This is important, particularly with prom season right around the corner.
Liz has been collecting articles documenting alcohol poisoning among high school and college kids — this is the most recent.
I am a huge Diggnation fan. For the uninitiated, Diggnation is the weekly podcast by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht about articles posted to Digg.com during the week. It is usually hilarious and even though it’s really geared to the high school/college gamer crowd they do such a great job with the podcast (and videocast) that it is the very first podcast I listen to when it’s available on Saturdays. The interaction is great, the stories are quirky, interesting and topical and very, very geeky.
As much as I enjoy it, I was really, really bugged and angered by their March 23rd podcast from Reno, NV. This was done live in a bar/restaurant in Reno and it was completely out of control from the first minute. It began with the two of them downing shots to the chant of “DRINK DRINK DRINK” by the audience, and by the end of the podcast they were both completely and totally out of control, falling-down drunk and incoherent.
It has bothered me all week and Liz has been diligently posting more and more articles about kids dying after partying just a bit too hard and drinking far too much alcohol which kept it right at the front of my mind. I can imagine that the environment for those kids who died was very similar to the Diggnation podcast and I hated that a show I really enjoy was glorifying something so stupid and dangerous.
I listened to this week’s podcast, which began with a pretty graphic account of Alex Albrecht’s vomiting binge for a full 24 hours after that podcast along with a vow from both of them that they would not be doing that again. Good for them. I really hope that their listeners get the message that there was nothing pretty about slamming shots to the chant of the crowd and that the misery Albrecht suffered after the fact was nothing compared to what could have happened to him and has happened to other kids.
I’m no teetotaler, but please, please warn your kids about the danger of party/binge drinking and let them know about these kids who died. It is so painful to think of these young lives wasted because they wanted to keep up with their buddy at the bar.
Here’s Liz’ tally of the death tolls 2004-2006:
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2004
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2005
Underage Alcohol Deaths 2006
To those who have lost children, my prayers and condolences to you. I hope that this year’s prom and graduation season is safer, saner and alcohol-free for those who have kids in those age groups. Sticks’ school has an “After-Prom” party that includes a raffle for a BMW, donated by a local car dealer. If your kids’ school does something similar, encourage them to participate in that instead of private parties.
Technorati Tags: diggnation, teens, prom, graduation, alcohol-related death
