Alcoholism in Teens

As a child my father and I had a very close relationship and would do about everything together. We have pictures of me and him working on his old white k10 chevy and I couldn't have been any older than 5 at that time. I was rocking a pair of cowboy boots and attempting to help him put the lug nuts back on the tire. We would go and spend time in the woods hunting for mushrooms or when we got a chance to fish we would. As a child I always wanted to grow up and be like him. Then he started hanging with parents of my younger siblings and they would drink on the weekend and his personality would change and sometimes so much I couldn't stand to be around him. It made me view him in a whole different way and we started to grow more distant and I started going to my mom for more things than I used to. Well after this went on for a few years he decided to cut back on his alcohol consumption along with most of his friends and we are starting to get our old relationship back, that Ive missed so dearly. This summer he is going to help be build ranch hand bumpers for my truck and repair the rocker panels, cab corners and doors to remove all the rust from my truck to help it look nicer. I hope that these go through because it will be some good bonding time for us before I have to move out to go to school and won't be able to see him everyday. The point I'm trying to make here is alcohol is the tool of the devil, and a bar is a pit stop on the way to hell as one of my dads friends always put it. I keep seeing more and more teenagers going out and getting wasted every weekend because they think its fun, or because they just want to say they got wasted. Whats the point of this? You don't remember a thing that happened over the weekend and probably won't remember much from your teenage years consequently. What memories are you going to have to look back onto when your older or what stories will you have to tell your kids? Oh when I was kid I went out and got wasted every weekend, what kind of story is that to tell your kids. You would think you'd want some interesting story to tell them such as some of the things that have occurred over my weekends where no alcohol has ever been involved such as going fishing in a farm pond with your friend and catching 5 pounders, or sitting around a bonfire with your closet friends or best of all setting your best friend on fire because everyone got a little to cocky one night. Kids these days need to understand that you don't need to drink to have fun, especially drinking so much you can't remember what happened. I wish people would start broadcasting this message more than the one that you have to drink because everyone does in their teenage years because its fun.