An editorial in today's online edition of the Billings Gazette caught my attention. A study released by the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research shows just how big the business of alcohol is in Montana. (A PDF of the study results is available by clicking this link.)
One of the highlights, in 2005, Montanans (and presumably those visiting the state too), consumed 33 million glasses of wine, 124.7 million shots of distilled spirits and 279.6 million 12-ounce cans of beer. That's 473.3 million single servings of alcohol in its various forms. Considering that the population of Montana is under one million people, that's an amazing amount of alcohol.
Now, according to US Census figures I found on Wikipedia, the population in 2006 was 997,670. So that means enough alcohol was consumed to provide an almost daily buzz for the entire population, even when you factor in tourists and other travelers.
One of the more disturbing statistics was the level of binge drinking among high school seniors. In Sheridan County, where I grew up, 51.2% of high school seniors in 2006 had experienced binge drinking in the 2 weeks before the survey. Binge drinking is defined as 5 or more drinks over the course of a couple hours. Now granted, the number of high school seniors in Sheridan County is low - I'm making an educated guess here that Plentywood had probably about 35 seniors, Westby maybe 5, Medicine Lake maybe 10 and that might have been the final year for Outlook so there was one more student there. But we're still talking about half of all the seniors at the county's high schools. There were only two counties which reported a higher percentage, Big Horn County, which has a fairly large population (Hardin & Lodge Grass would have been two of the high schools surveyed there) and Garfield County. The seniors at schools in Big Horn county reported 55.6% of them had binge drank while the Garfield County students (Jordan) reported 71.4% had. Jordan High School has a total enrollment of less than 70 for grades 9-12, so the senior class at the time was probably around 15 students.
Some of these students will be lucky enough to grow out of their binge drinking phase; others will struggle for years, in and out of rehab or jail; still others will not make it to their high school graduation.
What can be done? I think we need to start thinking of alcohol as a drug. It is, although it's one that is legal for consumption by adults. I'm not advocating prohibition. That doesn't work, as evidenced by our country's experiment in the early 20th century and with the Great War on Drugs currently underway. Instead, we need to determine what is lacking in the lives of our younger generation that they are trying to fill with alcohol.
The cry of "There's nothing to do in this hick town!" has been around for years. I remember saying it myself and while they won't admit it now, I'm sure some members of my dad's generation said it too. Of course we were wrong when we said it. There are things to do, they just don't always seem to be enough fun at the time.
The community has to get together to make sure we don't forget there are things to do that don't involve alcohol. A good start would be to organize fewer events that involve an open bar. Growing up, the message I got was "It wasn't truly a party" unless there was at least some alcohol available.
Go ahead and enjoy a glass of wine, a cold beer or your favorite cocktail tonight. But at least think about the message you're sending to the younger generation!
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