While many teens drink alcohol, underage alcohol use is not inevitable. Families are not helpless to prevent it.

Focus your efforts on the factors that protect teens from alcohol use. At the same time, you can work to reduce the factors that increase the chance that they will drink.

Support your teens and give them space to grow. Be involved in your teens’ lives.

Be loving and caring. Encourage your teens’ growing independence, but set appropriate limits.

Make it easy for your teens to share information about their lives. Know where your teens are, what they’re doing, who they’re with, and who their friends are.

Find ways for your teens to be involved in family life, such as doing chores or caring for a younger brother or sister.

Set clear rules, including rules about alcohol use. Enforce the rules you set.

Talk with your teens about alcohol use. When you talk with your teens about drinking, listen to them and respect what they say.

Make clear your expectation that your teens will not drink. Teach your children about the dangers of underage drinking. Discuss laws about underage drinking, including the age 21 law.

Help your teens make good decisions about alcohol. Help your teens know how to resist alcohol. Help them find ways to have fun without alcohol.

Do not give alcohol to your teens. Tell them that any alcohol in your home is off limits to them and to their friends. Don’t let your teens attend parties where alcohol is served.

Make sure alcohol isn’t available at teen parties in your own home. Set clear rules about not drinking and enforce them consistently.

Help your teens avoid dangerous situations such as riding in a car driven by someone who has been drinking. Help your teens get professional help if you’re worried about their involvement with alcohol.

Be aware of factors that may increase the risk of teen alcohol use.

*Significant social transitions such as graduating to middle or high school, or getting a driver’s license

* A history of conduct problems

* Depression and other serious emotional problems

* A family history of alcoholism

* Contact with peers involved in deviant activities

Be a positive adult role model. If you drink yourself, drink responsibly. That means not drinking too much or too often.

Stay away from alcohol in high-risk situations.

For example, don’t drive or go boating when you’ve been drinking. Get help if you think you have an alcohol-related problem. Work with others.

No matter how close you and your teens are, it may not be enough to prevent them from drinking. It’s hard for families to do this alone. It’s important to reach out to schools, communities, and government.

You can help protect teens from underage alcohol use by working to see to it that— Schools and the community support and reward young people’s decisions not to drink.

Rules about underage drinking are in place at home, at school, and in your community.

Penalties for breaking the rules are well known. Rules are enforced the same way for everyone. All laws about underage alcohol use are well known and enforced.

Parties and social events at home and elsewhere don’t permit underage drinking.

The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking was written to improve public knowledge about underage drinking.

It encourages action by people and groups nationwide. Each person in America has a role to play to help prevent and reduce underage alcohol use.

This Call to Action helps adults across the country rethink underage drinking as we know it today. It provides the tools to get the word out in discussions around the dinner table, in school or campus-based programs, and in communities.

It can also inform local, Tribal, State, and national programs and policies. By learning more about how underage drinking affects a teen’s growing body and brain, family and other adults in the community can better help protect youth from the dangers of underage drinking.

Family and caring adults in the community can help teens choose not to drink.

Finally, communities can help create a safer environment for young people by working together with parents and with schools, health care professionals, local organizations, and policymakers to prevent and reduce underage drinking.

This Call To Action is exactly that. It calls on every adult in the country to join with the Surgeon General in a national effort to address underage drinking early and often.

Underage alcohol use is everyone’s problem—and its solutions are everyone’s responsibility.

References for “A Guide to Action for Families”

The data, facts, and suggestions presented here come primarily from the Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking, cited on the inside front cover.

Other sources of some data presented in this document include: Grant BF, Dawson DA, Stinson FS, Chou SP, Dufour MC, Pickering RP. The 12-month prevalence and trends in DSM-IV alcohol abuse and dependence: United States, 1991-1992 and 2001-2002.

Drug and Alcohol Dependence 74:223-234, 2004. Johnston LD, O’Malley PM, Bachman JG, Schulenberg JE. (December 21, 2006).

Teen drug use continues down in 2006, particularly among older teens; but use of prescription-type drugs remains high.

University of Michigan News and Information Services: Ann Arbor, MI. [On-line]. Available: www.monitoringthefuture.org; accessed 01/03/07.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Results from the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings. Rockville (MD): U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; 2006. Available: www.oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh.htm; accessed 01/03/07.

This article is an excerpt from the Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking document: A Guide to Action for Families (PDF)

See related guides at www.stopalcoholabuse.gov