What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about alcohol? You might think about bars and clubs, drunk driving, sexual assault, Amy Winehouse, or maybe that one time you threw up at that one party in front of your long term crush.

We have so many thoughts that come to mind when someone says “alcohol,” but how many of those thoughts are good? Alcohol predominately has a negative association in American culture, especially with minors and young adults below the legal drinking age. Most of this is caused from the alcohol education system. Driver's education has a chunk of their course dedicated to drunk driving prevention; much of it consisting of a series of videos set to scare teens out of drinking and driving.

In my drivers-ed class, one full day was dedicated to Jacqueline Saburido’s story. Saburido was driving home one night and a drunk driver crashed into her head on. She survived but faced traumatic burns. I remember leaving Driver’s Ed that day terrified that I had the capability to do that to someone. MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, also uses ads to spark a fear in America so that they won’t drink and drive. Here’s a link to one commercial in Canada that will truly break your heart:

While all these commercials and stories are true, it seems to be the only culture that sticks in our minds. Alcohol has stopped existing as a casual drink your dad occasionally had after dinner, a round of drinks at a restaurant when a friend receives a promotion, the glass of wine your mother let you sip on Thanksgiving, or even the rubbing alcohol you use to clean your cuts. Like the traumatic stories, these less dramatic and unproblematic stories are indefinitely true as well. They play as much of a role in America’s drinking culture as the negative effects of alcohol do, but it is just not popularly recognized.

One of the most commonly used practices in alcohol education is to expose the negative facts and consequences of irresponsible drinking to scare children out of drinking, or drinking irresponsibly. This sounds like a good practice, but it is found to be significantly ineffective.

One report titled “Evidence-based alcohol policy in the Americas: strength, weaknesses, and future challenges” by Thomas F. Babor and Raul Caetano states that school-based alcohol education programs are found to change behaviors and attitudes about alcohol, but it does not change the drinking behavior. If this is the case, then why scare children? If we change the drinking culture by shaping it around drunk driving incidents and binge drinking, but the effect of that does not cause any decline in drunk driving incidents or binge drinking episodes, then why do it?

America’s drinking culture has become repressed and secretive. Statistically, more than half of 18-20-year-olds have at the very least tried alcohol and many are already social drinkers. A minor’s view of alcohol is shaped around this problematic view of irresponsibility and damage. With that frame of mind, once that person reaches the age of 21, they are more unlikely to drink one drink at dinner with their new found freedom, and will still only see alcohol as merely a party medium. This is a major issue for me. If America is going to help control drunk driving and alcohol-related deaths, we need to introduce a casual and healthy culture to alcohol.