May 3, 2011

Eighteen years old, graduating high school, going away to college: an adult.

Get married or buy lottery tickets, go to a club or get a tattoo: adult choices.

When we graduate high school, we are expected to know what is right and wrong, how to solve a chemistry question and write an intellectual response to a documentary about the economy.

We are expected to make smart choices, but with one slip of the mind or one friend that’s a little too pushy; all that could be gone and never happen. You could never walk across the stage at graduation, never have a career or never have kids.

Now, I know it’s a crazy time in our lives, but we need to keep a strong head on our shoulders at all times; especially with all of these graduation parties coming up in June and July, and even more so in college next year.

According to the “Students Against Destructive Decisions” website* in January of 2011, 26.4% of teens between the ages of 12 and 20 used alcohol in the previous month.

While it is usually assumed that there is drinking that goes on in high school, it isn’t always realized how dangerous it is until something tragic happens.

In January, two Holt, Michigan High School seniors and a Holt graduate were killed when another Holt senior made the choice to get behind the wheel while under the influence of alcohol. The teens were all over the local papers in Lansing because of their alleged suppliers being Michigan State University students.**

Even though Holt isn’t real close by, it still hits home that things like this happen when kids make the choice to drink and drive.

Our senior class has already lost one; lets be smart and make sure we have a full class reunion ten years from now.

*For more information and statistics about underage drinking and drug use, please visit www.sadd.org

**The three alleged sellers from MSU are facing charges that include three counts of furnishing alcohol to a minor causing death, and have also already been charged with one count of sale, delivery and importing alcohol without a license as well as one count of conspiracy to sell, deliver or import alcohol without a license.