Our teen drinking culture

What teenagers think about how they’re drinking.

Bradley Ambrose/APN

Sixteen-year-old Georgia van den Eykel is thinking back to the last couple of parties she has been to. “About 90% of people brought drinks, about 40% of people got completely wasted and maybe 10% started vomiting, that sort of stuff.”

Her peers, four other Year 12 and 13 students at Onslow College in Wellington, nod their heads in agreement at this sketch of teen partying. They describe an alcohol culture more firmly entrenched than ever in teenagers’ lives.

In the wake of the distressing death of King’s College student David Gaynor, 17, debate has flared over the role of alcohol in college students’ lives. Whatever the complex mix of factors that played a part in Gaynor’s death, alcohol was part of the mix for many other King’s College students there that night. Two prominent members of the community, businessman Craig Norgate and TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis, put on pre-ball parties where alcohol was served to students.

The Onslow students describe a teen social world of crushing peer pressure to drink from about the age of 16. And these aren’t the party-hard wastrels at this decile-10 school; they are among its leaders – intelligent, confident and together.

Teens have always been drawn to drink. But according to last year’s Law Commission report on alcohol, several things have changed. Bigger quantities: between 1995 and 2004 a greater share of 14-19-year-olds drank heavily at social occasions. Stronger, yummier drinks: the emergence of sweet ready-to-drink beverages aimed at young people has led to a tripling in spirit sales in the past 20 years. Lower cost: overall, alcohol is more affordable than 20 years ago. Easier supply: the number of liquor outlets has more than doubled since 1990. Lower purchasing age: it dropped from 20 to 18.

Something else has changed to stoke a culture of teen excess. Just in the past three or four years Facebook has emerged as a powerful social force, allowing teens to parade their version of the good life to their peers. All day on Sundays, says van den Eykel, her network of social contacts are uploading photos of the partying the night before.

“It’s like a popularity contest. Who went to the best party, who has the best photos of parties. People have display pictures with their drinks in their hands, and you look up to that person and think, ‘Their drink looks really tasty, I want to do that as well,’” says van den Eykel. Abby Wilkinson, 16, says: “They’re trying to say, ‘Hey look, I had a really fun time. Don’t you wish you could have been here?’”

Teens typically have many hundreds of “friends”, and each new photo posting by a friend comes up like a news flash. Comments on what happened on Saturday night flow back and forth. Looking at Facebook persuaded Harry Wales, 16, to start drinking.

“I didn’t know so many people were drinking. I went on Facebook one time and saw all these people I knew who were drinking, and I thought, ‘Probably about time I started.’”

One of the five confesses to having drunk enough to pass out. They all know of one young person who has been hospitalised for drinking too much. As for quantities, they say teens who are supplied with alcohol by their parents are often more moderate drinkers, sticking to what they have been given. They say four RTDs for a female is a normal allowance from parents. This is equivalent to between four and eight standard drinks, depending on the size of the RTD bottle.

Wilkinson says her parents recently increased her allocation to six RTDs. Boys who are supplying their own alcohol typically arrive at a party with a 12-pack of beer, which they expect to drink themselves. That is the equivalent of 12 standard drinks. They might also bring spirits, or a strong cider like 8.2%-alcohol Scrumpy, or the inexpensive lolly-pink 8% Big Foot that comes in a 1.25 litre bottle (10 standard drinks).

The group say it would be helpful to have more information on dosage – how much do they need to drink to achieve certain effects? They say vomiting is often the result of a lack of knowledge of how much to drink. Several say drinking at home with parents to start with is useful to help adolescents get a feel for quantities. King’s College student James Webster, who died in May 2010 after bingeing on vodka, should have been told a whole bottle could kill him, says Andrew Coutts, 18.

Teenage boys who have not yet begun to drink regularly can come in for merciless pressure from their mates. Van den Eykel: “They say, ‘You’re a bitch, bro, you need to drink.’ You’re getting sort of pounded on. At a party, if you didn’t have any drinks with you, they’d say, ‘Why didn’t you bring any, that’s not cool.’ So it makes people start younger and younger.”

Pupils at Onslow College, Wellington

Erica Finnie, 17: “They think it’s penalising the group’s good time. I’ve got friends, where every now and then one of them decides not to drink one weekend, and it’s kind of like a joke between them that the person who isn’t drinking isn’t ‘for the boys’.” (In other words they’re not part of the team effort to have fun.)

Coutts says the lack of real choice about drinking worries him. “That’s the worst thing about youth drinking culture, that you have to drink to be cool. Now you get the Year 9s and 10s starting, and that is just too young, clearly.”

So, what would happen if you had a party and you didn’t provide alcohol? The students hoot softly with pitying derision. “It would be considered pretty lame,” says Harry Wales tactfully. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a party that doesn’t have alcohol,” says Finnie. Wales: “People probably wouldn’t even come.” Van den Eykel: “If their parents offered, people would rather not have a party than have a party without alcohol.” At what age is it lame to have a party without alcohol? The group consensus is 15, and that for 14-year-olds it’s okay to still assume that some people drink and some don’t.

It could be, though, that for some teens at least, the pressure to join the drinking pack eases slightly by the last year of college. Two of the group who are Year 13s have noticed a change this year. “It’s been much more acceptable this year, I reckon, for people to make their own decision to not drink. It’s realising it’s not actually as fun as it always seems to be,” says Finnie. Coutts: “I think we became more aware of the consequences of alcohol.”

But what makes the teenagers angry is the adult finger-wagging in the media about youth drinking, when adults themselves drink so much. Drinking is part of teen social life, says Coutts, “but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s often about being able to relax, it helps you get into the mood. It’s not the 16-year-olds who get drunk, go home and beat up their wives. And most of the time it’s not the 16-year-olds who get drunk and go and kill other people. Most drink drivers are adults, not young people. Saying it’s just a youth problem is ridiculous.”