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Te IT ANAL Wat Agi ANSE BTAT Alm SL VET ants £0 HE Ca IA Pat 'By! ER LAS SATO ERMA PPA He. NT al i Gg ta rw ib yk! i 1] 1 borer Soi de Sr or n= "i Vo toy ve var. Kd ne = 2 ANSP CBN Suh cl VE SN SATE ny The Bete Bh iim nn ent ln a ©" editoriol poge Sobering facts on teenage drinking A survey of alcohol use in Durham Region recently completed by the Ontario Addiction Research Foundation shows trends among teen-agers that should be cause for alarm. Almost 300 teen-agers from all parts of Durham were surveyed and of these, 40.8 percent were classified as "social drinkers," or those who consume alcohol without any problem or depen- dency symptoms. js The alarming statistic in the study says that 24 percent, or one in four of the teens surveyed showed one or more symptoms of dependency on alcohol. These symptoms are defined in the study as everything from morning drinking, intoxication for several days at a time, being told by a doctor that drinking is affecting thei health, blackouts, and having the shakes in the morning. The percent of teen showing one or more of these symptoms was just about the same percent of adults surveyed who had one or more of these symptoms. : What is disturbing about these findings among teens is that almost all surveyed were under the legal drinking age. Obviously the laws which are supposed to keep alcohol away from those under legal age are either not strong enough, or are not being rigidly enforced. 5 More disturbing yet is the potential for more serious alcohol problems further down the road. If one in four of the teens surveyed already has a problem with alcohol, the likelihood of a multitude of problems in adulthood appears to be immense. While the findings of the Durham Region study, especially among young people, tell us that there are present problems and the potential for more serious difficulties, a statement from the Addiction Research Foundation concludes that very few of those with problems had sought or been given any kind of treatment. That is not surprising, because the Foundation goes on to say the Durham *'is not well served" with specialized alcohol and/or drug treatment facili- ties. This means that even if a drinker recognizes that : he or she has a problem, the proper kind of treatment may not be available or may be difficult to come by. It is not difficult to see why the abuse of alcohol seems to be on the increase in our society. Seven years ago, the legal age was lowered from 21 to 18; throughout Ontario there has been a proliferation of licenced establishments in the past few years making alcohol more readily available; and pos- sibly most important of all, television programm- ing is saturated with adverisements which depict the consumption of alcohol as a normal and even necessary activity that goes hand in hand with "having a good time". The findings of the Durham survey re-inforce the suspicion that alcohol abuse and problems are serious and require some kind of action such as treatment and counselling services by profession- als. However, it should be pointed out that the decision to consume alcohol is an individual one. The ad slogan "You are your own liquor control board' is an apt one, and maybe if people of all ages kept that * in mind at all times, the abuse of alcohol could be controlled. ------ pos UELL THERE pe -- -- My BABY oll. ! re aww me a TR . | ANOTHER YEAR i" I chalk up another degree and charm or Here we are staggering into another year, and nothing done, not a single resolution made, Ah, well, I don't believe in resolutions anyway, except for the fun of breaking them. A man does the best he can, and all the well-intentioned resolutions in the world won't make him do any better. Looking back over the last year, I find it was much like any other: ups and downs, topsies and turveys, ins and outs, sideways and backward, no real progress, but no real retreat, either. My son managed to survive another year among the pirrhanas and pythons and poisonous snakes of Paraguay. He is now a graduate masseur and acupuncturist, hoping to make enough from his new trade to come home for a visit, after five years. I can hardly wait for him to arrive. My teeth and hair are still falling out, my arthritis is giving me hell, I have a bum. back, and I could use a little free massage and acupunctury. Even though I'd prefer a masseuse. And and acupuncturess. My daughter lurched from one crisis to another, as is her wont, but managed to weasel her way into a job as a high school teacher after six- months of dearth. Any year, or any decade now, she won't be expecting handouts from the old man. My grandboys got a year older, survived various fatal diseases, acquired some very colourful expressions that I cannot repeat, and elicited from one beleagured babysitter the statement that they were the worst kids she'd ever tried to handle. The Old Battleaxe and I battled it out for another 12 months, lost a little skin here and there, each won a number of skirmishes, but neither won a decisive battle, and the war goes on, sometimes cold, sometimes hot. We had a great trip to Europe that lasted three weeks and cost me so much that I won't be able to retire until I'm 83, at last reckoning. Everything went up again: insurance, taxes, heating. And everything else came down: snow, ice off the roof, the Canadian dollar, the confidence of the Liberal party, branches off my big oak tree, and the number of years left to live. It was a year like any other: fraught with terrors and horrors and pain and misery and depression and loneliness all over the world and in our private lives. But also replete with simple joys and sudden happiness and special moments and over-whelming love and occasional peace. Wonder what "79 will be like. Heck, I don't have to ask. I know. It'll be the same as last year, only more so. My two rotten old rusty cars will be even rottener and rustier, and I'll have to buy a third-hand turkey to replace them. My students will be even thicker in the thatch than this year's crop, and I'll-have to reach even further into the well to try to m8tivate them. There's only so much water in that well. Then it turns to mud. So be it. . My wife will go on thinking that listening to her worry about her daughter, her son, her brother, her father, her grandchildren, her sister-in-law, are more important than my reading the paper. 'My grandboys will go on being a source of utter delight and utter despair to me, sapping my strength at the same time as they give me new life. . My pay will go up six per cent and inflation will go up 13 per cent. So I'll stop eating beef, which is hard to mangle with a partial plate, anyway. I'll make about 800 decisions. Based on past performance, 738 of them will be wrong, according to my wife. She will make - 400 decisions and 400 of them will be right on. My son will wind up with a total of $24 profit from his new profession and wire me for air fare home for a visit. I'll lose a few more chuiiks of my corpus. This past year it was a few teeth and a piece of nose. In '79 it could be anything: gall bladder, liver, prostate, or other unmention- - ables. I've got lots of parts. The ice will back on my roof this winter, and crash through the new plaster on the living-room ceiling. I'll tell my wife it's a mercy we weren'{ sitting there when the roof came in. : The picture tube on'my TV will expire right in the middle of the Stanley Cup final. I'll hustle over to my peighbour's. My daughter will be fired from her teaching job for making certain accurate, but colourful remarks about the ancestry of the school superintendent. I'll tell her she was absolutely right, they're all the same, and send her money to assuage the loss. I'hope you don't think 'this is a pessimistic column. Iam never a: pessimist; merely a realist. 'That's life, and that's the way the 'bright new year will go. People are scared of another big hike in the price of oil. No me. Energy crisis? We don't have one. If all the politicians in Canada were laid end to end, they'd produce enough hot air to heat every house in the country. : See? It's simply a matter of attitude. Think of the worst things that could happen in the New Year. And they probably will. But you can cope with them. Have a happy. The Argyle Syndicate Ltd. ® L En NI «| 0