Adapted from material prepared by Family Help, a program of the Self Help Addiction Resource Centre.

• Alcohol peps you up
• Binging is a boy thing
• Alcohol is a safe drug because it's legal
• At least alcohol is safer than other drugs
• Teenagers are going to drink anyway - it's a rite of passage
• It's okay as long as they don't drive. Most teen alcohol-related deaths are from drinking and driving
• Teaching young people how to drink will stop them becoming problem drinkers
• Only alcoholics have alcohol related health problems
• Blackouts are the same as passing out

Myth: Alcohol peps you up

Alcohol is a depressant drug, not a stimulant. It slows down the activity in the central nervous system, including the brain. Depressants affect concentration and coordination, and slow the response time to unexpected situations.

(Australian Drug Foundation,2002)

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Myth: Binging is a boy thing

Today’s girls match the boys in careers and sport and they are also matching the boys drink for drink. Traditionally, young girls didn’t like the sour taste of beer but beverage manufacturers have come up with a solution:

• the development of ‘starter drinks’ for young girls, which are sweet, aerated and dangerous, ‘alco pops’.

Alco pops are marketed as fun, sexy and cool as if they are less risky to drink, but their health and safety consequences are anything but sexy or cool. Because of female physiology, young teenage girls (14 -16 years of age) experience greater impairment from alcohol and encounter alcohol-related problems faster, including brain damage, cancer, cardiac complications and other medical disorders.

Key findings in a recent Australian medical study¹

• approximately one-third of teenage girls aged 14 -16 report having tried alco pops, and one out of six has done so in the past six months
• for teenagers that have had alcoholic drinks in the past six months, girls drank more in all categories (beer, wine, alco pops and hard-liquor drinks) than boys
• nearly one in six teenage (14 to 16) girls who have drunk alco pops in the past six months have been sexually active after drinking
• one out of five teenage girls under the legal age who have tried alco pops have thrown up, or passed out, from drinking
• young people whose last drink was an alco pop report getting drunk more often than people drinking any other alcoholic beverage. This indicates that alco pops may be a specific risk factor for binge drinking among young people. Young people also report widespread concern for their friends about the unsafe level of consumption of these products

1 The Australian Division of General Practice – December 2003 ‘Alco pops and youth binge drinking’

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Myth: Alcohol is a safe drug because it’s legal

One young Australian aged between 14 and 17 years of age dies every week as a direct result of alcohol.²

2 National Alcohol Indicators Bulletin No 7 November 2004 ‘Underage drinking among 14-17 year olds and related harm’ Curtin University of technology

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Myth: At least alcohol is safer than other drugs

Alcohol kills 6.5 times more youth than all other illegal drugs combined.

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Myth: Teenagers are going to drink anyway - it’s a rite of passage

Contrary to popular belief, most kids don’t drink. Research shows that believing that ‘everybody’s doing it’ actually makes young people more likely to drink alcohol. On the other hand, when these misperceptions are corrected, and kids realise that ‘NOT everybody’s doing it,’ they are less likely to drink alcohol.

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Myth: It’s okay as long as they don’t drive. Most teen alcohol-related deaths are from drinking and driving

The drink-don’t-drive campaign is great, but the down side is that it seems to imply it is OK to drink larger quantities/binge as long as you don’t drive. Only one-third of underage drinking deaths involve traffic accidents. The remaining two-thirds involve alcohol poisoning, homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries such as burns, drowning and falls.

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Myth: Teaching young people how to drink will stop them becoming problem drinkers

Young people who begin drinking before age 17 are twice as likely to develop alcohol dependence as those who begin drinking at age 21. Those who begin by age 15 are more than four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence.

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Myth: Only alcoholics have alcohol related health problems

Alcohol affects everybody, occasional drinkers, binge drinkers, as well as alcoholics. Young people binging can suffer from fatty liver, weight gain, teeth problems (especially related to the sweet mixer drinks such as alco pops) and skin problems.

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Myth: Blackouts are the same as passing out

During a blackout, young people under the influence of alcohol are fully active.When they are passed out they are unconscious, inert. Blackouts can occur frequently among social drinkers, including young drinkers.While often confused with passing out or losing consciousness after excessive drinking, blackouts do not involve a loss of consciousness. Young people can engage in a wide range of often complicated behaviours during blackouts, from driving cars to having sexual intercourse, getting into a fight, damaging property, but unfortunately have no memory of it the next morning. Memory loss is caused by drinking large amounts of alcohol quickly. The liver cannot process it fast enough so it diverts it to the brain through the bloodstream. The alcohol causes a breakdown in the brain’s capacity to take short term memory and store it in the long term memory bank. This is the reason why, after a blackout, you do not remember the previous night.

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