Adolescent Substance Abuse Articles

Safely Keeping Alcohol at Home

By Leslie Davis

If you have a teenager at home, especially one who is dealing with a substance abuse problem, keeping alcohol in your house may be a risky proposition.

If your teenager is in treatment for substance abuse, the best thing you can do is keep alcohol out of your house completely to remove temptation. Even teenagers who are in recovery may find it hard to resist open bottles of alcohol in their own home.

Teenagers like to experiment with alcohol, especially when they know they can sneak a few drinks here and there from their parents’ liquor supply without anybody noticing. If you have teenagers, there are a few precautions you should take when keeping alcohol in your home:

• Keep liquor hidden in the back of cabinets or in locked cupboards. This will decrease the chance of your teenagers finding and consuming any alcohol in your home.
• Only buy alcohol as needed. If you typically just buy wine or beer for special occasions, don’t keep stockpiles in your house, which can easily be accessed by your teens.
• If you like to enjoy a glass of wine after work each night, make sure you limit it to a glass each night. If you are frequently indulging in two or more glasses of wine every night, you may be modeling for your teenager that drinking in excess is okay.
• Set consequences with your teenagers so that they know what kind of trouble they will get into if they do raid the liquor cabinet.
• Monitor the alcohol in your home, and keep track of how much is there. If your teenagers know you never look at the bottles you have, they are more likely to take some.
• Don’t serve alcohol to your teenagers or their friends, and don’t try to be their buddy by offering them a drink when you have one. Not only is serving alcohol to a minor illegal, but it can give the message that drinking is okay, whether you are with them or not.
• Teach your teenager about responsible drinking. It is likely that, even if they don’t drink at your house, your teenagers will have access to alcohol at other homes. Teach them how alcohol affects their judgment, and explain the difference between safe consumption and alcohol abuse.

Teenagers Drink

Teenagers often begin experimenting with alcohol out of curiosity, because of peer pressure, or in response to increased stress, family problems or life transitions. In most cases, teenagers won’t develop a substance abuse problem, but drinking among teens can start at an early age:

• In 2008, rates of alcohol use were 3.4 percent among teens ages 12 to 13, 13.1 percent among teens 14 to 15 and 26.2 percent among teens 16 to 17, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
• Among those age groups, the rates of binge drinking were 1.5 percent, 6.9 percent and 17.2 percent, respectively.
• That same year, about 10 million people aged 12 to 20 reported drinking alcohol in the past month.
• A majority of underage drinkers in 2008 reported that their last use of alcohol in the past month occurred either in someone else’s home (56.2 percent) or their own home (29.6 percent).

Given these statistics, don’t be surprised to discover that your teenagers have tried alcohol. Let them know they can talk to you about any questions they have regarding alcohol, and that they can call you if they are at a party and feel uncomfortable or if they don’t feel safe driving home because they had a little more than they should.

When Drinking Becomes a Problem

For some teenagers, alcohol will become an addiction, and not one that is necessarily easy to spot. To determine if your teenager has a drinking problem, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommends keeping an eye out for the following signs:

• Mood changes, including flare-ups of temper, irritability and defensiveness.
• Problems at school, such as poor attendance, low grades and/or recent disciplinary action.
• Rebelling against family rules.
• Switching friends, along with a reluctance to have you get to know any new friends.
• A “nothing matters” attitude that results in a sloppy appearance, lack of involvement in former interests and general low energy.
• Finding alcohol in your teen’s room or backpack, or smelling alcohol on his or her breath.
• Physical or mental problems, including memory lapses, poor concentration, bloodshot eyes, lack of coordination or slurred speech.

Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

Recognizing your teenagers have a problem is the first step to treating their alcohol addiction. The next is deciding what type of adolescent substance abuse treatment will work best for your teens: outpatient therapy, a therapeutic boarding school, a wilderness program or another type of alcohol addiction treatment.

Wilderness programs such as SUWS in Idaho and adolescent residential treatment centers such as Island View in Utah provide teenagers with supportive environments in which to overcome their psychological and physical addictions to alcohol. Adolescent treatment programs such as these provide individual therapy, support groups, 12-Step recovery and relapse prevention plans to ensure that teens overcome their alcohol addiction and don’t continue their behaviors into adulthood.

One important aspect of these programs is getting parents and other family members involved to address any negative behaviors that may be causing your teenagers to drink. If you are suffering from an alcohol addiction yourself, consider that your teenagers may be mirroring your drinking. Don’t let your own substance abuse model behavior for your children – seek alcohol rehab to help both you and your family fully recover from substance abuse.