negotiate some rules and boundaries and make sure that they understand that you want to work with them on developing these. Find a quiet time, get a large sheet of paper and a pen and sit down with your child. Make sure you are not going to be disturbed. Draw a line down the middle of the piece of paper and ask them to write on one side of the line their ‘wish list’ when it comes to going to a party. I can’t begin to imagine everything your child might say, but I can pretty well guarantee the list will include some of the following:

• I don’t want you to call the parents of the person having the party.

• I don’t want you to drop me off.

• I don’t want you to pick me up.

• I don’t want you anywhere near the party.

• I want to be able to drink alcohol.

• I want to come home on Thursday!

Give them lots of time and make sure they include everything they want, no matter how minute the detail. Once they have finished, take the pen and tell them that you are now going to write down all of the things that you want. Having done this for some time with parents I rarely see parents write anything more than one word—safety.

Now hand the pen back to your child and explain to them that both sides will have to compromise so that each can have as many of the things written on their wish list as possible. I have yet to see this process backfire. In fact, it is quite amazing to see the teenager take the pen and start crossing items off his or her list. Inevitably, you are left with a couple of statements on the child’s side and that is where negotiation comes into play. Now that the child has an understanding of where you are coming from this process is usually much easier and the development of some rules and boundaries that both parties are satisfied with is far less stressful.

Be a parent when it comes to parties, particularly for the first couple of years. Take an interest in where your kids are going and who they will be with, and do a little bit of parenting when it comes to finding out what type of party it will be and whether there will be alcohol present. Make your decision on whether or not they should attend based on good information and involve your child in that decision. Let them know why you made the decision that you did.

Most importantly, when they are at the party continue to be a parent. Make sure you are available to them should they need you. Your child should feel comfortable calling you in any situation, at any time. As a woman I know says to her children at every opportunity, ‘You can call me anytime, anywhere and I will be there to pick you up, no questions asked . . . then!’

• How can I make sure that a party I hold for my teenager doesn’t get out of control?

Holding a party for teenagers, whether it be at your home or somewhere you have hired for the evening, is a huge responsibility. We know young people begin to drink much earlier than they used to and that makes the decision to host a party much more difficult. However, it is important to remember that holding a party can also be a great opportunity for you to strengthen your relationship with your child, get to know their friends and become more involved in their life. However, given all of the negative media attention in this area it is no surprise that many parents opt not to hold parties, fearing that they will inevitably lead to alcohol-fuelled mayhem.

Over the years I have worked with many promoters to help them run dance events at nightclubs or festivals. Although these people often get a lot of bad publicity, in my experience most of them try extremely hard to provide a safe environment for their clientele. They have no choice; they operate under a microscope, with the media keen to pounce on them if they don’t do the right thing. Besides, they would not be allowed to run an event unless they followed some basic rules. This usually involves liquor licensing regulations, a whole range of safety rules involving fire and law-enforcement requirements, security and medical provision. Many of them do much more than the minimum required because they want to do the right thing and look after the people attending their events.

Parents holding a party for teenagers need to think in a similar way. You are providing an environment for a group of young people to get together and have a good time. Things can go wrong. You need to think about all the possible risks and make sure that the party is as safe as possible—for the people coming to the party, your neighbours and, of course, you and your family. But there are no guarantees. No matter what safeguards you put in place there is always the possibility that something could go wrong. However, the greater the planning, the more likely it is that things will run smoothly.

It is also extremely important to involve your child in the planning of the party. You can bet that they will have a long list of requirements for what makes a successful evening and together you will need to make many decisions about a wide range of issues, including the provision of alcohol. As much as it is important to have your child’s input so that the party can be successful, it is also helpful for your child to be aware of all the planning and hard work that needs to be done to ensure that the night turns out well. They are then much more likely to appreciate the efforts that have been made by all involved and work cooperatively to resolve challenging issues.

Joel had asked his parents, Rosemary and Bob, if he could have a party at home for his sixteenth birthday. Both of them were quite worried about the potential risks. They had friends who had held a party for their daughter the previous year and had a great deal of trouble. Underage drinkers, gatecrashers and associated violence had led to the local police being called and the party subsequently closed down. Rosemary and Bob definitely didn’t want a repeat performance but they firmly believed that young people needed to have parties. Their greatest concern was that if they didn’t provide a safe environment for their son and his friends, they would go and party in a public place instead. They agreed to host a party as long as Joel assisted them in the organisation.

They gathered literature on holding a teenage party from a range of agencies, including the Department of Education and the Police Service. They sat with Joel and together they listed all of the things that could go wrong. As you can imagine the list was fairly long and pretty scary. In fact, it was so scary that Joel decided he didn’t want a party after all! He had seen the risks involved and made the decision that having a party was not worth it.

Rosemary and Bob insisted that it was not their intention to try to get Joel to change his mind about a party. In fact, they tried to convince him to reconsider! But Joel was adamant, and in the end he celebrated his birthday by going camping with a few mates instead.

I’m not suggesting that you involve your child in the organisation of a party in order to frighten them into dropping the idea, but this example does show that young people are often unaware of the huge responsibility that goes with hosting such an event. They do need to know that there is a great deal of work that goes into a successful and safe party. As much as your child will benefit from the socialising aspect of attending a party with their friends, they will also learn a great deal by helping to put an event together.

Some of the decisions that should be made with your child include the following.

What food will be available?

Parties need food, particularly if alcohol is going to be served, as it slows down the amount of alcohol people drink. But you need to avoid having too much salty food which could make people thirsty and thus likely to drink more. Your child will know what food is ‘socially acceptable’ to the current generation of young people and will be of great assistance here.

Will alcohol be allowed and who will serve it if it is?

This question is definitely going to be the tough one for most families. If you do make the decision to serve alcohol, how are you going to deal with your underage guests, remembering the legal restrictions that exist in some parts of the country on providing alcohol to minors? If a parent contacts you to ask you about alcohol are you prepared to defend your decision? Does your child understand the risks involved? Are guests going to be able to bring their own and drink as much as they want or will there be someone serving alcohol, monitoring how much people are drinking?

If you decide on an alcohol-free party, how will you handle guests who turn up with alcohol?

Once again, this will be a difficult one for parents and teenage children to negotiate. Your child will not want to be embarrassed by having their parents confiscate alcohol from friends who arrive with a bottle. If you decide to make the party alcohol-free then a solution to this sort of problem needs to be worked out carefully beforehand. Simply turning a guest away from the party is not a good option. You do not know whether the young person has been dropped off at your home by their parent and how they’re getting home—maybe the parents are returning in a few hours. Sending kids off into the night with a bottle of something is irresponsible and dangerous. Discuss this with your teenager and see if you can come up with some ideas for dealing with this problem together.

How will you handle gatecrashers?

Gatecrashers are now a fact of life at teenage parties, particularly if you are providing alcohol. In the age of mobile phones and SMS messaging it doesn’t take long for the word to get out that there is a party happening. Will you be handing out invitations to those people who you want to come or will you have a guest list? Will you be hiring security to manage the party or do you have a couple of burly relatives who can handle a sticky situation? What responsibility will your teenager have in looking after the door, particularly considering that they are more likely to know who was invited and who wasn’t?

What will you do in an emergency?

The best-planned parties can still end up with an emergency of some description. This does not have to be related to alcohol—when a group of people get together, no matter what their age, things can go wrong. Who will take responsibility should something go wrong? Who will compile the list of emergency numbers and where will it be kept? Discuss with your teenager the necessity of registering your party with the local police and why it is so important. When you do register your party, make sure you do it together so that they can see and understand the process.

How will the guests be getting home and what time will the party be finishing?

Unbelievably, this is one aspect of a hosting a teenage party that many parents forget about. It is undoubtedly one of the most difficult to police but it needs to be discussed with your child so that they understand the huge responsibility you have taken on. There is no way that you are able to know how each and every guest attending the party is getting home, but if something happens to any of those young people when they leave your house, particularly if they have been drinking, it would be hard to live with yourself. Stress the importance of having a strict finishing time for the party and advertise that time widely. This will ensure that the guests’ parents are aware that their children will be asked to leave your home at a particular time. Hopefully this will reduce the number of teenagers spilling out onto the street and into the parks and other public spaces in your local area after the party has finished.

But as the saying goes, the best-laid plans of mice and men . . . Sometimes things go wrong even when you have done everything right.

When it came to celebrating her son’s sixteenth birthday, Leonie agreed to hold a party. Her decision was made easier when her neighbour suggested that they hold a joint event, as her son was also celebrating a birthday.

Leonie lived on a large property and her home was spacious enough to host a great party but she knew that she had to do a good deal of organising to make it as safe as possible. There was a lot of discussion about issues such as adult supervision and whether alcohol would be supplied, and it was finally decided that adults (many of the parents of the teenagers attending) would be invited and there would be no underage drinking permitted.

On the evening of the party some of the young people arrived with their parents and it was decided that the adults would stay on one side of the house so the teenagers could have some privacy. However, all partygoers were checked for alcohol before they were allowed in and Leonie and other parents regularly moved through the area, usually on the pretext of supplying more food to the teens.

Things seemed to be going well until Leonie noticed that she couldn’t see several of her son’s friends. She asked some of the others where they were and she was told that they had taken a walk away from the house. She then began to monitor the party a little more closely.

Soon she noticed that young people would take it in turns to go out into the garden in pairs. One of these pairings was of particular concern to Leonie—two fourteen-year-old girls took a trip down to the back of the property and when Leonie followed them she found them taking hefty swigs from a bottle of tequila. She immediately took the bottle and tipped the contents down the sink, but unfortunately it was too late for one of the girls. She was already extremely drunk and getting worse. Leonie had to call the girl’s mother.

Around this time she also noticed that there were a number of young people at the party who hadn’t been invited. Together with some of the other adults present she approached these intruders and asked who had invited them.

‘What’s it to you, lady?’ they responded.

Even though she had arranged to have a number of adults present and had banned alcohol, the night was not going as planned. It didn’t become total chaos but a number of uninvited guests that were difficult to remove, as well as a number of very young drunken teenagers, made it a night that Leonie would rather forget.

Over the years I have met many parents eager to tell me their success stories when it comes to holding teenage parties. Most of these have involved the decision not to serve alcohol to underage teenagers. Once that decision has been made and the young person whose party it is has understood and accepted it, the night usually proceeds without incident. In reality, if alcohol is not permitted and everyone is made well aware of that and it is policed appropriately, gatecrashers are unlikely to turn up and those young people who are only interested in getting drunk will go somewhere else.

I can definitely understand some of the arguments that parents use when they agree to provide alcohol at teenage parties, particularly if they are hosting events for young adults who are close to the legal drinking age. However, many of the arguments put forward simply don’t hold up under scrutiny. Possibly one of the most ridiculous is when parents say that they are providing a ‘safe environment’ in which their teenager can drink and that if they didn’t their child would simply go off and drink somewhere else unsupervised.

I challenge any parent hosting a party where alcohol is being supplied to underage teenagers to prove that they are providing a ‘safe environment’. Even in licensed premises where alcohol is kept behind a bar and strict rules around responsible service govern how it is provided to patrons, it can be extremely difficult for staff to keep track of how much people have been drinking. How, then, can a parent hosting a party really supervise a number of teenagers and ensure that they are drinking responsibly?

You are sending a very strong message to your child when you agree to provide alcohol to minors. Most importantly, you are telling them to ignore the law—alcohol is an illegal drug for those under the age of eighteen. The laws are different across the country, with New South Wales having the strictest laws in this area, but what you are saying to your child when you provide alcohol at an underage party is that although you want them to obey other laws, this one they can ignore!

If you allow your child to drink alcohol in your home with a family meal or even at a family get-together, that is your choice as a parent. But providing alcohol to young people at a party is very different. There are very few parents who want their children to drink alcohol to excess. Almost every parent who gives their teenager alcohol to take to a party or provides it to those attending a party they are hosting does it for the right reasons. Often parents will say to me that they make it very clear to their child that they don’t want them to drink alcohol as they’re handing over the bottles or giving them the money to buy it, somehow thinking that this is going to have some sort of positive outcome. In fact the only message the child picks up is ‘my parents gave me alcohol’. This tacit approval plays an important role in how your child views alcohol.

There is no handbook on how to be the perfect parent, nor is there one on holding an incident-free teenage party. There are definitely some guidelines that you can follow, some of which have been outlined above. Without doubt, the best thing you can do to reduce risk is to make the event alcohol-free. If you believe that this is not an option for your child at their stage of development, make sure you take every precaution to make the party as safe as possible for all concerned.

• Why can’t girls drink as much as boys?

This may seem like some sort of male conspiracy but the truth is that alcohol affects women more than men. Research continues to reveal more and more health risks for women who drink compared to men, and that is why we are so concerned about the increasing number of young women who drink to excess.

Due to their smaller size, body type and the way they absorb and metabolise alcohol, on average women are affected by alcohol more quickly than men and are more vulnerable to the harmful effects. Studies have found that women who drink face a greater risk of developing diseases related to alcohol abuse, such as liver disease, heart disease and cancer (particularly breast cancer), than men who drink similar amounts or even more.

Even though women are less likely than men to drive after drinking and therefore to be involved in fatal alcohol-related car accidents, women have a higher relative risk of driver fatality than men at similar blood alcohol concentrations. That is, they are more likely to have a fatal road accident than a male with the same alcohol levels. Some studies which have found differences in how alcohol affects the performance of males and females when it comes to driving tasks may help to explain this.

Of course, we need to remember that everyone is different and there are always going to be exceptions to the rule, but on average, women achieve higher concentrations of alcohol in the blood and become more impaired than men after drinking the same amount of alcohol.

The public consumption of alcohol by women is a fairly new phenomenon. Women weren’t allowed in public bars in Australia until relatively recently, and now research is indicating that the group of people in our society that are showing the greatest increase in rates of drinking are young women.

It is really no surprise that this is occurring. New products specifically designed for the female market, such as the ‘ready-to-drinks’ (RTDs), have become increasingly popular with this group. For a long time, the barrier to young women drinking was the taste. Alcoholic drinks can be difficult for the young palate to become accustomed to, particularly the strong-tasting spirits such as rum and whisky. With alcohol companies now adding carbonated, sugary soft drink to the mix, that barrier has well and truly been blown away.

Females are also now a key target as far as advertising and marketing is concerned. If I go back to my teenage years I remember that every alcohol advertisement on TV involved a bunch of ‘Aussie blokes’ riding horses and climbing mountains. In those days, advertising was targeting men in their late twenties and early thirties, and the key product they were pushing was beer. Nowadays, the female market is considered a growth area as far as profits are concerned.

If you have a daughter it is important she knows that the risks around alcohol are greater for her than for her male friends. Make sure she knows not to try to keep up with her boyfriend or male siblings or friends, and dissuade girls from buying drinks in rounds when there are males in the group.

• What is a standard drink and why is it important?

We hear more and more about standard drinks these days. A ‘standard drink’ is any drink containing 10 grams of alcohol. One standard drink always contains the same amount of alcohol, regardless of the container size or alcohol type, whether it be beer, wine or a spirit. It is basically a unit of measurement, designed to measure the amount of alcohol consumed.

Instead of counting glasses or containers, drinkers are encouraged to count standard drinks as a much more reliable way of keeping track of how much alcohol they consume, as different containers hold varying amounts of alcohol. In Australia, the number of standard drinks in alcohol is always shown on the label of the container.

A great deal of time is dedicated to teaching young people about standard drinks during school-based drug education lessons dealing with alcohol. Without a doubt most young people have heard about the concept of standard drinks, but how do they really use them?

If I asked you as a parent how you used standard drinks, I could pretty well guarantee that the only way you do would be in relation to driving—that is, how many drinks can you have and still be under the limit? It would be great to hear that most of you actually used them to drink at levels recommended by health authorities, but I very much doubt it!

For most young people, particularly those who are high-risk drinkers, the only use they have for standard drinks is to work out which container of alcohol will get them drunk fastest. Most teenagers have no use for them in relation to driving. Many of them are unable to drive and those that do have licences are not allowed to drive with any alcohol in their systems, so the concept of a standard drink becomes superfluous.

So am I suggesting we scrap the whole standard drink idea? Absolutely not—but I think it is important to recognise that the concept means very little to our young people and has no real use until later in their life, particularly in regard to driving. Even then, there are very few people who use them to ensure that they drink at healthy levels. It needs to be remembered too that the whole concept of counting anything when you’re drinking, whether it be cans or bottles or standard drinks, is extremely difficult and fraught with problems.

• Can you really overdose on alcohol?

We talk so much about illegal drugs like heroin that we often forget that legal drugs such as alcohol cause just as many problems, if not more. One of those problems is overdose.

Overdose means exactly what it says—it occurs when you take ‘over the dose’, or too much of a substance. We tend to think of overdose as meaning that someone has died—what we know as a ‘fatal overdose’—but that is not always the case. Most overdoses do not result in someone’s death.

Alcohol, like any other drug taken in large amounts, can lead to an overdose situation. Binge drinking or ‘drinking to get drunk’ is often the cause for alcohol poisoning. When someone drinks alcohol faster than their liver can metabolise it, the amount of alcohol in the blood rises, sometimes to a danger point. This can lead to an overdose situation. At very high blood alcohol levels, a person loses consciousness and goes into a coma. People do die as a result of alcohol poisoning.

When you hear about someone dying from ‘alcohol poisoning’ it usually means the person has died in one of three ways. The first indicates that the blood alcohol level was so high that the depressant effects of the drug slowed down the parts of the brain and nervous system that control breathing and the heart. Usually the drinker dies because he or she has stopped breathing and the heart has stopped, usually while unconscious.

I was called to a school due to an alcohol-related incident on a school camp. The year ten class had gone to a camp about a two-hour drive from the city. One boy had decided to smuggle a bottle of whisky along. Strangely, he had elected not to drink the whisky while they were away, but instead pulled out the bottle on the bus ride back to school.

Sitting in the back of the bus with four or five of his friends, he decided to play a skolling game. We don’t know the whole story, but we do know that he lost two successive rounds. As a result he had to skol two neat glasses of whisky. The young boy became quite sick and passed out. The rest of the boys ignored him, considering him to be pretty pathetic, passing out after just two glasses.

When they got back to school the teacher ushered the students off the bus. It was then that he noticed the boy lying on the back seat. He asked one of the boy’s friends what was wrong, and was told that the boy was asleep.

The teacher walked to the back of the bus and tried to wake the young man up but he couldn’t—the boy was dead.

The second type of death is one that we unfortunately hear of more and more. While unconscious, the drinker has been sick and choked on his or her own vomit. There are also rare reports of an unconscious drinker choking on his or her own tongue.

Belinda finally convinced her parents to let her have a sixteenth birthday party. She didn’t want an open house; all she wanted was to have a few of her girlfriends around for a sleepover. There was one more request—she and her friends wanted to drink alcohol. After much deliberation (and a great deal of soul-searching) by her parents, they agreed to allow a small amount of alcohol to be served, as long as the parents of the other girls gave their permission.

After permission was granted, Belinda’s parents bought two four-packs of pre-mixed spirits to be drunk between the six girls on the night of the party. With each bottle measuring just over one standard drink, that meant each girl would be drinking about 1.5 standard drinks, an amount Belinda’s parents believed could not cause too much harm.

Unfortunately, the girls thought exactly the same thing. They had managed to find someone to buy extra alcohol and hid it around the house before the party got started. The party was being held in the back room, while Belinda’s parents stayed in the front room, away from the action. With no adult supervision the girls started to drink . . . and drink . . . and drink . . .

As she was the birthday girl, Belinda drank quite a lot more than any of the other girls. In fact, she drank to the point where she passed out. Her friends immediately swung into action. They knew they should do something to keep her safe but unfortunately they were drunk and they got it all wrong.

Of course, what they should have done was call Belinda’s parents, just a room away. However, the girls were scared; they had broken the rules by bringing extra alcohol to the party. They were afraid of getting into trouble so decided to look after Belinda themselves. They had been taught that it is important to put someone into the recovery position, so that is what they did.

They picked Belinda up and put her into the recovery position on her side on a leather couch. However, instead of having her face the front, they put her facing the back of the couch. While she was lying down and unconscious, Belinda vomited. As it was a leather couch, the vomit lay in a pool and was not absorbed into the fabric. When she was sick, Belinda convulsed and her head rolled into the pool and she drowned in her own vomit.

Amazingly the girls did not leave Belinda’s side and had no idea that she had died. As she was facing the back of the couch, music was playing and they were all intoxicated, they did not notice that she had vomited or that her head had rolled into a dangerous position. It was about twenty minutes before they discovered that their friend was dead.

Finally, the alcohol could react with another drug that the person has taken and cause death. This can occur with a prescription drug, an over-the-counter medication or an illegal substance. These deaths are even more unpredictable than the first two types as they can happen even if the person has not drunk a great deal.

The most tragic thing about the two cases I’ve cited above is that neither of those two young people should have died. If one of their friends with them at the time had known what to do, they would still be alive today. No one need die from alcohol poisoning. If those who have overdosed receive medical assistance and are given help to breathe until the alcohol’s effects have worn off, they will survive.

Unfortunately one of the most common responses to alcohol poisoning is to put the person to bed to ‘let them sleep it off ’. Over the years I have been involved with a number of cases where young people have been put to bed and were found dead the next morning. It is important to note here that this does not just happen to young people—adults can die in exactly the same way.

I work with a number of sports groups across the country and know of a death that occurred several years ago while a team was travelling overseas. They had just had a major win and were celebrating as many sporting teams do—with lots of alcohol.

When most of the party returned to the team’s hotel, a small group of the guys decided to kick on. They went to another bar and kept drinking. Eventually one of the blokes from the team’s management collapsed in a drunken stupor. Taking this as a sign to call it a night, the rest of them picked up their mate and carried him back to the hotel. They took him to his room, dropped him on his bed and left him there.

The next morning he didn’t show up for breakfast or for the training session that followed. Calls to his room met with no response. Now more than a little concerned, team officials got the hotel staff to let them into his room. He was exactly where his drinking partners had left him, lying face up on the bed—he had vomited in the night and choked on his own vomit.

An important message to take away from this story is never to put a drunk person to bed without monitoring them carefully. If they do appear to be sober enough to leave alone, make sure they are in a safe position (the ‘recovery position’), lying on their side with their head tilted slightly to help them to breathe more effectively. Put a pillow behind them to prevent them from rolling onto their back during the night.

Although drinking to the point of drunkenness is seen as ‘just something that you do’, an alcohol overdose is very dangerous and it is extremely important that the person affected is looked after. So how do you know if a person is just drunk or suffering from alcohol poisoning? If you see any one of the following signs, you should seek medical help immediately—this is not something you can deal with alone.

• The person is unconscious and can’t be awakened by pinching, prodding or shouting.

• The skin is cold, clammy, pale or bluish or purplish in colour, indicating they are not getting enough oxygen.

• The person is breathing very slowly. If there are more than ten seconds between breaths, this is an emergency.

• The person vomits without waking up.

Remember, people do die from alcohol poisoning. Although alcohol is often seen as a harmless bit of fun, things can go wrong and alcohol poisoning or overdose is a real risk if people drink too much, too quickly.

• How do you get rid of a hangover?

At some stage in their lives, many Australians have experienced waking up the morning after a big night to a spinning room, a violent headache and a rush to the bathroom. Unfortunately, it would appear that this is also a regular occurrence for some of our young people. But what causes a hangover?

The simple answer is, of course, drinking too much alcohol. A hangover is the result of your body experiencing a mild reaction resulting from an overdose of alcohol and certain toxins that are associated with alcohol consumption. Your body attempts to protect itself by producing enzymes to break down and remove the toxins from your body. However, the process does not occur fast enough and the resulting build-up of toxins in your body is believed to be a major cause of hangovers. When the toxin level exceeds your body’s ability to metabolise them in an efficient manner, you experience the unpleasant and classic symptoms of a hangover described above.

Another major cause of a hangover is dehydration. Difficult to believe, particularly when you see how much some people can drink, but as you are drinking alcohol, your body is actually losing fluid. This is due to the diuretic effect of alcohol. Ever noticed how much you urinate when you drink alcohol? While you are losing more fluids than usual, you are also losing important vitamins and nutrients. It is not known how much dehydration contributes to a hangover, but most experts believe it plays a pretty big role, and all agree that at the very least it’s going to exacerbate the symptoms.

Congeners are also believed to contribute to a hangover, particularly in relation to the headache you may experience the morning after. Congeners are toxic chemicals and impurities that are formed during the fermentation process used to make alcohol, with some forms of alcohol having more of them than others. The rule of thumb here is the clearer your drink, the fewer problems you will have the next morning. This is why many people believe that white wines and spirits such as vodka cause fewer hangovers.

Another factor to consider is alcohol’s effect on your quality of sleep. If you haven’t slept well it’s likely to make you feel even more grumpy and tired than you would anyway. When you fall asleep after a big night of drinking, the high levels of alcohol in your system prevent your brain from performing some of its routine tasks, such as managing your sleep pattern. As a result, you’re unable to enter the important REM (Rapid Eye Movement) or dreaming stage of sleep, which is essential if you want a really good night’s rest. Thus apart from toxins, dehydration and congeners, a lack of proper rest is going to add to your discomfort.

So are there any ways to get rid of a hangover?

Although there are many commercial remedies, as well as a whole pile of old wives’ tales, the truth is that there is only one cure—time!

One of those old wives’ tales is ‘a hair of the dog that bit you’. This remedy recommends having a drink the next morning to relieve the effects of alcohol consumed the night before. The hangover victim is supposed to drink the same drink that they drank the night before, although often the preferred beverage is a Bloody Mary. To a point, this may actually be effective. When you wake up with a hangover your body is going through mild withdrawal from an alcohol overdose. Having more alcohol may alleviate some symptoms of the hangover (and a drink like a Bloody Mary contains vitamins your body may be craving), but the effects are only temporary. At some time or another you are going to have to face the hangover—and you might as well get it over with quickly.

So if you can’t get rid of it, how about trying to prevent one from occurring? After all, prevention is better than cure. Of course, the best way to prevent a hangover is not to drink too much, but failing that here are a few guidelines that will make drinking safer for you and your teenager, should they choose to drink:

• Before you go out, eat a good meal. Eating pasta or other carbohydrate-rich foods will fuel the body in preparation for a big night. It will also slow the absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, preventing you getting drunk too fast.

• Make sure the first drink you consume is water or non-alcoholic. You will drink the first drink of the evening much faster than any other if you are thirsty. Use a non-alcoholic drink to quench that thirst.

• Try to rehydrate before you go to bed. Make sure you drink water throughout the evening to space the amount of alcohol you drink, but a couple of glasses before you go to sleep should help prevent the dehydrating effect of alcohol.

• What does it mean if I don’t remember things when I drink?

Sometimes we don’t bother to give our young people information because we believe it’s too obvious. It’s just common sense, we reason. But as I’ve learnt over the years, that’s not always the case.

I couldn’t even tell you how many times I have been asked by students, mostly young women, about ‘blackouts’. Usually the question goes something like: ‘What does it mean if, after drinking a bit, I can’t remember what happened the night before?’ That this question is asked by so many young people quite clearly shows that they don’t know nearly as much as they—or we—think they do.

I still remember the first time I was asked this question, by a girl in the front row of the audience. I asked her to give me a little more information. Did she mean large pieces of the evening or a few minutes, and how much was she drinking when this happened? Her answer floored me—it was usually hours at a time that were lost and she was averaging about six to eight ready-to-drinks every time she drank. This young girl had been extremely fortunate; to her knowledge, nothing bad had happened to her during these memory lapses—but how long was her luck going to hold out?

Jessica was sixteen years old. When I met her she had been drinking regularly for two to three years. She went out every Saturday night with her friends and had never had a significant problem with her drinking until a couple of months before I visited her school.

She had gone out for what she considered a ‘fun night’. She and her friends had pooled their resources and bought a bottle of vodka to share. At some point during the evening, Jessica became separated from her friends. Instead of going home straightaway, instead of calling her mother on her mobile to come and pick her up, instead of making a sensible decision, Jessica decided to stay at the party and continue to drink. Everything was fine until she blacked out.

She remembers nothing until she woke up the next morning in a strange house, in a strange bed, without any underwear on. She got up and moved through the now-empty house. She finally found a phone and next to it were a number of envelopes which all had the same address on them. She quite cleverly worked out that this must be where she was and called a friend to come and pick her up.

When her friend arrived a while later she immediately took Jessica to the emergency department of the local hospital. The staff quickly realised that she needed specialist attention and escorted her to the sexual assault unit where she was assigned a counsellor. An examination was conducted and, when she was given the results some time later—and I need to reiterate that she had no memory of the evening whatsoever—she discovered that she had been sexually assaulted.

Stories involving drinking to excess and sexual assault are not uncommon. A number of young women have told me their stories over the years, each one of them asking me to share their experience with other young people around the country so that others could avoid enduring a similar trauma.

This was never more true than with Libby. This young lady was one of the bravest young women I have ever met and her story illustrates clearly how one night of drinking to excess can change your life forever.

Libby was fifteen years old and had been dating her boyfriend, Paul, for three months. He was two years older than her and went to the same school in a small country town. As was the norm for a Saturday night, they both went to the ‘big party’ that was taking place. It was being held just outside town at a home where there were going to be no adults present, and ‘everyone’ was going to be there.

When they got to the party they both started drinking. One of Paul’s best mates was driving so there were no worries about getting home safely. Libby, as usual, drank to excess, and it wasn’t too long before she was well and truly intoxicated. Then she had a blackout. When she recovered she found herself in the middle of a conversation that appeared totally normal. She had not passed out, she just couldn’t remember anything that had happened in the previous three hours.

Libby regularly experienced blackouts; sometimes they lasted for a few seconds, sometimes for minutes and occasionally for an hour or more. Her friends would often talk about something that she had done during the night of which she had no recollection. She didn’t really worry about them: she believed blackouts were just something that happened when you drank alcohol. She doesn’t have much of a memory of the rest of that Saturday night. She had drunk too much and just wanted to go home.

At school on Monday everything appeared relatively normal, although Libby began to feel that something was going on that she wasn’t privy to. A number of the girls at school were whispering together and when she asked what it was about she was met with silence. It wasn’t until the Wednesday that Libby found out what everyone else knew.

During her blackout on Saturday night Libby had lost her virginity to her boyfriend. Someone at the party had videoed her having sex on a mobile phone and had subsequently posted it on the internet. It wasn’t long before most of the school knew about the video and it quickly became the talk of the town. When Libby and her family found out about it they were able to get the offending video taken off the site on which it had been posted, but by that time it was too late. Many people had already downloaded it, saving it onto their own computers where it would be available forever.

I have been using Libby’s story in schools for some time now and it helps to show the real risks that young people face when they drink to excess. Unfortunately, the major problem with blackouts is that young people regard them as part of the alcohol experience, because no one has ever told them otherwise. When Libby related her story, she said that she had never given her previous blackouts a thought. Her friends all experienced them to some degree, or at least they said they did, and Libby just didn’t know any different.

When young people are informed that blackouts and memory lapses are not ‘normal’ and usually only occur when you have drunk far too much, they are often very surprised. I have no evidence to show that giving this information to the young people I come in contact with changes their behaviour, but at least they are informed and they know the risk they are taking.

Without doubt we talk about this area of blackouts far more often in relation to young women, mainly due to the risk of sexual assault, but it is important to remember that young men can experience harm in this way too.

After hearing my stories about young women and sexual assault during a school presentation one day, a year ten boy named Dean approached me to share his story. He was concerned that I had not raised the issue of young men risking harm when they drank to excess.

Dean, who lived in a beachside suburb of a major city, had gone out with his mates and spent the evening drinking beer. The gang of friends were on a beach and, although Dean hadn’t had too much to drink at this stage, he successfully pushed himself well and truly over the edge when his friends dared him to skol a large soft-drink bottle full of some spirit mix. He emptied the bottle and remembers little that occurred after that.

From what the police were able to piece together in the days after the event, Dean had apparently become quite abusive towards his mates and finally pulled away from the group. An hour later he was seen by another group of young people at another beach, this time shouting out abuse at passers by.

No one knows anything about the next few hours. It was not until the following morning that Dean’s parents were woken by a knock at their front door. When they opened it they found their son lying on the verandah, covered in blood. He was naked apart from a pair of undies, and had been bashed and robbed. Money, clothing and all his personal belongings had been stolen.

Drinking to excess exposes you to a number of risks. Not remembering what happened the night before should be explained to a young person as a warning sign that they are drinking too much. Letting your child know that there are people in this world who may take advantage of this type of situation, whether your child is male or female, is also extremely important. Sexual assault and robbery are just two of the possible outcomes.

• Is the story about ‘breaking the seal’ true? Once I’ve gone to the toilet during the night is that it—I won’t be able to stop?

Over the years I’ve heard a number of different definitions of ‘breaking the seal’. For both young men and women, it is usually the belief that you ‘break the seal’ when you first urinate after you have been drinking alcohol, causing you to have to go to the toilet every ten or fifteen minutes thereafter. (There is also a belief among a core group of high-risk drinking young men that the same principle applies with vomiting during a drinking game or serious drinking session.)

Naomi and her friends enjoyed a night out and none of them drank to excess. However, one night Naomi found herself in a highly embarrassing situation after drinking.

They had all heard of ‘breaking the seal’ and since they did not want to go back and forth to the toilet all evening, they tried to delay their first visit for as long as they could. The trick, they believed, was to hold on for as long as possible—even if it was painful.

Naomi had been partying for a couple of hours and had wanted to go to the toilet for some time, but they were about to travel across town to the next party and she was sure she could make it. But when she got into her friend’s car and relaxed, the floodgates opened—literally! Not only did she wet herself but she managed to wet much of the back seat, as well as some of her friends.

As embarrassing as this situation is, it’s an instructive one; when your body tells you to urinate or vomit, it is usually doing so for a reason. Trying to stop yourself is not only foolish, it could be dangerous.

So why are you able to hold the first few drinks with little problem and after that experience so much difficulty? Have you done something to your bladder, have you broken some magical ‘seal’?

Quite the contrary. Essentially, it has to do with the rising level of alcohol in your bloodstream. After your first couple of drinks your blood alcohol level is still relatively low. However, after that it starts to rise steeply, particularly if you are drinking quickly. Alcohol is a diuretic and affects the hormone that helps your body hold onto water. As a result, the amount of urine you produce increases out of proportion to the amount you drink, and your bladder fills up faster and faster. This is why you get dehydrated despite the fact that you are taking in fluids.

• Should I let my child go to Schoolies Week and is it really as bad as the media paints it?

Schoolies Week has been around in one form or another for a long time. When I finished high school I can remember a range of things that some of my classmates did in the weeks following the last day of exams. Some of them were illegal, others extremely dangerous and the rest just plain stupid.

Since that time, and particularly over the last decade, Schoolies Week, as it has become known, has become bigger and more commercialised and received much more media attention. As a result there is increasing social pressure on young people leaving school to attend Schoolies Week celebrations in one form or another. Community interest has risen also and you can pretty well guarantee that every year crews of TV reporters will descend on the Gold Coast to try to capture the most sensational footage. Without fail they usually manage to find some young people who agree to be interviewed on national television and talk about their alcohol- (or, even better, drug-) fuelled week at Schoolies, thus reinforcing many parents’ belief that it is out of control and without merit.

One of the best things about all the attention is that the promoters of Schoolies events have been forced to up the ante in terms of organisation and must now do their very best to provide a safe environment for the young people attending. You only have to type Schoolies into an internet search engine and it will return hundreds of sites dedicated to providing information to young people and their parents about the events and how to keep safe.

The whole concept behind Schoolies Week is to give young people who have been studying for the past twelve years the opportunity to let their hair down after their final exams. When you think about it, whoever planned secondary school didn’t put a lot of thought into it; at the same time as they leave school, kids learn to drive a car and are legally allowed to start drinking—not a particularly healthy combination!

Over the years I have attended a number of Schoolies Week celebrations and although there have always been incidents, usually linked to excessive alcohol consumption, for the most part I have found the young people to be well behaved and reasonably sensible.

The most concerning aspect of the event is the social pressure on young people attending Schoolies to behave in a certain way. There is an expectation from very early on that all the teenagers going to Schoolies will drink to excess and, as a result, behave badly. The media does a great job of convincing young people that this is the type of behaviour expected of them and, unfortunately, many of them try to live up to it.

Stephen was seventeen years old when he attended Schoolies Week celebrations on the Gold Coast. He was not a big drinker but usually had a couple of beers on a Saturday night when he went to parties in the small country town he lived in.

He and three of his mates had rented an apartment for the week and were well prepared for a week of partying. On the drive up to the Gold Coast, they had spent up big on alcohol—over $1000 on a selection of spirits and beer. None of them had money to burn but they thought that this would last them for the week, with some to spare.

On the first day they met up with a few other friends and invited them over for some drinks before they went to an organised event. That ended up being a costly mistake. What was meant to be a small get-together ended up being a free-for-all, with gatecrashers arriving within the first hour. They not only took all the alcohol, they also stole many of the boys’ personal belongings. The whole party lasted just over 90 minutes before the police were called.

I met Stephen the year after this had occurred. He was volunteering at Schoolies Week this time, and told me that he had learnt one of the most valuable lessons of his life from that event. On reflection, he realised that he and his mates were trying to do what they thought people at Schoolies Week should do, not what they were actually comfortable doing. Spending over $1000 on alcohol made no sense to him now, and trying to hold a party when you didn’t know what you were doing was very risky.

It is important to remember that trying to prevent your son or daughter from attending this type of event could damage the relationship you have with them. Young people attending Schoolies are not in their early teens; they are usually very close to the legal drinking age or, in some cases, have already turned eighteen. They are at an age where they are going to have to make decisions on their own, and trying to prevent them from doing so is not recommended.

Regardless of that, you are still the parent and you are still allowed to voice your concerns about what they are doing and the risks they may encounter. That part of being a parent is never going to stop and you wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t do it.

My advice is to take a moment to sit down with your child and talk through the concerns you have. Then, after you have finished, give them the opportunity to explain how they intend to deal with the potential problems you have raised. What many parents discover during conversations like this is that we have a generation of young people to be proud of, with many of them doing their very best to look after themselves and their friends.

Every time you have a conversation with your child about risky behaviour it needs to end with a reinforcement of the message that you can be called at any time. It doesn’t matter what they have done, you love them unconditionally and you will be there for them. There may be consequences, but that’s down the track; all that’s important in that moment is that they are safe and know that you love them.

One of the saddest things I have ever heard come from a young person’s mouth was at the first Schoolies Week I ever attended. A young girl, heavily intoxicated and having difficulty breathing, had been brought to the medical tent. She was barely conscious and had been found alone in the street. When we asked if there was someone we could call to be with her, her response was a very timid ‘Not my mum!’