Family Traditions
As I talk with students about their holiday plans and traditions they will talk about getting together with family and friends and for getting that much needed break. It is fun to hear how excited students are about heading home for the holidays.
From my own family experience and traditions I know that offering someone a beer or an alcoholic drink during the holidays is for most of us a way to be hospitable. We might say, “Hi, let me take your coat. Can I get you a drink?” Or it may be wine at dinner and then an after dinner drink. Our intent is to be welcoming and enjoy our friends by welcoming them and making them feel at home. It is seen as a positive social experience and a normal part of the holidays. Our culture has many social benefits and negative costs to consuming alcohol.
Let me explain that one of the things we do in our department is to talk with students in a preventive way about alcohol and how to make healthier choices. We have conversations to help students to make choices that will reduce drinking and the negative consequences they experience from drinking. We ask students to increase their awareness of how they may choose to use alcohol and rethink how they might use alcohol differently or not at all. Students have mixed feelings about drinking, the good experiences and the not-so-good ones, yet they typically do not talk about the not-so-good ones without some help. We recognize that students want to make their own choice to drink or not, whether they are of legal age or not. Each student evaluates the risks and benefits associated with drinking. As dialogues go, I have heard from students that drinking is no big deal. It’s just part of college life or life in general. Some students said they already knew all about alcohol and don’t need more education. On the other hand, they typically express a new awareness of how they personally use and experience alcohol.
In this article, I would like to raise your awareness and offer some ideas you may want to consider this holiday season if you have traditions around alcohol use. If you are re-thinking some holiday traditions, one way to do so may be to offer people more choices other than alcohol. In your tradition of hospitality, you may want to offer alcoholic and non-alcoholic beer, or more sodas, juice or non-alcoholic punch or wine as other options. Another consideration is to make food more important by limiting the amount or time that alcohol is offered. For example, if each person gets one drink prior to dinner and then wine at the table that is limited by the number of bottles. Some people may not know that holiday drinks may have more than 1 shot of hard liquor and are the same as consuming 2 or 3 drinks. They are also high in calories. If you are drinking wine, one standardized drink of wine is around 4 ounces. Although, a person’s size makes a difference, typically one standardized drink per hour is considered a safe level of drinking and an amount that your body can process. . We all understand that heavy drinking is dangerous. We need to talk about how not to engage in those activities.
Choosing to drink is often tied to our childhood experiences and family traditions. This is a great opportunity to talk with your son or daughter about the choices you are making about your traditions and why and to share your concern about high consumption of alcohol. Students are making choices about many things and alcohol is one of them. Your influence with your son or daughter is very strong. Have a happy and safe holiday season for you, your family and friends.