Warn kids about drug dangers as early as fifth grade | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Warn kids about drug dangers as early as fifth grade Detroit Free Press freep.com

The article linked is a stark warning to parents everywhere that makes perfect sense. You should certainly want to be the first source of information for your children when they are facing decisions about things like mind/mood/personality altering substances. Whether you believe in total abstinence like I do or not, you surely would have to agree that you want to help your children make such decisions. If you delay having such a conversation too long you clearly leave the door open for the decision to be made by risk loving peers who could pressure your children into abusing alcohol.

My advice to my kids will be "Why bother with alcohol?".

Excellent Blog Resource

I stumbled across http://www.alcoholfreesociallife.com/blog/ recently and I have to say that they produce excellent content on their blog. Articles about the impacts of alcohol on the human body got me to their site but the articles about how to deal with being a non-drinker are most impressive. Their real world advise and tips about what to say to offers and how alcohol can impact you psychologically are very insightful. They offer most of their info from the perspective of somebody who is trying to stop drinking but a lot of the same principles apply to someone who never really starts.

Just to reference one tidbit from the blog post about the psychology of alcohol, it is no secret that alcohol is indeed a depressant. If you are already depressed, then why in the world would you want to ingest a substance to push you even further down that scale of emotion. Drowning your sorrows does nothing but make you feel even worse. For that matter, if you are happy, why would you feel the need to bring yourself down to a lower level. There is quite a bit more on this site that is equally relevant to someone deciding if alcohol serves any real purpose for them.