A sixteen-year-old boy was in a show with me recently. Everybody else in the cast was at least 19. I was impressed by this high school kid because he made a good effort talking to the rest of the cast and getting to know us. He didn’t always say the right thing, but he wasn’t hiding in a corner pretending to text as I would have at his age.
One day we were sitting around during a break and cast members started to talk about their weekend. Bear in mind these are all actors, most of which are over the age of 21. I’m hinting at alcohol-usage.
A few people made comments about having a good night or getting wasted and then the sixteen-year-old puffed up his chest. I tried my best not to cringe or roll my eyes when he said that he and his buddies got drunk too. He talked about drinking cheap beer with a bunch of football players like he was sipping white wine with socialites. The tone of his voice was try-hard casual with a tinge of self aggrandizement.
I made a joke about his party scene because that’s what I do, and I was feeling 20 years older than this kid which is a whole other article entirely. Then he pulled out the big guns. He told me, “We can get our hands on whatever we want. We spent $300 on liquor one time.”
My brain sneezed. So many things wanted to come out of my mouth right then and I didn’t know where to start.
- Where do a bunch of high schoolers get $300?
- Nothing screams “high school” more than spending $300 on ALCOHOL. Not rent, not food, but liquor.
- What did you do with all of it? How are you LIVING?
- Why did you need to do that? No human has ever needed that much alcohol.
- What are you proving to me?
I couldn’t tell if he was presenting all of this information to be part of the group or because he felt like it made him cool. I spent the rest of that show’s run thinking about what I could say to him that would make him realize that drinking is completely and entirely unimpressive.
But I remember doing the same thing. High school is the main time people start to experience new things like alcohol. I remember for the longest time when people would talk about drinking my go-to response would be: “I don’t like the taste of wine so I don’t drink it.” Like that was the only reason I didn’t drink. I didn’t drink because it scared me and was unavailable to me. And because my mom’s wine tasted like bitter sandpaper.
Then for a while I tried out a new excuse: “I don’t drink because I don’t need my reality to be altered in order to have fun.” My reality had never been altered. I didn’t go to parties, I didn’t even know people at my school threw parties. But I needed to say something. I had to have a reason for not participating in this right of passage.
The first time I drank was on a high school trip to Germany. After that, the door was unlocked and I was a real high schooler. I could participate in the drinking stories. I had three total.
But none of it matters. High schoolers think drinking makes them cool the way Sandy thought smoking a cigarette and wearing spray on pants would make her look cool. I guess that’s not the best example, she looked pretty cool. But it didn’t last; "Grease 2" was a nightmare.
Drinking takes absolutely no talent. If you can drink water, you can drink alcohol. Science takes care of the rest. And yet it’s a huge milestone in our society. Your first drink is memorable (or not, if you know what I mean) and for some reason, we have equated it with being an adult. But drinking alcohol does not make you 21. Doing a keg stand with a bunch of people from your second period class doesn’t mean you’re mature or cool. We need to stop glamorizing high school drinking. Teenagers will always end up getting their hands on something in the liquor cabinet, but they shouldn’t feel like they have to get blackout drunk in order to be well-liked.
And to the kid in my cast spending $300 on booze, save your money for college.
