by Mindy Yount

Created on: April 03, 2009

It is a fact that if something is restricted, the more alluring and enticing it is. Alcohol is one of those alluring and enticing articles. It is like the kids who cannot wait until they are 16 to drive and will go out driving with only a learners permit and, most usually, without the licensed driver with them. The problem is that alcohol is demonized, which is understandable, however, when kids go away to college and are living, in most cases, away from home for the first time, they think it is time for them to literally taste the spice of life. Unfortunately, we also get to witness the downside of this problem by the reckless behavior observed in popular "vacation" retreats and for that matter, what we see in late-night, censored for your viewing "Girls Gone Wild" escapades.

One need not go any further than prohibition to find out the consequences of restricting consumables. Rise in gangland violence, profiteering and more illicit illegal activity followed. So why is it so alluring? We have the visuals of rich, beautiful people swirling back Cosmopolitans and martini's. Adds have people smiling, dancing and enjoying themselves, only to stop when the bartender stops making his mystical brew.

The sad reality is that kids, once out of the parental home and away from the eyes of parents, adults, and authority, feel they can do what they want. Graduating from high school has become a right of passage and leaving for college, particularly if it is away from home, cements that passage. Once there, teens and young adults find themselves in a world where it isn't so easy. If they have watched people in their lives reduce stress by imbibing in alcohol, they are going to think it is okay when that physics 200 class test is especially grueling. They are pushed by the ever-present peer pressure to do activities that they probably wouldn't if they weren't so concerned about their image and not how they appear to others. When the cats are away, the mice will come out and play.

It doesn't necessarily mean that the drinking age should be dropped, but there should be some fairly strict guidelines on just how and what goes on. Schools shouldn't have to monitor all the time, but parents should also be checking in and seeing what their dear little ones are really doing. Someone needs to show these youngsters the very real and destructive consequences of wild behavior before it starts.

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