Just one drink.

It's not uncommon for youth to start drinking in high school or college. But when is it too much. At what point does it become something to be cool with your friends to something you need to do to function from day to day. Alcohol abuse in teens is a rising issue that's not really discussed very often therefore I've decided it'd be a good thing to write about.

So in the USA and Canada it's known that around 50% of people say they've drank alcohol between the ages of 12-18. The legal age in Canada being 19 and the legal age in the USA being 21. So people ask, what’s the appeal? Why do we want to drink? Being a youth in high school I've seen teen drinking and it happens it seems harmless for the most part. Most people don't notice teens drinking to escape they see them drinking to look cool and have a good time. And yeah sometimes you're at a party and your friends tell you to have a drink you think "What can it hurt". I'm not going to go on telling you that the one drink will ruin your life forever. I’m going to tell you a story about what could happen if you don’t stop at that one drink and you go to that point of being. To far.

The next thing you know you're not at your house. Where are you? How'd you get here? Last thing you remember was someone giving you that drink and now you have no idea where you are but you feel pretty sick and you're thirsty your mouth's very dry. Then it hits you. You remember you're at a friend’s house you came here for the party. You go home and your parents were worried sick and mad. No big deal, Parents always worry and get mad. A week later another party you decide to go this time you don't waste time and start drinking a lot. You stay at your friend’s house again. After a couple more party’s your friends know you as the regular drunk always the fun one. You think its funny take it as a complement. Then you start to notice that you're always mad or on edge without drinking so you bring a little in a cup to school to take the edge off. You bring a cup everyday just a coffee mug no one will notice right? Until a teacher notices and asks to see your cup. Next thing you know you're sitting at the office talking to the police for underage drinking. From there on it goes downhill worse and worse keep getting in more trouble but you keep drinking more so you are too drunk to deal with the trouble. Is it still so harmless? You're family confronts you on having a drinking problem. Impossible! You just drink for fun you don't have an addiction you could stop at any time. So you decide to stop. But you find yourself feeling emptier craving it. So you drink a little in secret and tell no one. One day your little brother finds you and starts getting mad at you so you yell at him back and leave you take the car. You just got your G2 licences and you don't think you've had very much to drink you'll be fine just need to get some air clear your head. Next thing you know you're waking up everything hurts but why? You slowly raise your head to figure out what's going on. You're still in the car. But there's something else you can't make it out just yet. Then you notice it a car with huge dent in the driver side door. There's a man with his head on the steering wheel and a woman trying to open her door and a little kid yelling. Sounded maybe 5? 6? Years old. You hear the police and paramedics yelling as they pull up. Take a good look at what's happened. It may have been just one drink at a party with a friend but look where you let it end up. You could have killed that child just because you wanted to be cool and fun for your friends. You have an alcohol addiction and you finally hit rock bottom. But there's help for you to get better. You can turn it around. This is not the end of your story. You will make your comeback and you will get the help you need.

Alright so that`s a little story I wrote and I think this story really shows how an addiction forms. This story may or may not be related to a true story but this can happen to anyone. Maybe the first drink didn`t do it but if you allow yourself to go past that point of the first drink where you can`t remember where you were or what you did then you need to take control and stop it before it gets worse.

Some important things that I mentioned are signs of an addiction I`m going to outline a few here: Drinking more then you intend to

Black out or can`t remember the night before

Need to drink in order to relax or ``take the edge off``

Feeling guilty or ashamed about your drinking

Hiding it and/or lying to others

If you suspect that you have a drinking problem there are many ways you can seek help here are some Canadian websites that have contact to help groups for alcohol addiction:

http://www.aa.org/

http://www.addictionsontario.ca/

http://www.drugandalcoholhelpline.ca

http://www.mentalhealthhelpline.ca/

And as always Kid's help phone is a great place to talk:

1-800-668-6868

TF Support Networking also is always willing to listen and share options and provide some support from teens just like you and we're willing to talk if you want to contact TF Support Networking your best way is to message our Facebook page

facebook.com/tfsupportnetworking

or send us an email

speakup_reachout@hotmail.com

I hope that this story and everything else helps you understand how an alcohol addiction is formed and where you can go to get help with it.

We're always ready to talk

Reach out,

Travis Franklin

TF Support Networking President