by Stephen Pratt

Created on: September 01, 2010   Last Updated: September 04, 2010

What happens when you limit someone from the ability to do something?  What happened during prohibition? Why is it all of a sudden you are 21, and people go out and “party” and possibly overdo it?

Look at it this way; if you were told you cannot have chocolate until a certain age, you see it everywhere you go. You smell it on your parent’s breath. It’s the cool thing to eat at parties. And all of a sudden, you hit that magic age and you find that they are serving all sorts of chocolate at an all you can eat buffet… You aren’t going to binge?  Now, you are taught at a young age, chocolate is good, but only in small amounts, you are given a taste of it under controlled circumstances. And taught what it is and how to use it responsibly.  Are you going to binge now? Not likely

If the US was more like Europe and taught their kids at a young age to drink responsibly and actually show them instead of saying “NO, not till you re 21”.  When there is no logical reason behind a rule, people start questioning it and do it anyway. There are a few that obey blindly, but more often than not, as soon as it’s OK to drink they over do it. Which is a shame because it is actually legal in some states in a private non-commercial setting that you CAN teach your kid to drink responsibly.

Americans over do it in Europe because they are legal to drink there, when common residents look at them like “What’s the big deal, I’ve been drinking since age 6?”

Europeans do not binge drink when they are on their own for the first time, they were taught at a young age how to drink responsibly. Now, of course there are exceptions to the rule, there are Europeans that are alcoholics just as there are responsible college drinkers. The point of the matter is that being taught at a young age well always be better than setting someone loose on their own and all of a sudden has all these freedoms and now going to drink an possibly go to the hospital for alchol poisoning.

Lastly, take the taboo out of drinking, there is no more thrill of “getting away with it” and there would be no need to “binge”.

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