Question: I am 16 years of age and my parents will not allow me to drink a drop of alcohol, not even a beer!! What about our rights? I can quite understand that we, as citizens - young citizens - should have restricted rights. But we do have rights all the same, and I don’t intend to be seen and not heard. I’m quite able, thanks all the same, to curb my baser instincts and shoulder my responsibilities. What, pray tell, am I supposed to do to convince them that the drinking of alcohol is not really such a very big deal and that you’re a long time dead?

Vat.

Answer: In principle, the drinking of alcohol, be it beer, wine or spirits, is not recommended before 18 years of age, and this for one very plain and simple reason: alcohol damages the brain; the under-18 brain is not, yet, fully developed. Damage done to the brain before that critical age is irreversible and will have lifelong consequences. This is not to say that you may not drink the merest drop of beer ever after, simply that regular heavy drinking is not exactly the brightest idea in the world. Besides which there is always the danger that you might let yourself ‘go with the flow’, get caught in the undertow (well, after all, ‘you only live once’) and that you end up ‘binge drinking’. This is the curse of today’s young people: drinking until you are totally ‘bladdered’, blind-and-legless drunk, to the point where your brains are well and truly scrambled. I would suggest that you might try to persuade your parents that you can enjoy a glass or two in all safety now and then, but where’s the harm in showing them that you won’t exceed the limits?