A firefighter takes part in a drunk-driving crash simulation at Red Bank Regional High School, Little Silver. As prom and graduation season approaches, many area high schools hold programs that discourage underage drinking. When Ari Solomon’s parents received the call from police about their son’s drunk-driving accident and arrest, their shock was amplified, because they’d never even known him to drink alcohol.
“When I was 17, nobody I knew would tell you that in a year I would go to jail for drinking and driving and almost killing four people,” Solomon, now 27, said.
Having had a normal upbringing in Manalapan, Solomon did well in school, even graduating high school a year early and moving on to Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, where he earned a 3.8 GPA in his first semester. The future looked decidedly promising for the 18-year-old, but a lapse in judgment tore his rising star asunder.
Students at Red Bank Regional High School, Little Silver, watch a drunk-driving crash simulation, one of many programs designed to thwart underage drinking as prom and graduation season approaches. PHOTO COURTESY OF MARIANNE KLIGMAN For local advocates and community leaders, Solomon may be the textbook example of why greater awareness and more programs and laws are needed to stem the tide of underage drinking in central New Jersey.
Solomon had been drinking at a party. When leaving with a few others, his friends nominated him as the most sober one in the group, and he got behind the wheel.
“I lost control on a windy back road, and I hit a tree,” he said.
The accident ripped off one side of his car, and four of his friends suffered injuries.
Although Solomon’s blood-alcohol level was .07, which is under the legal limit, not being of legal drinking age made it a crime. He was arrested, and aside from a one-year loss of license, four years of probation and fines, Solomon also lost his freedom; he served 120 days in jail.
“I spent my 19th birthday in jail; I spent the Fourth of July in jail,” he said.
It was the first and last time Solomon got into trouble.
“When I got out and I was 19, I didn’t drink at all,” he said. “When I turned 21, I would drink occasionally, but even if I have one or two beers, I won’t get behind the wheel.”
And one good thing came of Solomon’s poor decision. He has made it his mission to speak to teens about the perils of underage drinking. The undertaking is an important one, considering that underage drinking is among the top four causes of serious injury or death in teens, according to Steve Liga, executive director of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) of Middlesex County.
“With all of the focus on heroin, which is certainly due, what we have done is taken the focus away from the issue of underage drinking,” he said.
In line with that trend, Liga has given parents a presentation entitled “At Least My Kids Are Only Drinking.” That sentiment couldn’t be more misguided, he said. Aside from the potential for fatality or injury that comes with underage drinking, date rape, unsafe sex, academic problems and other risks also loom large.
“The effect of alcohol on the brain of an adolescent, we now know is significant,” Liga said. “Now knowing as much as we do, it’s ridiculous that parents would allow their children to drink.”
And they are drinking. The results of the 2013 Pride Surveys for Middlesex County paint a sobering picture. More than 22 percent of the county’s high school students reported drinking in the past 30 days; one in four 10th-graders stated that they had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days; and 4 percent of sixth-graders reported the same. Nearly 42 percent of high school seniors said they drank in the past month, a number that is significantly higher than the national average, according to Liga.
Although these figures were much higher in the late 1970s and early ’80s, Liga said underage drinking remains a serious issue, especially because today’s young people tend to drink much more than their peers of old.
“I think it’s this culture of going to extremes,” he said, adding that evidence of the problem can be found in any emergency room on any weekend. “And parents really still don’t seem to get it.”
Surveys by NCADD consistently show that teen drinking is happening at home or at friends’ homes, often with parents’ blessing, he said.
“There’s a misconception that the parents can monitor what’s going on,” said Lori Todd, student assistance counselor at Red Bank Regional High School in Little Silver. “What we’re finding is, it’s not that they’re drinking over the course of the evening … the purpose is to get obliterated. And, so, to think that you’d be able to control that situation is completely nonsensical.”
Along with providing confidential counseling services and programming on underage drinking throughout the year — the school’s unique, youth-based services program “The SOURCE” has garnered statewide recognition — Red Bank Regional also works with parents on the issue, she said.
The same goes for North Brunswick, where the Municipal Alliance Committee works with the high school, not only reaching out to students but providing resources for parents, as well.
“We all know that with prom season upon us, there are going to be situations that … are not good,” said Lou Ann Benson, director of the North Brunswick Department of Parks, Recreation & Community Services and township liaison to the Municipal Alliance Committee.
With that in mind, the township brings together middle and high school students for a mentoring and leadership program that has them role-playing about various drinking situations, among other programs, she said.
Many high schools host a free Project Graduation event. At Metuchen High School, most of each year’s graduating students sign up, according to Brenda Redshaw, chairwoman of the 2014 Project Graduation Committee. “The graduates return to the high school at about 9 p.m. the night of their graduation, and then they are bused to the venue and ‘locked in,’ where they spend one last time together … enjoying unlimited food and activities,” she said.
The event, she added, “is completely effective in thwarting teen drinking that evening.”
While Liga praised such events for preventing alcohol consumption that night, he said they are not a long-term solution.
“The period of celebration has increased,” he said, adding that teens often attend such events and then head off to drinking parties over the weekend. “For long-term behavior, we need to do some more work.”
One solution that the NCADD supports is for towns to adopt ordinances that impose penalties for underage drinking on private property. Parents are already held liable by state statute, but a local ordinance adds penalties for the underage drinkers, who could face fines and the postponement of driving privileges. According to Liga, 17 of the 25 municipalities in Middlesex County have passed such laws.
Woodbridge recently adopted an ordinance to join their ranks.
“We had some situations with house parties, and we really had no way to address it,” Police Director Robert Hubner said. “With graduation and the summer coming, we just thought that it would be a good time to do this and put another resource in our tool bag.”
While the local laws are a step in the right direction, Liga said enforcement is another issue. In East Brunswick, enforcement on private property was met with pushback from residents, he added.
According to Todd, many parents see teen drinking as a rite of passage, citing their own youthful imbibing. But again, the behavior is much more extreme now, she said.
“What they’re not understanding is … there is no casual drinking,” she said. “That’s not what these parties are about.”
Solomon pointed out that parents’ assumption that house parties are safe is a misconception.
“People get raped in homes after drinking … or someone sneaks out the back door and drives. Or someone takes shot after shot and asphyxiates on their own vomit,” he said.
And kids who are permitted to drink at home drink more outside the home, Liga said.
“It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, we’ll just take the [car] keys,’” he said of parents who allow underage drinking in the home, pointing to host liability whether parents are home or not.
Metuchen police Sgt. Dave Liantonio agreed.
“People don’t realize their liability in these situations,” he said. “The majority of the [underage drinking parties] I’ve seen, the parents aren’t even home.”
Such parties often happen when parents are on vacation, and Liantonio said the solution is to not leave teens home alone.
Liga also said the solution lies in parents’ hands.
“When we ask kids who don’t drink why they don’t drink, they say it’s because they don’t want to disappoint their parents,” he said.
Solomon learned his lesson the hard way, but spreads his message so that others can avoid such a fate.
“A lot of parents say, ‘Not me … never my kid,’” he said. “It just takes one second, one quick decision.”