Teen Drinking Is Never Ok

Unquestionably, decathlete Dan O’Brien has become a positive role model for youth in the Northwest, with his pursuit of an Olympic gold and his foundation for underprivileged youth in his hometown, Klamath Falls, Ore.

Many star athletes forget to give back to their communities.

O’Brien deserves commendation, too, for overcoming problems with alcohol that threatened his remarkable track career and for speaking out against the dangers of social drinking.

His message, however, needs fine-tuning.

Earlier this week, O’Brien told 500 Pullman High students, in effect, that it’s OK to drink and have fun, but “you can’t let it affect any other parts of your life. At all.” Also, he advised weekend partyers not to allow their drinking to seep “into the Mondays and the Wednesdays and the Thursdays and the over-the-hump days.”

Certainly, O’Brien’s advocacy for moderation puts him light-years ahead of coaches and athletes who hawk beer on television or are caught abusing alcohol and drugs. But he’s dealing with youngsters who legally aren’t old enough to drink.

How many kids, let alone mature adults, truly can control their drinking? Social drinking and alcoholism are behind our epidemics of broken homes, battered wives, bankruptcies and highway fatalities.

O’Brien should be telling kids not to drink. Period. Such a message coming from the handsome, charismatic star of the old “Doug and Dave” television commercials would play better with kids than former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No.”

Of course, high schoolers today do drink - possibly more than ever before. And O’Brien deserves credit for encouraging those with drinking problems to “ask for help … rather than wallowing in your own misery.” He tells them to muster the courage to talk with a coach, a counselor, a teacher, a parent or a friend.

O’Brien was one of the lucky ones.

By relying on himself and a circle of non-partying friends, he quit the partying that caused him to flounder as an underclassman at the University of Idaho.

Unfortunately, O’Brien’s mixed message tends to reinforce the denial problem that many teenage drinkers have. They fool themselves into thinking that they’re in control even when grades and sports performances indicate otherwise.

Now, they can point to O’Brien and say that if he could pull out of the booze cycle when he wanted to, they can, too. But often that’s a false hope. Alcoholism is a trap you can’t escape without help.

O’Brien must be careful what he says to impressionable students.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board