I read the article in the Sunday Herald Sun and it really got up my nose.
12 girls from a college have gone to Phillip Island for a week to celebrate their end of school and the end of their livers by the sound of it. They've vowed to spend more than $1000 on alcohol in their week long binge and they're proud to be setting a drinking record.
One of them said she had to drive at 80km/h in third gear because of all the alcohol on board the car. She also said older people should not be surprised at the girls' level of drinking because they probably did the same when they were 18.
Another of the bunch claimed her biggest night was two bottles of rum, a bottle wine and half a slab of pre-mixed rum and cola cans. Even my ex at his best couldn't have loaded that up although he certainly tried every December.
There was a nice photograph of the girls behind a load of full and empty bottles. I hope their parents went down and kicked their backsides but I suppose that's where the money came from in the first place.
That came on top of information of a new, to me, misuse of over the counter painkillers. A look in my bedside drawer showed, Panadeine Extra, Panadeine Forte, Panadeine, Diclofenac and Oxycontin, a slow release morphine medication. I'd say the Oxycontin was way out of date now and should be ditched since it was for a pinched Sciatic nerve which I would put at 11 out of 10 on the pain scale. Diclofenac I take every night or I feel as though my hands have been in a vice in the morning. The others I take according to severity of various pains and aches that come and go. I found out that teenagers and up are taking Nurofen plus and Panadeine Forte, not in the two I take but up to and beyond 8 a day, packets of them.
This is not from any official report but from two people I know. They take them to feel numb. They take them to sleep life away, to not deal with it. They're not drug addicts because they can walk in and buy them from a pharmacy. Their livers are damaged and magnesium levels are so low they can't make it back up without supplements. They're nice young people but they can't cope with life, they haven't coped with life since their early teens and they're not the only ones using these medications for the wrong reason. Word spreads fast along the teenage grapevine.
Alcohol and pills at 18. Sorry little Miss Piss-up of Phillip Island 2008 but I am surprised.
17 comments:
I must admit whenever people start talking about how much they had to drink, I am sceptical...I've been trapped in too many parties with people telling me they are so wasted but not wasted enough to stop eating Twisties or be self aware of how wasted they are...
Society is at fault. Over indulged and spoilt kids who feel it is necessary to brag at such a young age. I bet they will be supplying a lot of freeloaders.
Miles, I can't stand drunks or drunken parties where I'm the only sober one. I agree you're not wasted if you can still say wasted.
Andrew, they probably will now. They looked so damned pleased with themselves. This Schoolies business has gotten way out of hand and it's encouraged because there's money to be made.
Yep, mummsies and daddykins are supplying the grubby ready for the grog.
Some tool of a father got arrested by the police in Qld for supplying his daughter with booze -the kid hasn't got a chance with that as a role model.
One binge will do it (in) for the liver. A bit like one case of very nasty sunburn can bring on a malignant melanoma years down the track. It may not become immediately apparent, may take years to manifest. What idiots. and Bragging about it. They learnt that from the boys.
"One binge will do it (in) for the liver."
'specially if you're having a night out on the town with Hannibal Lecter.
I'm not surprised at all. I've seen this trend growing for quite a while. Younger and younger people are thinking, "is this all there is?" and being disappointed to the point of depression, so they take stuff "to feel better". Or they perceive a little lfe challenge as stress or pressure, when they can't cope immediately they take medication to help them cope. It seems they haven't learnt the natural ways of coping that many older folk learnt. The fault I think lays with the speed at which everyone is expected to do and learn and experience things in these times.There is no time anymore to grow gradually, to learn gradually, to rest and recuperate, to take it all in, before the next challenge.
I don't know about you Jayne, but my father wouldn't let me look at drink let alone pay for it but it didn't work the other way, he was quite happy for me to pay for his.
Saw that bloke in Qld and about time they started to get the booze providers.
Caroline, I sat next to a diseased liver poster in my science class for 3 years and I still see it. One g&t is my limit or on a really hot night, a beer that's been in the freezer for an hour. Even my sister, a seasoned drinker, couldn't have matched that list.
MiLord, quaffer of red anything, you have no liver.
River, one of these young people was given the Nurofen by his girlfriend in year 10 and hasn't been off it since. I'd hate to be a teenager now, it's brutal stuff.
My daddy died of malnutrition, because he stopped eating but kept drinking. I sometimes wonder what use his life was, and there's nothing. How unfortunate.
It's an escape, that's all: false happiness.
Robbert, where did the term 'old lag' used for a crim originally come from?
I don't know, but it's an old jail term, also referred to as a court sentence, as in: "After you get your laggin." I've also heard it used as a synonym for dobbing someone in: "He lagged on me."
I guess it applies to someone who's been been caught/convicted.
Another term that's maybe vanished is "chat", meaning an insignificant prisoner, a nobody, fair game to be pushed around.
You hear lots of wild stories in the stir, amusing stories, acted out by the teller, using different voices for the different characters, and ending with shrieks of laughter from him. There's lots of jobs cooked up too, DIY info exchanged. Sunny optimism, as you'd expect.
The top boys are those who've escaped.
One of the prison officers was a mean bugger with a bright red birthmark over one side of his face. I was told that soon as they got out some blokes stole his car and began mailing it back to him, bit by bit. First up he received a carburettor, then the steering wheel, then the spark plugs, and so on. I've always had the feeling this was true.
Old prisons like Pentridge were run on Naval discipline, a discipline that probably traces back to the Rum Corps. Prison officers didn't speak, they barked, even at each other.
"All counted and correct Mr Brown?"
"Yes Mr Green!"
"Thank you Mr Brown!"
We were actually marched to and from the cell blocks accompanied by Colonel Bogey type music; every morning before leaving the cells blankets had to be folded in a certain way at the head of the bunk and with the pillow on top, or you got into trouble. There were other things, and there was PT instruction out on the oval. This PT officer who once yelled "Dumkoph" at me was a jovial sort of bloke who lined us all up and said: "You may not like zese exercisings but vill see zee value of being fit next time you run from ze cops!"
And I'll tell you what, after a few weeks of plain Pentridge diet with strenuous exercise thrown in I was bouncing out of my bunk the moment that morning gong went.
It was true.
There, that's what I mean about stories.
It's a wonder our Annie O didn't think of doing that with her ex's car. I wish I'd have thought of it although I could mail him his empty port bottle, the one that's worth about $250.
RH, your daddy's life wasn't a total waste. He had you...
I've thought of that. But it was all a shock to him, poor chap.
He was a happy drunk, tremendous fun, and totally useless. The cross he carried all his life was doing good deeds for other drunks who didn't thank him enough.
How true.
Crap, a few galsses of wine and I'm anybody's - but sob, no one wants me... which is as well
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