The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

September Staff Ed

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The percentage of Clayton students who binge drink is almost double the national average, according to the Clayton High School health survey created by the CHS Health and Physical Education Department.

Although some may feel differently about the above figure than others, all can agree upon the fact that something is motivating students not only to try alcohol but to down as many drinks as they possibly can without their expecting any negative consequences.

What are the roots of this rising problem?  Is it that the amount of stress experienced by students is slowly but surely increasing?  Are the negative thoughts pertaining to self image becoming more frequent and hurtful?  Is it that the amount of bullying (namely cyber bullying) is steadily rising?  Is it simply because people are naturally becoming more “wild” in nature?  Or is it a combination of more than one or all of these things?

No matter what the causes of this significant problem in today’s Clayton community, one group of events instantly comes to mind in terms of a gathering of drunk people – high school dances.

If a room is filled up  with a variety of people who are asked  what emotions they experience regarding binge drinking before school dances, there will be a broad spectrum of responses.

Some will respond with excitement, others with neutrality, a few with contempt, but the most notable emotion of them all is sympathy.

A bunch of people deciding to drink themselves sick may appear as one of the last sympathy-deserving groups in existence.  So why sympathy?

Not necessarily sympathy for them, but sympathy for society – what have past generations, along with the authority figures at present, done in order to make many minors of our day feel as though they need alcohol in order to enjoy themselves?

Emphasis is put on the word need because it  is clear that high schoolers of many generations past have drunk to try to raise the excitement of their experiences; however, today the number of binge drinkers is increasing in a disturbingly rapid manner.  It appears as though there is something set in stone in our society that is causing young people to resort to alcohol that for some reason appears to be the only solution to whatever this mystery hindrance may be.

At this point, the only reason the answer to the question of “What have we done?” matters is in terms of the solution to the foreboding changes in teenage habits at hand.

Whatever the cause, whatever the effect, whatever the arguments, and whatever the compromises, something needs to be done very quickly – every day, more and more teenagers are drinking and only expecting good things to come out of fulfilling this desire.

Not to mention, most of the teenagers who are drinking are drinking more alcohol than ever before.  And if there is one thing we can all agree on, it’s the fact that research and a little bit of common sense tell us that at this young of an age, alcohol and the underdeveloped brain are far from compatible with each other.

That’s not to say that every single person of our community has to start a huge movement against the growing problem of underage binge drinking.

At the same time, a couple of high school students deciding not to drink before the next school dance could be surprisingly powerful in terms of us beginning to move in the right direction.

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The student news site of Clayton High School.
September Staff Ed