By Mike Lurie
CBS SportsLine Staff Writer
July 24, 1998

It's obtainable. It's everywhere. It's glorified in advertisements. It's part of the scene.

Alcohol

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remains a primary source of recreation for high school and college students. And among athletes, it has a popularity that leads some educators and coaches to rank it above steroids or recreational drugs on their list of concerns.

ALCOHOL ALSO HAS BEEN identified by a well-known anti-dependency education group, Freedom from Chemical Dependency (FCD), as the most troubling of the controlled substances used by young people in general.

"Absolutely, alcohol is the No. 1 abused drug," said Dr. Alex Packer, the president of FCD. "While a lot of the drama focuses on other drugs such as cocaine and steroid use and heroin as well, in terms of actual numbers the people it affects is rather small. But those drugs get most of the press."

FCD has a staff of 25 teachers, most of them recovering addicts themselves, and is considered the leading non-profit provider of on-site drug and alcohol prevention education in the United States and abroad. Packer and his staff regularly visit schools around the world to warn about the dangers of chemical dependency.

"I think athletes play a unique role in any school," Packer said. "They are very visible and respected people. We find, when we go to schools, that a lot of the drug use in that community is modeled by the athletes. So we try to meet with athletes and coaches. We see a preponderance of anecdotal evidence at shows coaches look the other way (when their players abuse alcohol).

"Our teachers have off-the-record conversations with people in the schools. And none of this drinking is unusual. Coaches are under pressure to win. This may be more prevalent at the college level... but what do you do when you're getting pressure from your boss, from the president, from the trustees, the director of athletics, when you discover some of your athletes are in violation of the rules on substance use?"

At one private school in Oakland, Calif., the school showed it would enforce its zero-tolerance policy. When athletes from the school's soccer, volleyball and cross-country teams were discovered off campus drinking alcohol, the Head-Royce School kicked them off their teams.

IT WAS A MOVE THAT DREW sharp criticism from some parents, who pay to send their children to this small, exclusive school, a member of the Bay Counties League of the North Coast Section of the California Interscholastic Federation.

"We have a revised and strengthened policy that athletes should be held to a higher standard -- namely, that athletes who drink off-campus can be removed from the team," said Dr. Paul Chapman, headmaster at Head-Royce. "I think the whole society holds athletes to a higher standard, and I also understand there is a direct connection between having a zero-tolerance policy and the fact they are performing an athletic activity that requires peak condition."

Too severe? That is a subject for debate. But it does seem clear that by the time athletes are reaching college, alcohol use is widespread enough to contribute to an alarming degree of violence inside campus dormitories, said Loyola (Md.) College athletic director Joe Boylan.

In a study of 42,000 adolescents by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, it was found that students who start drinking by age 15 are four times more likely to develop drinking problems as an adult than those who begin use at 21.

Packer, whose latest book is entitled Parenting, One Day at a Time, said that "we find the age of first use is getting earlier and earlier."

"Why is this happening?" Chapman said. "Lots of reasons. I think alcohol consumption has been glorified in the media. Young people are bombarded by messages that it's cool to drink. The distribution system is fallible -- I don't think it's hard for young people to figure out a way to buy alcohol. There are very confused messages, too, that adults give to young people ... I believe, based on the articles I've read, that people are drinking earlier and earlier and they're drinking more and more, and there is a greater propensity to binge-drink."

ALARMS MIGHT NOT BE sounding because the trends haven't changed for decades. Chapman said he noticed, during his high school days in the 1960s, that heavy weekend drinking began among 10th-graders. That remains a shared recollection of students who finished high school in the 1980s.

Chapman saw first-hand the carryover when a close friend died while driving drunk on the parkway near the basketball field house at Yale when they were seniors in 1970.

"Pete is someone I've never forgotten. It doesn't take but one (death), and then you've realized what you've lost," Chapman said. "I don't think our nation has come up with a very good way to help young people take on this adult responsibility. It's ironic, or odd, at best, that students are able to drive at 16 but aren't allowed to drink until 21. Yet the world well knows a large number of people drink well before 21 -- breaking the law."

Little currently stands to change that trend in an era where the successful athlete and celebratory drink go hand-in-hand.

Mike Lurie is a CBS SportsLine staff writer.