Why do young people drink so much?  We all tasted it when we were young but I have to admit, liquor tasted terrible.  I remember when I was old enough to drink, I couldn’t wait to have a beer!  My father, older brother, relatives all loved beer!  Me too!  And then, I finally had one!  Yuck!  But of course, I couldn’t say anything because I had to “save face” so I pretended to like it.  O Bozhe moi!  I eventually did fnd a brand that I liked and stuck with it whenever I ordered a beer.  So all was not lost.  But you can’t tell me that every young person out there posting pictures on Facebook with all those empty beer cans actually enjoys the stuff.  Suspect indeed!  How does one go from water, milk and soda to all-of-a-sudden a beer and like it so much they can’t stop drinking it, at least from some of the pictures I see.

Liquor is an acquired taste.  And one that takes time to acquire, which no person in their late teens to early 20s has had nearly enough time to acquire!  I know teenagers drink…college kids are probably known more for that than academic expertise.  But why?  Of what useful value is liquor?  One can argue that beer does have some healthy components and of course, red wine has the heart-friendly resveratrol, but other than that booze puts on weight, can land one in jail if caught driving under the influence, can cause people to become violent, and in general gets people into situations not to be proud of.  Plus, it really doesn’t taste all that good anyway!  I assume young people do it because of peer pressure…”that’s what you do when you attain a certain age,” not necessarily 21 either!  Yeah, there’s a reason to do it, because “everybody else does it!”  Which of course begs the question, “if everybody jumped off a cliff would you do it too?”

Over my adult years I made my way gingerly through hard liquor as well, tasting here and there and finally deciding I liked vodka and cognac the best, although not mixed together!  ha!  What I have settled into is an occasional beer, my yearly Jack Daniels plus ginger-ale-highball, and some good cabernet sauvignon wine.  But above all, my favorite is a nice glass of ice water.  Funny how water won over all the others. 

Of course, one must realize how fiercely independent I am.  I don’t do a lot of group things  of this nature because I DON’T want to look like I belong to a herd…I’m my own person.  I’m also older and have had a couple of surgeries in my life.  And I’ll tell you, there’s nothing at all that can beat doing well during surgery.  That usually cures one of any kind of addiction…except chocolate, of course!

So there we have it, the eternal question of why young people find it so important to drink up and often!  Booze is fascinating.  So is what it does to people too!  ha!  Nothing like being a slobbering fool not in control of your faculties with slurred speach, inability to walk and in general, no control over how big a fool you’re making of yourself!  I suppose this will never end as long as society has booze in it.  And we all experimented when we were young.  But, here’s the point, we all learned from our ugly experiences and vowed to “never do THAT again!”  So then, other than for the one-time experimentation of it, I once again ask “why do young people drink so much?”