Catalina Foothills High School is notorious for being the rich kid druggy school of Tucson. Students smoke marijuana, sneak heroin into bathrooms, and come to school drunk or hung-over from wild parties thrown in mansions when parents are out of town. The statements above are all exaggerations, of course, blown out of proportion by bad press. But there is some truth in them. I’ve heard freshman girls talk about trying a cigarette or another drug in the locker rooms and bathrooms, in the tutoring Nest where more girls whisper about partying with upperclassmen in Mexico and getting trashed. Trashed, plastered, hammered, are all words associated with alcohol. Sometimes I think to myself, if drinking makes you pass out or lose total control, jump out windows, and gives you a killer hangover the next morning, what’s so great about it? Why do people get drunk at parties at all?
I only party with a close knit group of friends, and my parents always ask me how I know them, just to make sure they have an idea of who I’m hanging out with. The only exceptions are the ones thrown by a friend which are the more stereotypical dance parties in the aforementioned mansions but with parental supervision and strictly nonalcoholic beverages, karaoke, air hockey, and people throwing each other into pools, with enough of the same friends to be having a great time while meeting new people. Most smaller parties I’ve gone to involve baking or potlucks and games like Catchphrase, Scrabble, Set, and Cranium, (which are insanely fun games to play in a large group), and movie marathon parties involving Disney classics and singing. Forgive me if that sounds a bit girly, but I am a girl who hangs out with a mostly girls group, and we have incredible, alcohol-free fun at birthdays, on Halloween, and on weekend get-togethers. Thus, the most important factor in my personal non-alcoholism is the fact that alcohol is not essential for fun, and in many cases, ruins it.
It helped that my parents raised me with a completely hands-off, zero tolerance approach to alcohol. I viewed it as something reserved for adults, something for celebration, not to induce drunkenness, and I was content to wait until I was much older to try it. My parents and I had no conversations whatsoever about alcohol, because the unspoken expectation loomed over my head from childhood that I was to stay out of trouble. It came naturally that my interests, in school and books, music and fantasy, fell right in with other children who stayed out of alcohol or drug use. Curiosity to taste alcohol only hit when alcohol became a hype in High School. I tasted red wine and it was so bitter and burning I couldn’t understand why people even drank it. My knowledge of science only lead me to reject it further; ethanol, fueling cars, ethanol, sterilizing lab equipment; ethanol, bathing and blackening your liver…what’s so great about fermented grain and grapes sweetened with fruit juice flavoring? Plain fruit juice, 100% natural, certainly tastes better alone.
Parents are important. The crowd you hang around with is also important. But sometimes, avoiding alcohol just takes a little common sense. A party you’re too drunk to remember is not a fun party; real parties have great games, dancing, and even better food; who needs the alcohol?
--Alice, Tucson--