Although there has been a great deal of speculation about what actually happened, as the police have made it clear that "the investigation is in its infancy" and we really won't know exactly what went down until the post mortem examination takes place sometime this week. A relative was quoted as saying that the young woman had consumed a bottle of vodka and early reports spoke about police seizing energy drinks, with lollies added to the apparent list of things that could possibly have been used in later stories.
Until we know what actually happened I think we have to be careful about how we use this story when communicating messages to young people … Certainly NSW Police have already used the death to highlight the dangers of young people accessing and then using online recipes for alcoholic cocktails. Type 'getting drunk faster' into YouTube's search engine and you will be provided with 665,000 results - some of which are absolutely terrifying! This is a great message and a timely reminder for parents to be aware of the type of information that young people are able to access online but I hope we don't lose sight of the fact that, based on the reports so far, this young woman apparently drank a lot of alcohol and we must never forget that alcohol poisoning kills a number of teens every year ...
Regular readers of my blog would know that I have been involved in a number of alcohol-related deaths over the years. Sadly, most of these are usually are young women around the age of 15 and almost all of them have involved vodka. Very few of these deaths received any media attention, with the parents involved understandably reluctant to come forward and speak about their loss. Now I need to be very clear that we do not know whether this girl had consumed vodka or not but with a blood alcohol reading as high as has been reported it is highly likely that she would have been drinking spirits and, without a doubt, vodka is the drink of choice for young women who want to get drunk. If we do end up finding that vodka was in the mix, I just hope that the media doesn't become obsessed with the so-called 'drug cocktail' and focus on the mix of energy drinks and lollies … of course, accessing 'weird and wacky' recipes online is dangerous but so is drinking a bottle of vodka, no matter what else is or isn't added to it!
Many parents are totally unaware of the popularity of vodka until they hold a teenage party and start the big 'clean-up' the next morning, only to find empty bottles of the stuff littering their garden or hidden in various nooks and crannies around the place. So many Mums and Dads have told me that they didn't really grasp the extent of vodka consumption amongst young people until their son's or daughter's 18th birthday when suddenly the partygoers' drinking behaviour was out in the open. But in reality, it is as far back as Year 10 where we actually start to see consumption of this product become a real issue. Some of the early drinkers who were experimenting in Year 9 have now been messing around with pre-mixed drinks for a while and start to work out that if they want to get drunk quickly (at a cheaper cost), they need to dump the 'lolly water' and buy a bottle of spirits, with vodka usually being the drink of choice.
So why is it vodka that enjoys this popularity, particularly amongst young women? Some of the reasons include the following:
- it is seen as a 'cool' drink (mainly due to the advertising promoting this product and its target audience). Vodka is now marketed to a much younger age group than it was in the past. Where once spirit advertising targeted older men, drinks such as vodka are now closely associated with young women, the youth nightlife scene and partying
- they believe it to be free of calories (completely untrue). Like most alcohol, vodka does not contain any fat – but it does have calories, with a 'shot' of vodka containing just under 100. A bottle of vodka has approximately 2200 calories – more than a woman's total allowance per day, not including the mixer!
- it is undetectable (where they get this idea is beyond me - have they ever smelt a vodka drinker's breath?). The taste of many vodka brands can be more easily masked by mixers, like orange juice, than other spirits but it certainly does have a smell and can be easily detected on a young person's breath
- it is less likely to cause a hangover (unfortunately, true to some extent!). One cause of a hangover is the presence of 'congeners' and these are what makes alcohol dark, i.e., the more congeners, the darker the alcohol, the greater the headache the next day. Of course, over consumption of any alcohol product is going to lead to feeling unwell the morning after but vodka has less congeners than most other alcoholic drinks
Interestingly, by Year 11 the 'hardcore' male drinkers have usually moved away from vodka. It doesn't take them very long to progress to dark spirits, with bourbon, whiskey and rum being the more likely drinks consumed by this age group.
The problem is that spirits are so much more dangerous than other alcoholic drinks, particularly in relation to the following:
- Spirits or premixed spirits enable you to drink more alcohol, much more quickly when compared to other drinks. As already stated, if a group of young people share a bottle of spirits between them in a session they are drinking the equivalent of up to 22 glasses of full strength beer, 22 cans of mid-strength beer, more than 2 litres of a cask of red wine, or more than three bottles of champagne. For many young people, if they tried to drink this amount of wine or beer they would find it difficult to do so quickly - unlike spirits they are 'self-limiting' to some extent, i.e., you drink, you bloat, you vomit!
- Due to the high alcohol content, it takes a comparatively small amount of spirits to cause alcohol poisoning or overdose. It is important to remember that it takes much less vodka, rum or whisky to get drunk than beer or wine. It would only take minutes to drink two shots of vodka (60mls), whereas for most people it would take much longer to drink beer containing the equivalent amount of alcohol (two 285ml glasses – 570mls), thus greatly increasing the risk of poisoning or overdose
It can be so depressing sometimes speaking to a Year 10 group and see those two or three small groups of 'party people' who are so obviously messing around with vodka on a weekly basis. They are usually totally unaware of how much they are actually drinking when they share a bottle of spirits and often don't feel any significant after effects the morning after. Sadly, when things do wrong with vodka (or any other spirit), they go terribly wrong. Drinking a bottle of vodka (or bourbon or any other spirit) is potentially life threatening, whether you're a teenager or an adult. If it doesn't kill you as a result of alcohol poisoning, the possibility of major damage to the liver and the rest of your body over time is very real!
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