alcohell

[Curvaceous Kate]

Personally as a Mother I have never been a huge drinker, I don't have a local and my son has only really seen me drink the odd glass of wine in the evening or on special occassions with friends. He has seen me get merry at Christmas and was allowed bucksfizz (which he disliked). I chose not to disclude him totally, as I believe that we tend to want what we can't have more and end up persuing it in secret.

However, as my son became a teenager he still wanted to try it out with his friends and discovered spirits, which is something he had never seen me drink. I was worried at one point, but now he is 17 and he has got past that stage and admits to preferring a pint or two of lager when he is at a party, because he doesn't like the way alcohol makes him feel and react.

I am glad that he has learnt where his boundaries are and isn't willing to cross them. I hope that he is able to practice the restraint he has talked to me about. He certainly hasn't been brought up to be anything other than moderate in his behaviour and I feel that genetically we are lucky enough not to have addictive natures. The mix of an addictive nature and any drug can be a deadly one and that is the problem. There is no way of knowing how you are going to react towards it until you try it and often we are too young when experimenting to be able to make the decision to quit while ahead.

Then there is 'emotional' drinking, drowning your sorrows. It doesn't solve anything, but feeds the sorrow and then becomes part of the problem. I try never to drink when I'm upset because of this. As a child I remember seeing my Mum crying into her glass of gin and funnily enough I have never touched a drop of the stuff. My Mum is no alcoholic by the way, but at the time she was upset over 'boyfriend' problems.

As someone else has said, alcohol in moderation is not a bad thing, in fact red wine is meant to be good for you when drank in small amounts. Perhaps if you don't abuse it, it won't abuse you?