Substance abuse expert Jessica Lahey rolls her eyes when parents justify underage drinking by arguing that in most European countries, the legal age is 18 and drinking starts younger.
“That attitude, unfortunately, increases your child’s risk of developing a substance use disorder over their lifetime," Lahey, author of “Addiction Inoculation,” tells TODAY.com. "People hold up Europe as the gold standard — as the place where kids are moderate with their alcohol consumption. But it's a myth."
According to the World Health Organization, European teens ages 15 to 19 report higher levels of binge drinking than those in the United States, where the legal drinking age is 21.
What's wrong with early drinking
"You might think, ‘Oh, letting them have wine at dinner teaches them to drink responsibly. Or you might say, ‘Kids are gonna drink anyway, it might as well be at home, where they’re safe,” Lahey says. “Studies show — and again, there is data for this — that parents who say, ‘No, you can’t drink until it’s legal for you’ have kids with much lower levels of substance abuse disorder."
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) found that early drinking — not including little sips and tastes — is linked to a higher lifetime alcoholism risk.
”If a kid has their first beer in eighth grade, they’re going to have somewhere a little below a 50% chance of developing a substance use disorder over their lifetime,” Lahey says. “If they have alcohol in 10th grade, it’s halved. If they can make it till 18, we can get the risk down to what it is in the general population, somewhere around 10%.”
Alcohol and brain development
It’s important to note that a child’s brain continues to develop until their early twenties.
“Until that time, it’s exquisitely sensitive to the environment,” Lahey says. “Alcohol messes with the dopamine cycle, and various chemicals in the brain. The stuff that needs to go on in terms of cognitive development can get really tripped up by anything that interferes with the neurotransmitters.”
Lahey, who teaches in an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab in Stowe, Vermont, notes that some kids are more at risk than others. Lahey is the child of a recovering alcoholic, and a recovering alcoholic herself. She got sober in 2013 at age 43.
“If your family is filled with people with a substance use disorder, you know there’s a little bit of urgency here. You want to talk to them about their real-life risk for substance abuse disorder, and what the difference between use and misuse feels like,” she says. “You want to be honest about risk factors and what can happen — because if you keep that from them, they don’t get the full picture.”
Modeling alcohol use
You also want to model responsible alcohol use for your kids, as it’s been proven that they’re more likely to do what we do, and not just listen to what we say.
“For example, if we’re modeling for them that our go-to for managing emotions and numbing emotions, or dealing with stress, is to drink, then they’re going to see that as the most logical equation,” Lahey says. “We need to be really careful about our messaging. If you come home from work and you're like, 'I had the worst day, I really need a drink,' know that they're watching."
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