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Underage Drinking: Things Have Changed

By Len Anthony  ||  When I was a teenage young man in the late 1970s, there was alcohol, girls and drugs.  The legal age for purchasing and consuming beer was eighteen, for liquor it was 21.  As a result, we mostly drank beer. Most of us tasted our first beer…

len anthonyBy Len Anthony  ||  When I was a teenage young man in the late 1970s, there was alcohol, girls and drugs.  The legal age for purchasing and consuming beer was eighteen, for liquor it was 21.  As a result, we mostly drank beer. Most of us tasted our first beer when we were sixteen or seventeen.

My friends and I did most of our drinking in conjunction with pursuing girls.  We never drank for the sole purpose of getting drunk, rather drinking was done as part of some other social activity.  If someone drank until they vomited they were either a novice (who made the standard prayer: God if you will just stop the puking, I promise I will never drink again), or a “light weight.”

Drinking to the point of vomiting was not a badge of honor.  Regarding drugs, the only drug anyone I knew used was marijuana.  From high school through college, none of my friends were killed or injured due to the consumption of drugs or alcohol.  In fact, to this day, I do not know anyone who died from anything other than natural causes.

Fast forward to teenage young men today and I see the magnificent three are still present: alcohol, drugs and girls.  But the treatment of all three seems to have changed substantially.  When teenage and early college young men drink today the goal often seems to be, as Jimmy Buffett would describe it, to become “commode hugging” drunk.  Vomiting is probably not the intended result, but it is an acceptable risk associated with becoming extremely inebriated.  Sometimes the reason for getting knee walking drunk is what is known as “pre-gaming.”  Because the lawful age for consumption of any alcohol is 21, underage drinkers planning to attend a football game, party, concert, etc. believe they need to become so drunk before the event that they will remain drunk through the event.  Getting drunk enough to stay drunk for several hours without supplemental alcohol will often produce “commode hugging.”

The changes involving women are more extreme.  It appears that young men no longer pursue women because women come to them.  Dating seems to be passé.  “Hooking up” is the rule of today.  While the term “hooking up” has many definitions, including sex, at a minimum, it means the girls go to the boys.

Turning to drugs, the use of marijuana is pervasive.  The use of cocaine is not unusual and heroin is growing in popularity.  While not an illegal drug, a large number of high school and college students are on Adderall.  Regarding grass, the argument made is that everyone smokes grass, it is not as harmful as alcohol, several United States Presidents have admitted to its use, and at least local law enforcement does not care.

(A bit of humor, California Governor “Moonbeam” Jerry Brown recently said: “How many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation?”)

Finally, my children have had four friends die as a result of alcohol or drug use, one friend fracture his neck due to an alcohol related accident, several taken to urgent care for alcohol poisoning or injuries needing stitches resulting from being drunk, and a few are in jail.

To sum it up, from my direct observations today’s high school and early college age young people drink more excessively than my generation, they do a greater number of drugs, they do more dangerous drugs, “romance ” (for want of a better word) has noticeably decreased among them, and they are injured and die much more often due to their alcohol and drug use than in my day.

I hope my observations are the exception rather than the rule. But if they are not, I can think of only one group of people whose actions have resulted in these changes: these young people’s parents.

Len Anthony spent thirty years as in-house counsel for a public utility. He’s now semi-retired living in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Wanna sound off on FITS? Submit your letter to the editor or opinion column HERE.

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32 comments

GrandTango August 11, 2014 at 10:57 am

You do know that you are diametrically in opposition with FITS, RonPaul, Tommy Ravenel, and the whole Liberal-Tarian Movement.

They believe in more drunking and humping and toking and poking. You have NO right to tell anyone anything. Discipline is for losers, and morality is for the Christians they hate, ecept on Sunday morning when they cover themselves by showing up at an Episcopal service (for the gay wedding ceremony)….

Of course all this Freedom is fine for THEM, since most of them have ridden a government check to cul-d-sac comfort. Screw you if you cannot afford the excess and vice they stumble through life, intoxicated on.

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shifty henry August 11, 2014 at 11:27 am

‘They believe in more drunking and humping and toking and poking’
———–
There must be a country song in that!

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GrandTango August 11, 2014 at 11:36 am

Throw in in jail, heartbreak and divorce, and you may have something.
Liberal-Tarinas, are like liberals. They are long on promises…and short on delivering. And they leave out the fine print about how much it costs for all of their GREAT NEW IDEAS (that are really just old stupidity, repackaged.

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e norma scok August 11, 2014 at 12:35 pm

You must be a blast at parties.

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GrandTango August 11, 2014 at 12:54 pm

It’s full of $#!* people like you, that most people try to avoid.
Honesty is very attractive, so I get invited to, too many parties. I can’t go to all of them. I’m in high demand…I’d imagine you may be a hoot at a crack house or heroin din…but those people don’t live very long, unless they clean up.

Tisk, Tisk August 11, 2014 at 1:37 pm

Are you suggesting that GT isn’t high on life?

E Norma Scok August 11, 2014 at 3:08 pm

He seems to equate everything in life to politics (like this article), and he also seems very closed minded–if you don’t think or agree with everything he does, he starts throwing the special character curse words at you. I’ve found cursing to be the signs of simple mind with a low vocabulary, and he pretty much fits in that observation perfectly.

And after reading his crap-laden blog, I can’t imagine him being informative or interesting at basically any level, as he only sees things as politically based and black and white.

TontoBubbaGoldstein August 11, 2014 at 1:54 pm

Mama.

Trains.

Trucks.

Prison.

Getting drunk.

*Incoming mail from Steve Goodman*

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GrandTango August 11, 2014 at 2:35 pm

D-A-C…LMAO..:)

TontoBubbaGoldstein August 11, 2014 at 11:35 am

Bitter much?

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GrandTango August 11, 2014 at 11:37 am

Just smarter than the blissful and ignorant Dumb@$$#$…intelligent people, like me, are really better off…than the stupid, like you, who keep making the same mistakes, over and over…

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Norma Scok August 11, 2014 at 4:32 pm

You seem really angry…about everything.

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Wink wink August 11, 2014 at 1:15 pm

“drunking and humping and toking and poking”. Tango, I thought mama moved to Florida to be nearer to the dog tracks. Are you and her roomies again?

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Nölff August 11, 2014 at 10:58 am

I think dating has evolved to facebook and twitter now.

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Damn-Im-old August 11, 2014 at 11:13 am

Its more Tinder and Snapchat actually

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Tazmaniac August 11, 2014 at 11:07 am

Oh for the days gone by! Class of 78 here, I am deeply aware now of how many terrible chances I took at seriously hurting/killing someone while I was living the Party Boy life and thankful that I didn’t hurt any thing more than my own brain cells. We lived the ‘Animal House” life, worked hard, played harder, hedonistic and debaucherous, yet somehow American and wholesome. I feel sorry for kids these days.

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Squishy123 August 11, 2014 at 11:24 am

Kids today are weak, they don’t have keg parties, hell most don’t even get excited about getting a drivers license. I guess parties and driving interfere too much with Facebook and online gaming. I talk to college kids and their weekends are about as boring as mine are these days, when I was their age the weekend started on Thursday evening and you were usually hung over until sometime Tuesday.

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TontoBubbaGoldstein August 11, 2014 at 11:34 am

Back in the day, you had to stay under control because you might *have* to drive. Nowadays, drinking and driving os such a no no that most drinkers have already set eveything up where driving is out pf the question…so they figure, “Why not get sloppy drunk?”
Back in the day…when we had a beach rental or something…we were liable to play quarters with beer…and occaisionally liquor shots. (TBG cannot look directly at straight bourbon to this day.) We also funneled white wine. Once

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But liquor is quicker August 11, 2014 at 1:35 pm

“Boone’s Strawberry Hill”- wine of the Gods for a broke 18 to 20 something

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upstate August 11, 2014 at 11:56 am

and the reason amending the current laws regarding alcohol will never gain any traction is they are too big of a revenue producer for localities across this state, and country. An underage ticket fetches $350 in SC, and the enforcement efforts are centered around college areas, where it is like shooting fish in a barrel.

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The Colonel August 11, 2014 at 12:27 pm

So tell us Mr. Anthony, what is the point of this piece other than restating the obvious? Do you miss Mayberry, sittin’ on the porch drinkin’ ice cold cherry Coke, where everything is black and white?

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How can it be wrong if it gr.. August 11, 2014 at 1:19 pm

He forgot to mention that the weed today will knock you for a backflip after two hits. Best to grow your own and avoid the chance that some cartel monkey sprayed that plant with who knows what. (..ows wild, I’ll have the farm paid off in a little while….)

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Jackie Chiles August 11, 2014 at 12:48 pm

“Kids do things different than I did them, and that is bad”

-every generation since monkeys evolved to homo sapiens

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And sons of bitches August 11, 2014 at 1:25 pm

I just read The Last Pirate. It really makes one appreciate how bad the war on drugs has miserable failed. It all started when the the US Govt aided Mexico in spraying the mexican weed farms with Paraquat (?) and forced the smugglers to start sourcing from Columbia. Great read accept for the disappointing revelation / insinuation that Jimmy Buffet may have been complicit in aiding the Feds in locating the guy who brought the whole thing down.

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shifty henry August 11, 2014 at 2:07 pm

A professor was enjoying his drinks at a bar in Five Points when the sexiest girl in any of his classes sashays over to him and says, “Like, I want you to totally screw my brains out tonight.”

“Sorry,” he replies, “I’m not into quickies.”
——————–

After a Clemson football game a guy, after a night of heavy drinking, woke up to find two rings around his penis – one orange, the other brown. He rushed to the emergency room where, after examining this oddity, the doctor says, “There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the orange ring is lipstick. The bad news is that the brown ring is Skoal.”

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TontoBubbaGoldstein August 11, 2014 at 2:21 pm

There once was a man from Istanbul
Who discovered red marks on his tool
Roared the Doctor, a cynic:
“Get out of my clinic!”
“And wipe of the lipstick…you fool!”

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euwe max August 11, 2014 at 3:14 pm

I am pretty well known in Dallas for my ability to tell what day a woman was born just by feeling her boobs. A real cutie heard about it and came over and asked if it was true… “Sure is!” I said.. “Really? Well then go on then…try.” After about thirty seconds, she began to lose patience (not all do) and said, “Come on, what day was I born?”

“Yesterday.”

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shifty henry August 12, 2014 at 8:02 am

love it..!!

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shifty henry August 12, 2014 at 8:15 am

A concerned young lady complains to her gynecologist, “Whenever I take off my clothes my nipples get real hard.”

“That’s a little unusual,” he said. “Get undressed and I’ll check you out.”

The doctor began to examine her breasts and nipples. After a considerable time touching and observing, the doctor still looked puzzled.
“Well, I don’t know what you have,” he finally said, “but it’s contagious!”

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euwe max August 11, 2014 at 3:11 pm

I was talking to a girl in the bar last night. She said, “If you lost a few pounds, got a shave and a hair cut, you’d look all right.”

I said, “If I did that, I’d be talking to the strippers instead of you.”

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shifty henry August 11, 2014 at 5:46 pm

—- pretty good!

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Original Good Old Boy August 11, 2014 at 3:00 pm

This article badly needs a competent editor.

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