No party
My friend Debbie and I were at a party. I had one or two glasses of wine and left it at that but Debbie just kept drinking more and more. She told me that she felt less inhibited and that she could be the real Debbie after a few drinks.
It's all rubbish because the real Debbie ended up having to be taken to the hospital A&E after she fell semi-conscious, to the floor. The ambulance man asked what she'd had to drink and then asked me to come along with them to the hospital.
Her face had gone all grey and she was sick all over the red blanket she was wrapped in. At the hospital I was told that she had alcohol poisoning and that there was little point in her stomach being pumped because she had been drinking spirits all evening and they are absorbed quickly into the blood stream.
She was kept under observation for the night and allowed to go home with her relieved yet very angry parents the following morning.
Anne, aged 17, Halifax.
Story one: show off
It was my 17th birthday and a group of us went into town and got served in a pub. I was bought loads of drinks and got quite drunk. On the way home I was showing off to some of the girls with us by walking along a wall.
I don't think they were very impressed so I decided to knock their socks off by doing a handstand on the wall. I think they were even less impressed when I slipped off the wall breaking may arm in two places and fracturing my collar bone.
The booze that had made me act like a prat did nothing to hide the pain, or worse the shame.
Ben, aged 17, Chelsea
What will your choice be when you are pressured with drinking alcohol?
Will you make the right one?
www.fadaa.org/resource/justfact/alcohol.html
www.alcoholdrugnewsroom.org/just_the_facts.htm
www.aacap.org/publications/factsfam/teendrug.htm
www.zoot2.com/justthefacts/alcohol/index.asp