Student Organized Event Spread Awareness Of The Danger Of Underage Drinking

By Martha Coville

“It’s a moral issue,” said Newtown Chief of Police Michael Kehoe.

“It’s a health and safety issue,” said John Tusch, an assistant principal at Newtown High School.

“It’s a disease,” said Bill Beggs, a doctor who works the graveyard shift at Danbury Hospital Emergency Room.

The issue was underage drinking in Newtown. Chief Kehoe, Mr Tusch and Dr Beggs were among the 38 parents, teachers, community members and Newtown High School students in attendance at a student organized event at Edmond Town Hall earlier this month.

NHS seniors Allison Jagoe and Tina Sanchez are co-presidents of the school’s chapter of Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD). They organized the event, and called it Bring Youth On Board, or BYOB for short.

“We wanted to have a lot community members all in one place with the one goal of spreading awareness of the danger of underage drinking,” Allison said.

Allison, Tina and other members of SADD created several different forums for discussing underage drinking in Newtown. The evening began with student testimonials.

“We asked kids at Newtown High School to write anonymously about their experiences with alcohol,” Allison said, “so that we could get a realistic understanding of what is happening in Newtown. We picked these stories because we thought they represented a range of experiences.”

“If my parents ever thought I was drinking, they would murder me,” wrote one student, “even though everyone in my family is a heavy drinker.”

“Drinking is a huge part of high school,” another student wrote. A third declared: “Drinking is awesome.”

Students who wrote that they do not drink usually worried about the consequences of binge drinking.

“I do not drink because it’s only a temporary happiness and I don’t want to go down that road,” wrote one. “I’ve heard stories of out of control parties, of kids naked in people’s yards, and I just hope nobody gets hurt,” said another.

A tangible silence fell over the room when a student read about a NHS student who was raped at a party. “I never knew someone could do that to a friend,” she wrote about the acquaintance rape she survived. “I wasn’t a bad kid. I just made a bad choice, one I will never forget.”

By the end of the testimonials, the mood had become somber, and Allison and Tina asked their audience to sit together in small groups for a series of workshops. The questions they asked were straightforward: What are your thoughts on underage drinking? What can we do to build on existing efforts to address underage drinking? What are you, as a member of the community, willing to do to stop underage drinking?

But answers were hard to come by. Parents, teachers and others, including members of Newtown Prevention Council, agreed that underage drinking, and especially binge drinking, has become pervasive in Newtown, and that parents of NHS students might be reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the problem.

Dr Beggs told parents that the young adults treated for alcohol poisoning at Danbury Hospital, “students from Ridgefield and Newtown, without a doubt show up the most.”

Mr Kehoe said that parties have usually broken up by the time the police arrive.

“But I assume, and I’m probably right, that a lot of things go on in Newtown, in houses, in the woods, in the cul de sacs, that the police never know about,” the police chief added.

The question cutting to the heart of the matter one audience member asked: “Is it a problem of the kids or the problem of the parents?”

“It’s the parents who aren’t in this room,” said another.

“The issue of parents buying, purchasing, distributing alcohol is a moral issue,” Mr Kehoe said.

As an administrator, Mr Tusch said, “The tough thing is when we call home and we hear, ‘Oh, you must be wrong.’ Or, ‘Oh, they’re just kids.’ Believe me, we wouldn’t be calling if we weren’t concerned about the health and welfare of the child. I would love to find a way to shift the conversation from ‘it’s a moral issue,’ to a health and safety issue and how to wake parents up to this.”

Newtown Prevention Council member Anna Weidemann, mother of two recent NHS graduates said, “What bothers me is that there’s a lot of parents who think, ‘if you come to my house and I take your car keys and you’re safe, it’s okay,’ without checking with the other parents. Parents don’t network enough. They’re afraid to call other parents and ask questions. They’re afraid to put other parents on the spot.”

Dr Beggs said the litmus test he recommends is regular discussion between parents and children. Parents should have a face to face discussion with their teenagers when they come home in the evening he said.

“It’s the parents who have their heads in the sand,” or who drink heavily; it’s those children that end up in the ER, he said.