“EAT, DRINK and be merry.” It may seem like our only comfort in this never-ending winter. Problem is, the drink is causing serious issues in Western Canada.
Many are familiar with the recent trial of Christopher Pauchay, the young father who drank heavily while looking after his toddlers and took them outside into 40 below weather dressed only in T-shirts and underpants where they froze to death.
I’ve heard several similar tragic stories about alcohol abuse in my volunteer work as an associate prison chaplain. For the most part, the crimes seem to have been committed while intoxicated.
Read Also
Topsy-turvy precipitation this year challenges crop predictions
Rainfall can vary dramatically over a short distance. Precipitation maps can’t catch all the deviations, but they do provide a broad perspective.
American “war on drugs” language may have led us to assume that drugs are the real danger for our young adults. And they are certainly a significant problem. But in the rural west, alcohol abuse is much more common and more devastating.
A 2008 study of rural Saskatchewan youth by University of Saskatchewan researcher Diane Martz found that almost half of 17 year olds reported driving while drinking during the last 30 days. And 63 percent reported that in the previous month they had ridden with a driver who had been drinking.
Even the younger ones are involved. Ten percent of 15 year olds, for whom both drinking and driving are illegal, reported having driven under the influence in the last month. One-third of them had recently ridden with drunk drivers.
Martz reports that these numbers for rural youth are more than double the Canadian average for the same age groups. It shows in the death statistics.
According to the RCMP, traffic deaths are the leading cause of death and injury among Canada’s young people and more than 80 percent of those deaths take place in rural areas. One clergy told me recently that his small community has come to accept one young person’s death on their rural roads almost every year, most involving alcohol.
What’s going on here? Several things, I suppose. Alcohol, unlike drugs, is readily available in many rural homes.
Gathering in each others’ homes is often the major source of entertainment for rural youth. Of course they have to drive to get there and back. Parents, who can legally give their own underage children alcohol at home, may feel inhospitable if they refuse it to the neighbour’s kids when they’re visiting.
The RCMP can’t effectively patrol all rural roads. The kids know it. So there’s little incentive to watch their drinking and driving.
What can we do? First, decide that even one death among your community’s kids is too many. Then talk about it together.
Maybe a local nurse, RCMP officer or minister can host a conversation. Brainstorm some options. Perhaps agree that nobody will give their own (let alone others’) children alcohol at home before they are 19.
Arrange adult transportation for youth parties even if there isn’t any drinking. Work with youth to create some non-alcohol-related entertainment options. Have a group of designated drivers available at rural dances. Host and promote dry grad parties.
Above all, let’s make sure that we are not modeling drinking and driving. Our children’s lives are at stake.
Cam Harder is associate professor of systematic theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon.
