Adults Must Send a Message of Responsibility on Alcohol

We in Oak Park are confused. Confused about the issue of alcohol. Confused to the extent that we are sending mixed messages to our young people. And young people do not deal well with mixed messages.

To learn right from wrong, children need clear and consistent messages. Adolescents in particular, with their propensity to challenge authority and their secure belief in their own immortality, need strong guidance regarding how to make the right choices.

With this in mind, I’d like to review the facts regarding alcohol as I see them.

* Alcohol is a drug, a dangerous and addictive drug. It reduces inhibitions and interferes with good judgment. When under its spell, people make mistakes that they would never make sober, mistakes that can kill.

* For those under age 21, alcohol is off-limits. Whether one agrees with this law or not, the fact remains that alcohol consumption by minors and even by young adults is illegal.

* Alcohol kills. Each year drunk drivers kill thousands of Americans. Many more, such as the students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Louisiana State University who were in the news earlier this year, die alcohol-related deaths without ever getting in a car.

* It is not inevitable that our young people will drink. Our teenagers can be taught to make the right choices.

* Parents in our community who invite young people into their homes to drink are not teaching our teens how to drink responsibly; they are teaching them how to drink, period. They are also teaching them that it is acceptable to break the law.

* In the long run, our community will be much better served if parents teach our teens how not to drink. As the primary role models in the lives of their children, they, like no others, can send a clear and consistent message that alcohol is dangerous, that under-age drinking is against the law and that when alcohol and teenagers get together, people die.

* Most every adult has been touched by the alcohol-related death of someone they knew and loved. If our kids live long enough, they will also likely experience this pain. A beautiful son of Oak Park, Christopher Ruhle, was killed less than two years ago when the car he was driving was smashed into by a drunk driver. We dishonor Chris and ourselves if we do not do everything within our power to discourage our young people from drinking.

* On this issue, there can be no room for compromise, no middle ground. Alcohol consumption by our teenagers must be discouraged in the strongest possible language by the largest possible number of adults.

Parents must monitor their teenagers more closely to ensure that they are not drinking. They must not go away for the weekend and leave their homes in the hands of their unsupervised teenage children. They must not open their homes to parties where teenagers are allowed to drink.

They must do all of these things in the name of love, in the name of safety and in the name of common sense.