Teenage drinking has been seen as a "rite of passage" on the journey from adolescence to adulthood. We feel more comfortable defining their problematic consumption as the same as heavy drinking by adults, but just acquired a bit earlier. That way, everybody - consumer, advertising agency, manufacturer - stays happy. The Government, feigning outrage, heartily endorses the 30bn-a-year industry that employs more than a million people.
But the problem of excessive drinking among young people differs in nature from that of other generations, and therefore needs to be tackled in a different way. The reasons why young people drink are different, as are the places they choose to drink in and the way in which they drink.
Tom Wylie, chief executive of The National Youth Agency and a critic of public policy surrounding "the 24/7 leisure culture", places great emphasis on identity formation as a factor in young people's alcohol misuse.
He believes that young people do not resist the temptation of alcohol because it is the custom and will of the majority.
Sign of maturity
Teenagers feel they must demonstrate they are able to drink because it "looks cool". Alcohol is used as a signifier: many intoxicated young women are proud of the fact that they are behaving very differently from the way their mums and grandmothers did in their youth.
Wylie says young people use alcohol as a means to manage their anxieties, as "a type of self-medication". Teenagers have to worry about so many things, including peer pressure, sexuality, periods, acne, bullying, drugs, homework, exams, boredom, a lack of money and impending unemployment.
As two Year 10 students recently told a television reporter: "Drink makes me feel good about myself. Things are better when I am drunk."
Another key difference between young drinking and drinking over the age of 25 is visibility. A hundred years ago, working men used to drink heavily in smoke-filled saloons after collecting their wages.
But that atmosphere does not suit today's young revellers. They want to be seen. They swarm in packs from pub to club and back, taking advantage of happy hours and the all-you-can-drink promotions on offer.
Alun Michael, minister for rural affairs and a former youth worker, believes adolescent drinking stands out in the countryside because of the lack of competing attractions. "There is a high tolerance of drinking among (rural) parents, which is affecting attitudes," he says.
Unique drinking habits
Young people's drinking habits also separate them from the over-25s.
Their preference for vodkas, cocktails and alcopops; drinking straight from the bottle (partly to rule out spiking and date rape ); drinking to the accompaniment of mobile phones; and going out to get deliberately drunk is unique to the younger generation.
There is the important question of availability of alcohol. Young people have access to a wide choice of free alcoholic beverages at events such as parties and family celebrations.
Parents rarely notice, or criticise, their son or daughter for having a secret stash.
It would be fanciful to imagine today's young binge drinkers changing their ways when they are 25. Their bodies and minds might already be too dependent on alcohol.
As early as 1987, the Home Office Working Group on Young People and Alcohol provided most of the analysis of the problem, and many of the answers, but these were not implemented. Although that opportunity was missed, there is still time to influence, and perhaps to restrain, tomorrow's eager customers for "a drink".
- Godfrey Holmes is the author of Alcohol Among Young People: Obtaining the Full Measure. For 25 years he has worked with young people at risk, many of them in care
HOW TO COMBAT TEENAGE DRINKING - Place alcohol awareness on all secondary school timetables - Encourage parents to lock away alcohol stored at home - Provide more youth clubs and run extra sport, challenge, dance and creative activities - Appoint outreach mentors to help adolescents who have been found to have heavy drinking problems - Campaign against the new 24-hour licensing law - Send decoys into pubs, clubs and supermarkets to find out who is purchasing alcohol and stop them - Abolish happy hours and all-in promotions - Forbid supermarkets from selling cans of alcohol in big packs and as a loss-leader to discourage heavy drinking - End all television and cinema advertising of alcohol - Oppose any new, or renewed, nightclub licences in large towns and cities to limit the number of late-night drinking venues TEENAGE DRINKING STATISTICS - Half of all English 15-year-olds drink alcohol every week - One in five English or Scottish 13-year-old girls drink spirits every week - One in three 12-year-olds have been drunk at least twice - More than half of teenage offences are alcohol-related Source: Health Behaviour In School-aged Children.
