Can have fun without the cans.

IF YOU suspect your underage teenager is not drinking alcohol, you might be right. But many parents wonder if they are being naïve to think that their son or daughter is not downing cans of cider when they hang out with their friends.

Research conducted recently revealed that Irish teenagers aged 15-17 are the fifth highest drinkers out of 35 countries surveyed in Europe.

However, as sobering as the statistics on underage drinking are, it is important to remember that it doesn’t mean every teenager drinks. The many who don’t are fed up with the perception that they’re all at it, whenever they get the chance.

The fatalistic attitude of adults, which was highlighted by a recent HSE survey, does nothing to help youngsters who are not succumbing to peer pressure. While 92 per cent of adults believe underage drinking is a problem in Ireland, an astonishing 55 per cent of adults, including parents, think there is nothing they can do about it.

This feeling of helplessness is one that is challenged by adults and teenagers involved in No Name Club, a national voluntary youth organisation which provides a range of alcohol and drug-free entertainment and developmental activities for people aged 15-18.

It does not campaign against alcohol, but instead offers young people places to go and have fun together, without any pressure to drink.

THE MOST important thing that you can do as a parent is to support your teenager to delay drinking, stresses the current HSE campaign against underage drinking. If you do this, the risks of harmful drinking are much lower in later life.

There is nothing new about the No Name Club movement, but its phenomenal growth within the past six months is heartening at a time when the exploits of teenagers out of their minds on drink attract a lot more publicity than those who dance the night away without touching a drop.

The first No Name Club opened in Kilkenny in 1978 at a time when the pub culture was very pervasive in the city and county. When I started my first job on a local newspaper there in 1981, it boasted of having, as far as I remember, 76 pubs within the boundaries of what was a very small city, with a population of about 16,000.

It took three friends, a garda, a priest and a bank official to try to establish an alternative to this pub culture for teenagers. Each of the friends had his own view of the drink problem.

The garda encountered the effects of alcohol in his daily work; the priest was witness to how drink affected families in his parish; and the bank official, who was also a legendary county hurler, saw its damaging effect in sporting circles.

Between them, Fr Tom Murphy, Garda Eamonn Doyle and Eddie Keher came up with a formula for a new type of entertainment club which would involve adults and teenagers, where only non-alcoholic cocktails and soft drinks would be served.

Meanwhile, they struggled to call it something which did not sound as if it was anti-this or anti-that, until the references to the (no name) club in minutes of formative meetings finally stuck.

Word of that first club’s success slowly spread to other counties and a network of similar ventures began to form, built entirely on voluntary efforts.

But the provision of Government funding a year ago to set up a national office, fittingly located in Kilkenny, has brought the organisation to a new level.

Membership has grown by 50 per cent over the past six months and the number of clubs has doubled from 20 to 40, now involving an estimated 15,000 teenagers across the Republic, from Castleknock to Cobh and from Finglas to Donegal.

“There’s a good chance we will have another 10 clubs by September,” says its chief executive, Martin Ryan.

All clubs have an adult committee and a core membership of teenage hosts and hostesses who meet regularly and arrange events, ranging from discos and quizzes to band contests and sporting activities, for youngsters from Junior Cert to Leaving Cert years.

It not only provides a social outlet, but also training in leadership, organisational and communication skills, through local and national events.

“What the organisation is really about is working with that older teenager to build their self-esteem, giving them leadership skills and helping them make positive, informed choices,” says Ryan.

“The idea we are trying to get across to young people is that you don’t have to be peer pressured into taking alcohol before you’re 18.

“We would much prefer you to make that choice yourself and make an informed choice.”

TEENAGERS INVOLVED in No Name Club acknowledge the peer pressure to drink, particularly in the early teens, when all you want to do is make friends and fit in.

“Going into secondary school, everyone goes into their cliques,” explains Dale O’Sullivan from The Glen in Cork, who has just turned 18.

“Some people have to wear all black and loads of black eye-liner to fit in that group; others have to drink like mad, even to impress the fellas. So I think there is a really big pressure that way.”

But when you’re that bit older, you don’t see the pressure in the same way, she suggests. It is beneficial for the 15 year olds to “see us having a bit of a laugh and we’re not drinking”. Providing information about alcohol and drugs is also important.

“We have drugs awareness talks and they’re not like the ones you have in school,” says O’Sullivan, who is a member of St Joseph’s No Name Club in Mayfield, Cork.

“There were plastic cases with the drugs inside them and they were right in front of us, that was really extreme, but we were given so much information to make up our own minds on what to do in the future.”

O’Sullivan was chosen as hostess of the year at the No Name Club’s National Youth Awards in Castlebar last April, when Kevin Lyons from the Mountbellew, club in Co Galway, was voted host of the year.

The event must claim the title of “biggest sleepover of the year”, with more than 800 teenagers bedding down on the floor of the function room of the hotel after having a formal dinner and disco.

“They were all on a natural high,” points out Ryan. It reinforced No Name’s message that you don’t have to have alcohol or drugs to have fun.

LYONS IS FED up with the media creating the impression that all 15-18 year olds are drinking.

“Especially around Junior Cert results time,” he points out. “Last year it was over the news that these young people were going out and they were not able to stand up. Fair enough, some of them do act like that but the majority of them, like us, are good people. That is what the No Name Club is about, giving good press to young people.”

Lyons (18), who is sitting his Leaving Cert, is very conscious of the importance of older teenagers as role models for younger ones. “It is good to stand up for what you believe in and what you don’t believe in. Some people drink just to be cool with their friends.”

Now he has reached the legal age for drinking, he would sometimes have one or two drinks when he’s out but sees the benefits of having waited.

“I know how to drink in moderation and not go overboard. You are much more aware of the effects and much more responsible. I am able to have fun with drink – and without.”

Living with his parents and eight-year-old sister on a farm about 10 minutes outside Mountbellew, Lyons says getting involved with the No Name Club has made an “unbelievable” difference to his life.

“I really can’t imagine what it would be like without the No Name.” He hopes to remain involved as an adult leader.

“I would recommend it to all young people and I’d recommend parents to encourage their children . . . oh, that’s not really advisable,” he adds hastily.

“If my parents encouraged me, I’d probably go against them! Maybe just shove them in the right direction.”

Can have fun without the cans.

Comments