Drinking with the Kids (updated)

Not too long ago I posted a rant about how I believe putting alcohol on a pedestal encourages its abuse. I also said parents should be allowed to drink with their kids and model responsible drinking habits. Last month TIME published an article on this topic. Here's a couple quotes:

"A few years ago, a team of North Carolina researchers, led by public-health professor Kristie Long Foley, examined whether adults' approval or disapproval mattered when adolescents were deciding whether and how much to drink. Foley's team analyzed surveys of more than 6,000 people ages 16 to 20 in 242 U.S. communities. One predictable finding: kids whose parents gave them alcohol for parties were more likely to binge-drink. That discovery underscored years of research showing that the earlier people start to drink, the more likely they are to become alcoholics.
But another result was surprising: if kids actually drank with their parents, they were about half as likely to say they had drunk alcohol in the past month and about one-third as likely to say they had had five or more drinks in a row in the previous two weeks. As Foley and her colleagues wrote in a 2004 Journal of Adolescent Health paper, "Drinking with parents appears to have a protective effect on general drinking trends."'

"Kids from the Southern European countries of the Romance languages--France, Romania, Italy, Spain and Portugal--get drunk at about the same rate as American teens (or slightly less often) even though a typical kid in these countries can buy wine or beer in any shop from early adolescence. The Southern European model of moderate, supervised drinking within families seems to be the most promising approach, on the basis of the North Carolina study. Italy and Spain report very low rates of alcohol dependence or abuse (less than 1% and 2.8%, respectively) compared with the U.S., where the rate is 7.8%, slightly lower than France's 8.7%. (All the figures are from the World Health Organization.)"

Drinking on the Sabbath

I listened to this story yesterday on Marketplace. Georgia is one of the few states that has leftover prohibition laws on buying alcohol on Sundays. The governor is against repealing the law saying that: "Six days is plenty to gather up. We've got refrigerators. You've got different places to store. I think we need a little relief on Sunday." Another Georgia citizen says that repealing the law is further chipping away at the sabbath.

I'm sorry-- actually no I'm not-- but this drives me bonkers. Firstly, Sunday IS NOT the sabbath!! To make one specific day of the week THE sabbath misses the point of the sabbath! But unfortunately missing the point is nothing new to many Christians in America. There's nothing magical about Sunday, yet in the minds of many there is. This is nothing more than superstition and it has nothing to do with Christianity or Jesus or God. And if Sunday is sacred to these people then fine, but don't enforce laws on the rest of the citizenry to abide by certain restrictions on YOUR special day! American IS NOT a Christians nation!

Secondly, I would argue, that the tremendous stigma that so many people, Christians or not, place on alcohol is part of the reason it's abused. Alcohol IS NOT evil, it's ABUSE is! And the more you tell kids, "no, no, no you can't drink till this specific age" the more kids are going to want to drink. And thanks to this law, the age of 21 is the sacred day when the birthday boy or girl goes out with the intent on getting as shit-faced as humanly possible! Quit putting alcohol on this pedestal and maybe, just maybe we might see less abuse. Parents should model responsible drinking habits for kids. And maybe if we were more like Europe in this area, and kids started drinking when they were 12, it would be no big deal and wouldn't lead to abuse.