Ramblings on Hypocrisy and Drug Use
Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog
Of the many, many things I do that doom me to uncoolness–and not even the kind of uncool where you don’t care and end up cool after all; the kind where you really are just a dork–right up there at the top (along with using coupons) is the fact that I go on and on about alcohol and drug use. Like most adults, I am in the uncomfortable position of having to advocate against something that I don’t have entirely clean hands on myself, and that just increases the awkwardness of it all. I know that something has happened in the last 50 years or so that has made hypocrisy the unforgiveable sin of the modern era, and I find it incredibly annoying. I sometimes wonder if the average person would rather be called a thief than a hypocrite. It certainly does seem like popular culture has embraced a sort of teenage ethics, where nothing could be worse than to advise against something that you yourself have done. Of course, as a matter of logic, the whole thing is absurd, since it’s really a matter of enjoying self-righteousness over wisdom, and taken to extremes, means that we can disregard the murderer’s admonition not to murder others, since that would make him a hypocite.
Sorry, I get a little carried away sometimes. I shudder to think about the angry letters I’ll be writing to TV Guide in my golden years.
So, as I was saying, it’s ever so fun to be an adult lecturing about teenage alcohol and drug use. But, since we’re the ones paying for mortgages, and tuition, and clothing that is despressingly reminiscent of what we wore in high school (only now it’s ironic), and video game systems that cost about the same as a mortgage, I think it’s time that we erased the little voice in our head that goes, “I learned it from watching you,” whenever the subject comes up. Life makes hypocrites of us all, if we’re lucky. And in the meantime, there is actually a serious issue at stake.
Consider the recent research that has resurrected the much maligned concept of the gateway drug. It seems that there is a strong correlation between teens who begin drinking alcohol early (like, say, at 14 as opposed to 20) and the use of illicit drugs. The usual reaction to that kind of information is to point out that you know plenty of people who drank as teens and never turned to drugs, or to decide that any kid who starts drinking at 14 has a lot of other problems that will help lead him to drugs. But while that may be true, it is also a way of avoiding the issue and dismissing the problem. Statistics show that boys are more likely to drink alcohol or do drugs (along with other high-risk behaviors), and not all of those boys come from troubled homes, nor do they all escape unscathed. I could wish that popular culture wouldn’t glamorize and trivialize alcoholism and drug use. I could also wish that I lived in a house made of solid gold, surrounded by chocolate truffles and free babysitters, where all celebrities who agree to do a reality show about their “everyday” life instead find themselves in a real life Running Man game. The truth is, it’s up to us parents to ignore the awkwardness, the silly claims of hypocrisy, and so on, and do our best to safeguard our sons from alcoholism and drugs. Better to be a hypocrite than to be part of an intervention.
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