Show Americans More Trouble Per Drink American ad adults have an intense sustained and sometimes sometimes sometimes some some- times neurotic preoccupation about adolescents' adolescents attitudes toward alcohol but their deeply rooted ambivalence about the drug has hindered objective finding fact-finding efforts a Duke University professor proCessor told a University of Utah audience audience audience audi audi- ence this week DR GEORGE L. L Maddox l associate professor proCessor of psychiatry psychiatry psychiatry atry and sociology at Duke explained that adult concern about the generation which will inherit the future may stem from the fact that Americans are a hard drink ing people and that although the United States does not have the highest liquor consumption consumption consumption con con- rate of any nation it probably suffers more trouble per drink In an explanation of What Every Adult Should Know About Young People and Alcohol Alcohol Alcohol Alco Alco- hol he told educators and youth and school counselors attending Utah's Annual Annu Annu- al School of Alcohol Studies that the recent focus on drugs such as LSD and marijuana marijuana mari marijuana mari mari- juana has tended to obscure the devastating effects of alcohol DONT YOU think for a minute that the American drug preference and the one that gets us in the most trouble is anything other than alcohol alcohol alcohol alco alco- hol he cautioned his audi audi- ence The ambivalence of adults has caused them to either understate understate understate un un- or overstate what they say about the drug of of- ten overestimating the trouble young people have with alcohol alcohol alcohol alco alco- hol or underestimating the number of adolescents who dont don't drink Dr Maddox charged WE IIA HAVE VE either said everybody's doing it or no nobody's no- no body's doing it he said Dr Maddox branded as fallacious the notion that once an adolescent takes his first drink he has set a precedent precedent precedent pre pre- for a lifetime of drink drink- ing WE NEED to know a great deal more than we do about how drinking careers emerge and how they are negotiated he said adding his belief that the great reat majority of young people are deliberately and thoughtfully negotiating with themselves not only about whether to drink but how to drink Dr Maddox explained that in the last three decades there have been no significant historical trends or changes in the drinking patterns of adolescents SO THERE probably isn't a great deal of meaning in continuing to do surveys on the drinking behavior of youth he concluded except to more clearly understand the two extremes young problem drinkers and those for whom long life-long abstinence seems likely |