What Do I Advise My Teenager About Booze?

Argh. Teenagers.

One minute your children are climbing all over you like little chubby monkeys, winding your hair in their fingers and whispering "I love you, Mummy" into your ear, and then - in what seems like no time at all - they're smelly, grumpy, eye-roll-ey teenagers who find you hideously embarrassing.

I've had several questions from people recently about what we should be telling our teenagers about alcohol.

I'm no expert, but here is what I told mine the other day:

"You do realise that alcohol is an addictive drug, right?"

*eyeroll* from teenager who is looking for an escape hatch. I have anticipated this, and she is in a moving car, strapped in safely.

"If alcohol came on to the market today it wouldn't be legalised. It is perfectly possible to live a fantastic life, a better life, without alcohol blurring all the edges. Just look at me!"

*scathing glance*

"...However, I do realise that the majority of the population do drink and that you're bound to want to give it a go, so can I please just give you a little bit of advice?"

"'Spose", she replies, reluctantly.

"If you want to drink happily and sensibly for your whole adult life, and not get into the pickle that I did, then there are three rules that you need to stick to:

1. Never drink on more than three occasions in one week.
2. Never drink more than three drinks in one session - as soon as you feel even slightly out of control, then stop.
3. Only drink socially, never alone.

Does that sound reasonable? Easy to do?"

"Sure."

"Right, well I want you to remember this conversation for your whole life. Because your reasonable, logical, clever self knows that those three rules are perfectly acceptable and achievable.

But there may come a day when you try to convince yourself that one of them or, indeed all of them, are unnecessary and unreasonable.

That is NOT YOU talking, that is the booze. That is an indication that slowly, slowly, it is making you think and behave in a way that is NOT YOU and that you know, deep down, is not right.

So, if that happens, you need to decide if you're able to stick to the rules or if, like me, you actually find it easier not to drink at all. Rules were never my forte, and they may not be yours."

"Can we go to Nando's now?"

"Okay."

It is also worth reminding your teenager that if they do get trashed at a party (which, let's face it, is bound to happen at some point), not only do they put themselves in danger, but they could well end up with horribly embarrassing photos of them doing the rounds of the world wide web for ever and ever.

Teenagers feel invincible, and are often oblivious to the idea of coming to any physical harm, but apparently the fear of being shamed on social media is one of the big reasons why they drink less than our generation, so let's shamelessly exploit that fact.

However, I honestly believe that the most powerful thing we can do for our teenagers is to set a good example. Teenagers tend not to listen to what we say, but they do learn from what we do.

And that is one of the main reasons why I quit drinking. I didn't want my children to grow up believing that adults need a glass of wine (or several) to cope with the ups and downs of everyday life.

Do please let me know in the comments what you've advised your children about booze!

There's lots of new articles and inspiration on the SoberMummy Facebook page. Or follow me on Instagram @clare_pooley, and I have (finally) decided to do Twitter @cpooleywriter.

To find my book, The Sober Diaries, click here. You can read the first few chapters for free using the 'Look Inside' feature.

And, finally, if you want to treat yourself for Valentine's Day (which you really should, because you are amazing), then the wonderful Wise Bartender is offering all readers Bees Knees alcohol-free Prosecco for only 99p with the promo code HAPPYVALS.

Love to you all.

SM x

Nina is not OK

I didn't drink dangerously as a teenager.

Don't get me wrong - I loved drinking. I loved the buzz it gave me at parties, the way it made me feel more. More beautiful, more interesting, more naughty.

I loved sharing a bottle of carefully chosen wine over dinner with a date, or while setting the world to rights late at night with a girlfriend.

But I didn't like the feeling of being really drunk - feeling sick or out of control. So, when I'd had a few glasses I just.... stopped. Simples.

It wasn't until my mid thirties that my drinking started to morph from 'social' to 'hazardous'. Because by then I could drink a whole bottle of vino without feeling particularly drunk.

And by the time I hit my mid forties I was drinking a bottle of wine every single day. More sometimes. (Often).

Knowing what I know now about alcohol addiction, I worry about my children, and how they'll cope when they start playing with booze.

So, when I read a review of a new young adult novel by Shappi Khorsandi called Nina is not OK, I knew I had to buy it.

Nina is seventeen and, like all her friends, loves to party, and to drink. But she has no off switch.

Nina is gorgeous, funny and clever. She has a five year old sister who she loves passionately, and desperately wants to protect. And yet, after a few drinks she changes. Her eyes go dead, and it's as if Nina has left the building.

Every time she gets drunk and does something awful she swears she'll never touch booze again, but by about 5pm the next day her resolve falters.

Drinking makes her life increasingly unmanageable, but the more difficult it becomes, the more she relies on the booze to deal with all the emotions it's unleashed.

Sound familiar?

Then combine all that with the hormones, insecurity and recklessness that come with being a teenager, and chuck in an omnipresent and judgemental social media, and you end up with an incredibly disturbing (but scarily believable) tale.

Please read it.

And if you have a teenage daughter, then rather than sitting her down for one of those 'talks' about the dangers of drugs and alcohol that they dread as much as we do, just give her a copy of Shappi's novel.

It's a far better cautionary tale than either you or I could ever tell, and you won't have to endure all the eye rolling.

Love SM x

Why it's Best to be Uncool

Day 122.

Last night I was helping out at the Year 6 leaver's disco.

It was a really hot evening and there were 70 or so 11 year olds dancing in a church hall. You can imagine. These kids are just becoming acquainted with body odour, but have yet to discover underarm deodorant. The air was a soup of nascent hormones and pungent sweat.

I remember this lot when they started in reception at the age of four. Back then there was about 2 inches difference between the height of the tallest and the smallest. Now some of the girls tower about a foot over the boys, who are starting to stare up at them adoringly like puppy dogs.

(Quick aside: this lot had a blast, despite the only drink on offer being iced water. Isn't it funny how we'd be horrified at the idea of serving alcohol to eleven year olds, yet we think it's obligatory to serve it to adults? The same reasons that make it both unnecessary and dangerous for them are surely true of us?)

Predictably, the evening began with the girls on one side and the boys on the other, both sides pretending to have absolutely no interest in the other. They'd dance in their gangs, and then - from time to time - someone would break out and do some showy dance move - like a breakdance (boys) or the splits (girls) - resembling a cocky peacock flashing its plumage.

Amongst the girls it was easy to spot the hierarchies. There were the 'loners' on the edge of the action, looking rather uncomfortable, the 'middles' in their little groups, and the 'cool gang' who were by the far the showiest, and were quite quickly surrounded by the bravest of the boys.

#1 is not in the cool gang. This doesn't seem to bother her a jot. She thinks they're all 'rather pathetic'. But not as 'pathetic' as the 'wannabees' whose moniker says it all, really. Neither cool enough to be 'cool', nor cool enough to not care.

I was in the cool gang at school. Not, I hasten to add, because I was (or am) in any way 'cool'.

I can take an achingly fashionable item of clothing and make it look like supermarket own brand. I have two left feet and hands when it came to any sport, and I was far too clever.

But I made it into the gang by being funny and very mouthy. Plus my best friend oozed cool from every pore. She was (is) six foot tall in her bare feet, the best athlete in the school and, literally, stopped traffic.

So I confess to feeling a little miffed last night that #1 wasn't part of 'the gang', despite the fact that she had a blast with a group of her best friends who are all delightful.

I remembered the buzz of being at the top of the school tree, but then recalled the corresponding anxiety of the expectation that comes with that position.

This morning I looked up an article that I read last year in Time magazine (click here). 

This piece is based on research by the University of Virginia which followed teens over a decade and found that people who tried to act “cool” in early adolescence were more likely to have problems in later life.

According the research, by the age of 22 the kids who were considered 'cool' at thirteen had fallen from social grace.

It states that their peers rated them as less competent when it came to managing social relationships than others. The formerly popular youngsters were also more likely to become alcoholics, drug addicts and criminals.

“It appears that while so-called cool teens’ behaviour might have been linked to early popularity, over time, these teens needed more and more extreme behaviours to try to appear cool, at least to a subgroup of other teens,” says Joseph P. Allen, a professor of psychology at UVA who led the study. “So they became involved in more serious criminal behaviour and alcohol and drug use as adolescence progressed.”

And, to an extent, that was me. I remember forcing myself at a horribly young age to like smoking, even when it made me feel sick and dizzy. Likewise I spent years mixing alcohol with something more palatable, like lime or blackcurrant juice, so that I could bear drinking it. Needless to say, drinking and smoking were entry level requirements for the 'cool gang'.

The conclusion from this research is that the best thing we can teach our teens is not to care what other people think. And, as adults we know that not caring is the true definition of cool.

So I thought back to last night, and #1 happy in her group of friends, ignoring the shenanigans of the cool kids, and thought good for you, sweetheart. Keep it up!

Love to all of you, the new cool gang!

SM x

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