Chapter 3: Teens, Drinking and Drugs

Alcohol has always scared me.  I come from a family of “heavy drinkers” and at first I followed in their foolish footsteps. I can remember a few times in my life where alcohol and I created some ridiculous scenes.  But alcohol is really dangerous.  It is the single most consistent element in teenage accidents, crime sprees and rape.  You don’t want your kids messing with alcohol.  And of course, they will.  And this will worry you.  And it should.

We have a very good method for curbing the problem in our household.  It’s called “setting a good example.”  I know, I know, it sounds like poppycock to most people, but it has a tremendous effect. You may not be able to control a child’s behavior outside your realm but you can sure influence it.  They may not even seem to be heeding it right away.  This may mean that you may have an uphill conflict for several years.  But ultimately, they will know what is right and they will do what is right because they know what it looks like. 

Setting a good example was not easy for me.  I had come, as I have said, from a family that used alcohol to excess.  It was not uncommon for a member of our family to drive us home drunk from a family party. I can remember being in a packed station wagon full of kids with an adult male of our family driving down the highway.  He was crashing into the median barrier over and over again because he did not have control of his senses and therefore did not have control of his car.  But he did have a harrowing control of our lives.  It was like riding a roller coaster without the protective lap bar.  For two hours I lived in constant fear for my life and for the lives of all those I loved.  I still shudder to think I made it through that horrible night.

There were plenty of family quarrels and rifts that I strongly believe were the result of too much drink and not enough self-control. In high school, a boy I knew peeled out onto the highway and lost control of his car and went smashing head-on into a wall of rock. He had been drinking. In the high school our children went to, it became a common Saturday night entertainment to race the strip of highway just before one of the major exits.  They would be loaded with drink and the cars would be loaded with drunken boys eager to win or die.  Many died.  So many that the state law for driving as a teenager was radically changed and now teens must begin with six months of driving with a parent, then six months of driving with an adult person in the car before they can take responsibility of driving on their own.  In our areas police carefully watch the time of day, too. Night drivers are pulled over much more easily.  And as a result, a lot more kids are spending nights in juvenile hall.  No kid needs that.  No parent needs it either.

In our house, without being too self-righteous about it, adults try to act sensibly and responsibly.  I entertain a lot and try to make sure my guests have the full tea and dessert course before they go out into the night.  We have many beds and guests are always welcome to sleep over.  But more to the point there is my personal example that is most expressive.   When my daughter was 14, I decided I had best get on it.

Gina was new to high school and was of course, into trying every social gathering there was.  She joined the drama troupe. She helped with the Homecoming float.  She tried different clubs, she ran for the track team for a while.  And she went to every party she could.  Early in her freshman year, at one party in a remote town near the regional high school, she witnessed friends of hers getting completely drunk in the first part of the night and then spending the rest of the night vomiting into the bushes outside the dance hall.  It was a shock to Gina.  She was the Florence Nightingale of the evening, cleaning people up, getting them into cars with safe drivers and seeing they went on home.  She told me about the incident and said she thought it was the amount of alcohol, not drinking per se, that was the problem.  I don’t believe that 14 year olds, of any stripe, should be drinking alcohol and I realized that abstinence in this area was something I needed to require of her.  And the best way to require her commitment to such abstaining would be to abstain with her.

I announced the regimen early in the school year, right after this horrendous party at the town dance hall.  I would make Gina a deal.  I would not drink, smoke cigarettes or indulge in marijuana for one year, if she would do the same. I’ve never been a cigarette smoker so that was no big deal.  And marijuana is not hard for me to stay clear of. But it was the commitment to staying clear of alcohol that made it an amazingly tough year for me.  I had developed habit of using one glass a night of Chardonnay to help me through the rigors of preparing the family dinner, sitting through that dinner with my marriage shattering around me and cleaning up, helping with homework and doing bath time.  The wine made the rigors of the nighttime dinner table squabbles, and the organizing of washing up of kids and dishes bearable for me.  When I quit the wine, my only indulgence, I really was left to face those “witching hours” without any kind of crutch. For 30 days I missed that white wine stabilizer like a junkie might miss a fix.  I thought about it some part of every hour of every day.  I substituted juices and teas.  I created easier meals. I insisted on help from my spouse.  But every day, no matter how I altered the situation around me, at 5 o’clock, I still thought about and craved that wine.

And then I didn’t think about it anymore.  They say you can break a habit in 30 days.  And I am here to prove it.  At the end of the month, I no longer longed for the wine.  I knew my marriage was in trouble. Because I could focus on the parts of my family life that mattered without being addled by the wine, I could help make the dinner hour at least more bearable.  My daughter noticed my commitment and claimed her own commitment to her part of the bargain. She stayed sane and sober and so did I.   When the year was up, someone offered me a beer at a celebration and the first sip nearly knocked me out, the alcohol so overpowered me.  I couldn’t drink any more.  I had a class of water, and an hour later, I drove home.

 Since then, I’ve had a great respect for alcohol and I believe my daughter has too.  It is so clearly a depressant, meant to knock out the part of your brain that is whirling too fast and maybe a little too unhappily. But it keeps us from doing anything about that whirling painful part.  You cannot focus on you interior life. And when you cannot focus in, you cannot focus outward so well either.  When you are hiding the trouble, the trouble is always with you.

But you are an adult.  You know this already.  The point of my story is that Gina went through high school alcohol and drug free.  She was still hip, all right.  Much admired, very popular.  So she made it hip to be clear of those things she thought would do her no good.  When Gina said, “no, thanks” she meant it.  In college she created a female party group that used to walk to local parties and walk back.  There’s safety in numbers, for sure, so they took good care of each other that way.  But they also watched out for each other’s party intake, too.  It helps when you’re young to have someone tell you, “You have enough, we’re taking you home.”  Eventually you don’t need other people to tell you, you know.  And that’s a big step toward adulthood.

The next thing we do, after teaching abstention, is teaching moderation. When young people are sixteen or so in our house, usually around the Easter feast, we offer them a half glass of some good wine.  We might give a few instructions about sipping it, feeling the flavor in our mouths, etc.  But in general, it’s a special time ushering the young person into the ritual of drink.  It is meant to heighten the pleasure of a meal and meant to be taken in small measure.  Kids get it.

But in general, unless it is under the most highly special circumstances, your teen should not be drinking.  And you need to be especially careful that their visiting friends don’t drink in your home, either.  Make your home welcoming without alcohol.  Invite kids in and then clear out for a bit, coming in periodically just to poke your head in.  Go read a book in the back bedroom or the back yard.  Let them know they are free to have their privacy but also give them a sense of yourself as a withdrawn, but still very available, presence. Have games out on the coffee table: Jenga, Monopoly, Backgammon, a deck of cards.

 Then make sure there are pretzels or chips and some cold non-alcoholic drinks on hand.  Make clear to your teenager that you don’t want drinking going on in the house.  Explain to them the dangers of drinking and driving. Let them know that you and they are responsible if anyone does drink at your house and then leaves and gets hurt.  In most states your household can be named as liable for any accident that happens once your guest leaves the house.  Heady stuff.  Real stuff, to consider.

To make it clear to your teen that you are serious, have a talk with them about it before people start coming over.  It is good to renew this talk every year or twice a year until they move out and get their own place.  It doesn’t have to be much. Simply:

“I know you’re going to be having friends over and that’s great.  There are snacks in the closet and I put some cold drinks in the fridge.  I’ll be around but out of your way.  Just keep in mind I don’t want any drinking in the house.  I don’t want any one bringing any alcohol in and I don’t want them using any of the stuff that’s here.   Are we cool?’

The kid of course says yes, because all kids know that this is the best approach in such a situation.  You get rid of the conversation and your parent in one fell swoop.  If you argue, the teen realizes, you will lose and you will create a suspicious atmosphere that will mean your parent is always on you.  Just say yes.

Okay, so now you have been clear about the gathering and the alcohol and your presence.  At some point, one of these days or evenings, someone who does not know the rules, or who is there to break the rules, will appear with a bottle of liquor or a six pack of beer.   It is at this point that you must make a scene.  Yes, I said a scene.  Very low-keyed, so it gets the message across privately to the miscreants, but is subtle quietly done that does not end the party.  Something like this:

“Max, can I see you for just a sec.”  Max comes into the kitchen or study or wherever you have chosen.

“Someone brought liquor into this house.  I am confiscating the bottles and I want you to inform them and the others that there is no drinking in this house.  If I find out there is more liquor here, I’m calling the police.  Got it?”

“Got it.”   Your son or daughter goes out and quietly tells the third party what had been said and warns this party about making their own, larger scene.  If they are miffed, the guest can always come to you and in private you can tell him the same thing you just told your teen.  It usually works.

Kids want action.  If it looks like there is no action here, they will go where there is more action.  The movies, another party, bowling, rock climbing, whatever.  Don’t be surprised if they leave your house an hour or so after they have just arrived.  It is in the nature of teenage-hood to prowl.  That’s fine.  Just as long as you haven’t abetted the drinking portion of their prowling.

One more thing, the safest protection against your kid not becoming a drunk is for you not to be one, as we have said.  The next safest protection is for your kid to be surround by friends who are genuine friends – kids who do things, who have interesting lives, who can develop important conversations.  Encourage your young person in the search for good friends.  When someone stops by, engage them in conversation yourself.  Find out what the friend thinks, where they’ve been, what their family is like.  Offer details about yourself and your life that might interest them.  Remember they are people and if you show the least respectful interest in the music they like, the clothes they wear, the movies they see, you can have a real conversation with a real kid yourself.  Then, later, be sure to compliment your teen on something good you find in the friend.  “Logan’s neat he knows a lot about tea from working in that grocery store.”  Or “Jessica is so funny, she imitates sounds so well, it is amazing.” 

When a teenager’s friend enters your house and you are there, have your teen bring them to you to greet you.  By the same token, when the teen leaves, if you wish them to come by again, let them know you have enjoyed their visit and they would be welcome back again.  Kids take these final words seriously and they will come back again.  Even if you don’t have booze to offer them.

Drugs are a slightly different story.  But only slightly.  Most kids in high school will experiment with marijuana. As a parent who grew up in the 60’s I had a very laissez-faire attitude toward marijuana.  I had been stoned quite often as a teen and so I had a lot of guilt about ordering my son away from it.  It wasn’t until he came to a family party wrecked, that I noticed how upsetting it was relating to a person who was incapacitating a good part of his brain. 

I must tell you that Max had an enviable mind.  A talented actor, director, playwright in high school he also excelled in mathematics.  But he was not meant for the job in the office with the desk near the water cooler.  He made this quite clear when he was hardly 14.  Never one to go along to get along with school leadership, he formed his own path.  He took math classes at the local community college.  He became the Technical Director as well as the chief actor in his school’s excellent theater department.  He announced that he would do high school his way.  He would take only drama and math; he would read all the history and literature that filled the shelves of him father’s house and mine and at 18 he would take his High School General Education Development Test and go on from there.  College? He wasn’t interested.  He wanted to go straight into the work world. I was nervous, and yet in the areas that he loved, he shone.  My son was sure of his path.  He was taking it. 

At the end of high school, loaded with awards and praise for his work in the theater, Max found out about a program with the California Shakespeare Festival where he would be trained as stage electrician.  I helped him get into it and to travel the great distances it took for him to get to this new work.  At the end of six months, he took his GED and around that time finished his work with the Festival.  He applied for jobs in theaters in San Francisco and got work at The Magic and ACT and Teatro Zinzanni.  He gained a reputation for being capable and knowledgeable.  He was also spending his evenings getting drunk and stoned with 35 and 45-year-old men.

This terrific, gifted, bright young star, was in danger of becoming a wastrel. He was holing up in my garage in a makeshift bed where he would stumble home to pass out.   As much as I tried to reason with him and point him in a new direction, I could see it was doing no good. I realized after several mornings of watching him bleary-eyed and unfocused hobble to the john, that my son was in trouble. I had to face him down. We fought every night for three nights in a row. I said I wanted him to make his way in the world not ruin himself with drugs and booze and stumble home to sleep on a naked cot.  He said he would go live with other buddies in the neighborhood.  I tried to explain to him that it was time to find a path into the world.  He said he was doing fine.  He liked his life.  I saw him sinking into an abyss.  I had never had such terrible nights in all the 18 years of raising him.  I was frantic.

I sat myself down in the dark of the last quarrel’s sickening aftermath and pondered.  This couldn’t go on.  We were getting nowhere.  We were stuck in a whirl of negativity.  We needed some positive energy.   When faced with the world’s giant “No” I always go searching for the “Yes.”  I wracked my brain. What could change this banging of heads, this litany of disagreeable phrases we were now repeating to each other over and over again?  What positive solution was there that would give us both what we wanted?  What was something that Max would want more than a dissolute life of smoking dope and hanging out with roust-abouts?  It came to me gradually in the night and by morning I was ready for the summary conversation.

“Max,” I said when I sat down at the kitchen table late in the morning. “If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”  He thought but a second when I answered him.

“Thailand,” He said.

“Good enough,” I said.  “Pack your bags.  You are leaving in a week. I’ll purchase you a round trip ticket today. You’ll be gone for a month --- 30 days.  You’ll pay for your 30 days there out of your own money.”

“I’m not ready to go in a week!” He protested.

“You’re going,” I said. 

And so he did.   A week later I drove him to San Francisco Airport and said good-bye.  He flew away.  A month later, after traveling, rock climbing, swimming, he had found a job as a bar tender.  He lived in a room over the bar.  He was still only 18.  Two Americans came into the bar while Max was bar tending.  The man was in his 30’s; the woman was about 50.  The terrible tsunami had happened and they wondered if Max wanted to go with them to a relief camp to build new housing there.  Max agreed to go with them.  They drove the length of the peninsula to a little village where a thousand people were sleeping in a field on newspapers.  There was a team of carpenters from the US, Canada, Italy and Germany working furiously with the villagers to build new housing.  Max had lots of experience building things from his theater work and  so he set to the job with a team of older men with alacrity.  He loved it.  He emailed me he was staying another month.